cribed
to the new doctrines. Two things, however, marred the plan of general
reform and prevented its full accomplishment.

In the first place the reform was too completely reactive. It took no
account whatever of the progress of modern thought, and directly it
attempted to leave Arabia it found itself face to face with difficulties
which only political as well as religious success could overcome. It was
impossible, except by force of arms, to Arabianise the world again, and
nothing less than this was in contemplation. Its second mistake, and
that was one that a little of the Prophet's prudence which always went
hand in hand with his zeal might have avoided, was a too rigid
insistance upon trifles. Abd el Wahhab condemned minarets and tombstones
because neither were in use during the first years of Islam. The
minarets therefore were everywhere thrown down, and when the holy places
of Hejaz fell into the hands of his followers the tombs of saints which
had for centuries been revered as objects of pilgrimage were levelled to
the ground. Even the Prophet's tomb at Medina was laid waste and the
treasures it contained distributed among the soldiers of Ibn Saoud. This
roused the indignation of all Islam, and turned the tide of the
Wahhabite fortunes. Respectable feeling which had hitherto been on their
side now declared itself against them, and they never after regained
their position as moral and social reformers.

Politically, too, it was the cause of their ruin. The outside Mussulman
world, looking upon them as sacrilegious barbarians, was afraid to visit
Mecca, and the pilgrimage declined so rapidly that the Hejazi became
alarmed. The source of their revenue they found cut off, and it seemed
on the point of ceasing altogether. Then they appealed to
Constantinople, urging the Sultan to vindicate his claim to be protector
of the holy places. What followed is well known. After the peace of
Paris Sultan Mahmud commissioned Mehemet Ali to deliver Mecca and Medina
from the Wahhabite heretics, and this he in time effected. The war was
carried into Nejd; Deriyeh, their capital, was sacked, and Ibn Saoud
himself taken prisoner and decapitated in front of St. Sophia's at
Constantinople. The movement of reform in Islam was thus put back for,
perhaps, another hundred years.

Still the seed cast by Abd el Wahhab has not been entirely without
fruit. Wahhabism, as a political regeneration of the world, has failed,
but the spirit of r