nuance of the worst elements of Jahiliyyah (Arabian
paganism), side by side with those of Islam. A secular nobility is formed
by groups of people, who grudge each other their very lives and fight each
other according to the rules of retaliation unmitigated by any more humane
feelings. The religious nobility is represented by descendants of the
Prophet, arduous patrons of a most narrow-minded orthodoxy and of most
bigoted fanaticism. In a well-ordered society, making the most of all the
means offered by modern technical science, the dry barren soil might be
made to yield sufficient harvests to satisfy the wants of its members; but
among these inhabitants, paralysed by anarchy, chronic famine prevails.
Foreigners wisely avoid this miserable country, and if they did visit
it, would not be hospitably received. Hunger forces many Hadramites to
emigrate; throughout the centuries we find them in all the countries of
Islam, in the sacred cities of Western-Arabia, in Syria, Egypt, India,
Indonesia, where they often occupy important positions.

In the Dutch Indies, for instance, they live in the most important
commercial towns, and though the Government has never favoured them, and
though they have had to compete with Chinese and with Europeans, they have
succeeded in making their position sufficiently strong. Before European
influence prevailed, they even founded states in some of the larger islands
or they obtained political influence in existing native states. Under a
strong European government they are among the quietest, most industrious
subjects, all earning their own living and saving something for their poor
relations at home. They come penniless, and without any of that theoretical
knowledge or practical skill which we are apt to consider as indispensable
for a man who wishes to try his fortune in a complicated modern colonial
world. Yet I have known some who in twenty years' time have become
commercial potentates, and even millionaires.

The strange spectacle of these latent talents and of the suppressed energy
of the people of Hadramaut that seem to be waiting only for transplantation
into a more favourable soil to develop with amazing rapidity, helps us
to understand the enormous consequences of the Arabian migration in the
seventh century.

The spiritual goods, with which Islam set out into the world, were far from
imposing. It preached a most simple monotheism: Allah, the Almighty Creator
and Ruler of heaven and ea