would secure him from a first personal attack on
the ground of seeming impiety. He must secondly be an Arab, gifted with
the pure language of the Koran, for the Arabian Ulema would not listen
to a barbarian; and he must possess commanding eloquence. A reformer
must before all else be a preacher. Thirdly, he must be profoundly
learned, that is to say, versed in all the subtleties of the law and in
all that has been written in commentary on the Koran; and he must have a
ready wit, so that in argument he may be able constantly to oppose
authority with authority, quotation with quotation. Granted these three
qualifications and courage and God's blessing, he may lead us where he
will."

The chief obstacles, however, to a reformation of this sort would not be
in the beginning, nor would they be wholly moral ones. The full
programme of the Mohdy needs that he should conquer Mecca; and the land
road thither of an African reformer lies blocked by Egypt and the Suez
Canal. So that, unless he should succeed in crossing the Red Sea through
Abyssinia (an invasion which, by the way, would fulfil another ancient
prophecy, which states that the "Companions of the Elephant," the
Abyssinians, shall one day conquer Hejaz), he could not carry out his
mission. Nor, except as an ally against the Turk, would a fanatical
reformer now find much sympathy in Arabia proper. The Peninsular Arabs
have had their Puritan reformation already, and a strong reaction has
set in amongst them in favour of liberal thought. They are in favour
still of reform, but it is of another kind from that preached by Abd el
Wahhab; and it is doubtful whether a new militant Islam would find many
adherents amongst them.

The only strong advocate of such views at the present day among true
Arabs in Arabia is the aged Sherif, Abd el Mutalleb, the Sultan's
nominee, who indeed has spared no pains, since he was installed at
Mecca, to fan the zeal of the North Africans. A Wahhabi in his youth, he
is still a fierce Puritan; and it is possible that, should he live long
enough (he is said to be ninety years old), he may be able to produce a
corresponding zeal in Arabia. But at present the mass of the Arabs in
Hejaz, no less than in Nejd and Yemen, are occupied with more humane
ideas. Abd el Mutalleb's chief supporters in Mecca are not his own
countrymen, but the Indian colony, descendants many of them of the Sepoy
refugees who fled thither in 1857, and who have the reputation of