eform has remained. Indeed, the present unquiet
attitude of expectation in Islam has been its indirect result. Just as
the Lutheran reformation in Europe, though it failed to convert the
Christian Church, caused its real reform, so Wahhabism has produced a
real desire for reform if not yet reform itself in Mussulmans. Islam is
no longer asleep, and were another and a wiser Abd el Wahhab to appear,
not as a heretic, but in the body of the Orthodox sect, he might play
the part of Loyola or Borromeo with success.

The present condition of the Wahhabites as a sect is one of decline. In
India, and I believe in other parts of Southern Asia, their missionaries
still make converts and their preachers are held in high esteem. But at
home in Arabia their zeal has waxed cold, giving place to liberal ideas
which in truth are far more congenial to the Arabian mind. The Ibn Saoud
dynasty no longer holds the first position in Nejd, and Ibn Rashid who
has taken their place, though nominally a Wahhabite, has little of the
Wahhabite fanaticism. He is in fact a popular and national rather than a
religious leader, and though still designated at Constantinople as a
pestilent heretic, is counted as their ally by the more liberal Sunites.
It is probable that he would not withhold his allegiance from a Caliph
of the legitimate house of Koreysh. But this, too, is beyond the subject
of the present chapter.

With the Wahhabites, then, our census of Islam closes. It has given us,
as I hope, a fairly accurate view of the forces which make up the
Mohammedan world, and though the enumeration of these cannot but be dull
work, I do not think it will have been work done in vain. Without it
indeed it would be almost impossible to make clear the problem presented
to us by modern Islam or guess its solution. More interesting matter,
however, lies before us, and in my next chapter I propose to introduce
my reader to that burning question of the day in Asia, the Caliphate,
and explain the position of the House of Othman towards the Mohammedan
world.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The following is a formula of the faith:--

1. That thou believest in God, the one God and none other with Him, and
that thou believest that Mohammed is His servant and His Apostle.

2. That thou believest in the Holy Angels and the Holy Books, the
Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospels and the Koran.

3. That thou believest in the Last Day, and in the Providence of God
both for good and for