One thing is certain: the reforming spirit, in its various manifestations, has already produced profound changes throughout Islam. The Moslem world of to-day is vastly different from the Moslem world of a century ago. The Wahabi leaven has destroyed abuses and has rekindled a purer religious faith. Even its fanatical zeal has not been without moral compensations. The spread of liberal principles and Western progress goes on apace. If there is much to fear for the future, there is also much to hope.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] On the Wahabi movement, see A. Le Chatelier, L'Islam au dix-neuvième Siècle (Paris, 1888); W. G. Palgrave, Essays on Eastern Questions (London, 1872); D. B. Macdonald, Muslim Theology (London, 1903); J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys (2 vols., London, 1831); A. Chodzko, "Le Déisme des Wahhabis," Journal Asiatique, IV., Vol. II., pp. 168 et seq.
[6] Not to be confused with Sir Syed Ahmed of Aligarh, the Indian Moslem liberal of the mid-nineteenth century.
[7] For English alarm at the latent fanaticism of the North Indian Moslems, down through the middle of the nineteenth century, see Sir W. W. Hunter, The Indian Musalmans (London, 1872).
[8] For the Babbist movement, see Clément Huart, La Réligion de Bab (Paris, 1889); Comte Arthur de Gobineau, Trois Ans en Perse (Paris, 1867). A good summary of all these early movements of the Mohammedan revival is found in Le Chatelier, op. cit.
[9] Mishkat-el-Masabih, I., 46, 51.
[10] The best recent examples of this polemical literature are the writings of the Rev. S. M. Zwemer, the well known missionary to the Arabs; especially his Arabia, the Cradle of Islam (Edinburgh, 1900), and The Reproach of Islam (London, 1915). Also see volume entitled The Mohammedan World of To-day, being a collection of the papers read at the Protestant Missionary Conference held at Cairo, Egypt, in 1906.
[11] Cromer, Modern Egypt, Vol. II., p. 229 (London, 1908). For Renan's attitude, see his L'Islamisme et la Science (Paris, 1883).
[12] In the year 1633.