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Sheikh Saba, who had married Sheikh Khallet's sister, was a great contrast to our host; he had been in Bombay and had imbibed in his travels a degree of worldliness which ill became a Wahabi.
The first time the island came in contact with modern ideas and modern civilisation was when the Portuguese occupied it in 1538, and this was, as we have seen, ephemeral. Then the island fell under the rod of Wahabi persecution at the beginning of this century, as did nearly the whole of Arabia in those days.
Foiled in this grandiose design, Wahabism, nevertheless, soon produced profound political disturbances in distant regions like northern India and Afghanistan, as I have already narrated. They were, however, all integral parts of the Wahabi phase, being essentially protests against the political decadence of Moslem states and the moral decadence of Moslem rulers.
The Wahabi would wage, if they dared, perpetual war not only against the infidel, but against such perverted individuals as those who go to worship at Mecca and other sacred shrines.
Next day we heard that his majesty was coming in person with his tents to encamp in our vicinity, and I fancy we were in more danger from those men than we realised at the moment, fanned as they are into hatred of the infidel by the fanatical Wahabi; thirty years ago, I was told, no infidel could have ventured into the centre of Bahrein with safety.
The Wahabi state founded by Abd-el-Wahab in the Nejd was modelled on the theocratic democracy of the Meccan caliphs, and when Abd-el-Wahab's princely disciple, Saud, loosed his fanatic hosts upon the holy cities, he dreamed that this was but the first step in a puritan conquest and consolidation of the whole Moslem world.
The Wahabis were thus, despite their moral earnestness, excessively narrow-minded, and it was very fortunate for Islam that they soon lost their political power and were compelled thenceforth to confine their efforts to moral teaching. Many critics of Islam point to the Wahabi movement as a proof that Islam is essentially retrograde and innately incapable of evolutionary development.
The mosques have neither domes nor minarets a sign of the rigid Wahabi influence which swept over Arabia. This sect refuse to have any feature about their buildings, or ritual which was not actually enjoined by Mohammed in his Koran. There are a few carved lintels and doorways, and the bazaars are quaintly pretty, but beyond this the only architectural features are Portuguese.
Government, though stern, was able and just. The Wahabi judges were competent and honest. Robbery, became almost unknown, so well was the public peace maintained. Education was sedulously fostered. Every oasis had its school, while teachers were sent to the Bedouin tribes. Having consolidated the Nejd, Saud was now ready to undertake the greater task of subduing and purifying the Moslem world.
Coffee-shops take the place of spirit and wine shops, which in the strict Wahabi country would not be, for a moment, tolerated. In private houses it is thought well to have four or five coffee-pots standing round the fire, to give an appearance of riches. Besides the coffee-pots, other objects of El Hasa workmanship may be seen in Bahrein.
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