322 REV. S. M. ZWEMER, F.R.G.S.. ON THE WAHABIS: 
to eliminate all idea of warfare or killing from this. word,* 
but the Wahabis knew Arabic better and understood the 
spirit of their prophet and his book perfectly. 
We have already seen in our sketch of the Saood dynasty 
how vigorously they used the sword in Arabia to found their 
new state. Once firmly established, the Wahabi rule was 
after all an improvement on the lawless state of nomad 
Arabia previous to this. Palgrave never writes in a friendly 
way concerning these Arabian Puritans, but even his remarks 
sum up the fact “that the Wahabi empire is a compact and 
well-organized government where centralization is fully 
understood and effectually carried out,” although “the main- 
springs and connecting links are force and fanaticism.” And 
he who has read the pages cf Burckhardt will hardly agree 
that Palgrave is just in saying that “the order and calm which 
the Wahabis sometimes spread over the lands of their conquest 
are described in the oft-cited Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem 
appellant of the Roman annalist.” Saood, the founder of the 
Wahabi state, was a great man. Though at the head of a 
powerful military government, he appears never (outside the 
laws of religion) to have encroached upon the legitimate 
freedom of his subjects. The great principle of separating 
the judicial from the executive branch of government he 
understood not only, but faithfully carried out. The Wahabi 
judges were noteworthy for their impartiality ; they were so 
well paid from the public treasury that they did not need 
bribes for bread. Robbery and theft were everywhere sup- 
pressed, and vengeance was swift on every transgressor. 
“The people lay down to sleep at night with no fear that 
their cattle would be stolen in the morning; and a single 
merchant with his camel load of merchandise could travel in 
safety from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea” (Clark’s The 
Arabs and the Turks, p. 294). To-day even a well armed 
caravan dares to travel only by daylight through Turkish 
* T. W. Arnold, in his Preaching of slam, is the latest to attempt this 
impossibility. Following the lead of Manlavi Cheragh Ali (Calcutta, 
1885), he tries to show that all the wars of Mohammed were defensive, 
and that aggressive war or compulsory conversion is not allowed in the 
Ixoran. He gives all the passages in which the word jihad occurs and 
carefully omits the passages where satala (to kill) is used to enjoin the 
same duty. It is a sorry attempt to prove that which is contradicted not 
only by all Arabic lexicographers, but by the history of Islam from the 
days of Bedr to the late Armenian massacres. Not to speak of the 
interpretation given of jihad by Abd ul Wahab and his fiery warriors, 
who professed primitive Islam. 
