THEIR ORIGIN, HISTORY, TENETS, AND INFLUENCE. 325 
Thabi and Rus el Kheyma. Also in ’Ajman and the Wady 
Dowasir district. In the latter place, according to Doughty, 
they still preserve all their old-time beliefs and fanaticism, 
so as to be a proverb among the Arabs. In the rest of 
Arabia their numbers have greatly diminished, their zeal has 
waxed cold, and many of the precepts of their leader are 
disregarded. | Western life (through trade and_ passing 
caravans of pilgrims) has reached even here with its urbane 
influence. Many of the Wahabis have again begun to 
smoke “the shameful” and wear silk head-dress; for 
Epicureanism was ever more congenial to the Arab mind 
than Puritanism. ‘lhe Nejd, which was once a stronghold of 
Wahabi doctrine, now harbours even Shiahs, and the 
government is, in a Moslem sense, liberal. Hassa and 
Bahrein once had hundreds of Wahabi mosques, but most 
of them have passed into the hands of other sects for want 
of worshippers. 
Most remarkable is the story of Wahabi missionary zeal 
in the Sudan under Sheikh Othman Donfodio, as told by 
Arnold. Making a pilgrimage to Mecca at the time of the 
Wahabi occupation, this man was converted to their views 
and returned to the Sudan to inaugurate reform. He 
united the scattered clans of the Fulahs into one Moslem 
army and marched against the heathen tribes of Hausa. 
He also sent letters (4 Ja Mohammed) to the kings of 
T'imbuctu and Bornu commanding them to reform their 
lives or receive the punishment of Allah at his hands. 
The army enforced his demands, and Sokoto became the 
capital of a Moslem state. In 1837 Adaman was founded 
on the ruins of several pagan settlements. To-day the 
most zealous propagandists of Islam are the Fulah 
missionaries.” 
In Egypt and Turkey the number of Wahabis is not large. 
In Persia, as far as I can learn, there is only one place where 
they are found—a small colony of Arabs from Nejd live 
north of Lingah, onthe Persian Gulf. Central Asia (with the 
exception of parts of Afghanistan) and China were never 
much influenced by the Wahabi reform. 
As an indirect result of the Wahabi movement we may 
count many of the Moslem brotherhoods, or the so-called 
religious orders of Isiam. The Sanusiyah Dervishes 
especially seem to have borrowed many of their distinctive 
* See also S. W. Koelle’s Polyglotta Africana, p. 18. (London, 1854.) 
