"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٠‎٥‎٢] (١٧٨٢/١٢٠٧)

1052
which obliged him to transfer the scene of his activities to the neighbour
ing town of Dara'ijah ; but all authorities concur in stating that his
later and more influential years were passed at Dara'ijah. He is said to
have been married twenty times and to have had eighteen children. The
14th of June 17^7 is mentioned as the day of his death.
Wahhabism Wahhabism was at first a purely religious movement; afterwards^
ouso/origi- through force of circumstances, it acquired a s«cular and political
nal aspect. character. In the beginning it was a reformation of Muhammadan
doctrine and practice, inspired by the ideal of a return to the pristine purity
of Islam, and took the form chiefly of a protest against superstition and
luxury in the Muhammadan world. That the Wahhabi belief, if tried
by the standard of the Quran and the best accreditee traditions of Islam,
will be found strictly orthodox seems to be generally admitted; and the
difference between the true Wahhabi and the ordinary Muhammadan
appears to be due to the declension of the litter from the spirit
of his own religion rather than to any eccentrbity on the part of the
former. .
SpoUticnJ The adliesion of llumbers of converts to the reformed faith in Central
or secondary A labia, together with the failure of that laith to find acceptance elsewhere,
aspect, goon invested the movement in Najd with a political, a national, and even
a military importance. Community of belief first paved the way for sub
mission to a common administrative authority; by this authority indivi
duals were compelled to obey the law and warring townships and districts
were welded together into a solid and well-ordered principality ; and, once
internal unity had been established, a militant enthusiasm for the propaga
tion of their religious principles abroad, not unmingled perhaps with a
patriotic desire to cast off the hegemony of the Red Sea districts of Hijaz
and Yaman, awoke in the hearts of the people. For the sharp conflicts
between the Wahhabis and their neighbours which soon began, and
which continued so long as the Wahhabis retained their religious fervour,
neither party can be held solely responsible. The Wahhabis on their
part displayed great intolerance, especially towards the Turks, whose
morals they regarded as lax and non-Muhammadan ; while their opponents,
conscious of the logical soundness of Wahhabi doctrine and exasperated
by the phansaism of Wahhabi virtue, had recourse to calumnies and
misrepresentations. The result was that each side virtually placed the
other outside the pale of Islam, and that the Wahhabis, who were the
more warlike, declared the lives and property of their antagonists to have
been forfeited by religious infidelity and applied themselves to execute the
sen ence. On the one hand it must be admitted that the opposition to