290 HISTORY OF THE WAHABEES. 



him the title of lord in their prayers, or revere him 

 in a manner which approaches adoration. 



In morals they were pure and rigid ; they repro- 

 bated the use of spirituous liquors and other exhi- 

 larating substitutes ; they condemned all sensual 

 indulgences, the neglect of justice and almsgiving, 

 the common practice of fraud and treachery, usury, 

 games of chance, and the other vices with which 

 even the sacred cities were polluted. In the true 

 spirit of fanaticism, they were as zealous about the 

 inferior as the weightier matters of the law. Next 

 to the war which they declared against saints and 

 sepulchres, their indignation was principally turned 

 against dress and luxury: they strictly forbade the 

 wearing of silk and the smoking of tobacco; and 

 cut from their heads the only tuft of hair which 

 their early Moslem discipline had left them. Among 

 other unwarrantable acts which they abolished, was 

 that of praying over the rosary, and lamenting the 

 dead, thinking it impious to mourn for the soul of 

 a brother in heaven. They did not, however, so 

 far strip themselves of all superstition as to abolish 

 the ceremonies of ablution and the Meccan pil- 

 grimage, or even those of kissing the black stone 

 and throwing pebbles at the devil. 



The doctrines of Abdel Wahab, it will be seen, 

 were not those of a new religion ; though they were 

 so represented by his enemies, and have been de- 

 scribed as such by several European travellers.* His 



* The tenets of the Wahabees were erroneously stated by Rous- 

 seau (1808) in his " Description of the Pashalic of Bagdad ;" and 

 in a Memoir of this Sect in the " Mines de 1'Orient" What is said 

 of them in Niebuhr and Valentia is not very correct. The best 

 and fullest account of them is given by Burckhardt, Mons. Corancez, 

 and Mengin (Append, tome n). 



