THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 



67 



repeatedly shaken Islam, whereas some have been free 

 from it ; the world has seen what they can effect when 

 successful, and what becomes of them when they fail. In 

 regarding their founders as re-incarnations of Mohammed 

 these sectarians have a plausible case ; for in the greater 

 number of cases these or^L^anizers appear to follow the lines« 

 laid down by Mohammed with little variation. Instinctively 

 or by study they have mastered that principle of Oriental 

 statescraft in virtue of which men will not readily follow a 

 leader who invites them to pillage and massacre directly, but 

 will readily follow if they are invited to these acts indirectly,, 

 as acts whereby a religious doctrine can be furthered, or 

 the true nature of the deity be generally made known. 

 AVahhabisni and Mahdism had a great run of success, and the 

 consequences to Arabia and Africa are well known. The 

 restoration of pure monotheism which was the watchword 

 of Wahhabism turned Arabia into a more howling wilderness 

 than it had been before. From the brilliant narrative of 

 Palgrave aud the earnest pages of Doughty we learn enough 

 about the character of its leaders and its results to know 

 that it was merely a revival of savagery, containing no 

 element of permanence, and in every way inferior to the 

 Islam of established states. A whole series of authorized 

 works paint Mahdism in its true colours ; no greater service 

 was ever done to the cause of civilization than when Lord 

 Kitchener proved that the machine gun was more than a 

 match for an Eastern prophet. The life of the founder of 

 Mahdism in the Sudan, as told by Wingate, gives the stand- 

 point whence the whole series of prophets from Mohannned 

 onwards can be best appreciated ; the prophet commences a& 

 a saint ; after a little success the mask is thrown off, and the 

 career which the prophet's ambition had anticipated in fancy 

 begins to be realized. So soon as the plunder that is within 

 reach has been exhausted, the leaders become divided, and 

 nothing but misery ensues. 



Greater value has been assigned to the Babi movement in 

 Persia, round which, owing to the violent measures by which 

 the Persian government endeavoured to stamp it out, a halo 

 of romance has arisen. Of the Bab and his followers many 

 accounts have appeared in English, those by Dr. Sell in his 

 Essays on Islam, and by Dr. Adams in his Persia hy a Persian, 

 being the latest. From these and other accounts it appears 

 that Babisni was no more than any other religious movement 

 in the East dissociated from political ambitions ; and the 



