News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 8, 1868

News and Miscellany.

Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi, 3.

Commotion among the Mohammedans.

THE Mohammedan world has for a long time been in a condition of decay. The great empires which for centuries were a terror to all Christian countries have all disappeared. Many millions of Mohammedans have become subjects of Christian rulers, and of the few Mohammedan States that are left, there is none that can claim a rank among the great powers of the world. On the contrary, all of them live upon the mercy of their more powerful Christian neighbors. Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Morocco,—all appear as weak and helpless in their intercourse with the great nations of the Christian world. The Mohammedans themselves begin to feel this, and while, on the whole, the number of Mohammedan converts to Christianity is small, there are prominent men in all the Mohammedan countries who aim at a political and social regeneration of their people by introducing among them the ideas of Christian civilization.

Such being in general the condition of the Mohammedan world, it is an interesting fact to observe one notable exception. There is one branch of Mohammedans which, since the beginning of the present century, has made progress, and shows itself pervaded by a real vitality. The progress, it is true, has thus far been made, not at the expense of any Christian State, but at that of decayed and lethargic parts of Mohammedanism. But still there is progress, and a vigor which promises further advance, and which makes it probable that this Mohammedan sect will before long come into hostile contact with Christian countries.

The sect to which we refer, are called the Wahabees. They are of recent origin, their founder, Wahab, having been born about the close of the seventeenth century. Their original seat was Arabia, where they tried to restore a primitive and vigorous Mohammedanism in the place of the decay which had spread throughout the country. Early in the present century, they became dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; for, regarding both the Turks and Persians as idolatrous, they prevented the caravans of these countries from reaching the two cities. The Mohammedans of Turkey and Persia became greatly excited at this, and the Sultan of Constantinople, as the natural protector of Mohammedanism, deemed it his duty to crush the daring heretics. The Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, was charged with this duty in 1804; but nothing was done against the Wahabees until 1811, and the object of the expedition was not accomplished until 1818. The chief of the sect was sent to Constantinople and beheaded. For some time little was heard of the Wahabees; but soon their power was again felt, and when Palgrave, in 1863, and Colonel Pelly, in 1865, visited Central Arabia, they found a powerful Wahabee empire in existence, threatening to swallow up the whole peninsula. Still, so isolated is Central Arabia from all intercourse with the civilized world, that no news reached us from the Wahabees except when bold travelers, like Palgrave and Pelly, at the risk of their lives, penetrated into the remote regions inhabited by them.

Last week the Atlantic cable furnished us with important intelligence concerning the latest movements of the Wahabees. The Imaum, or spiritual ruler of Muscat, has been dethroned, and the chief of the Wahabees has succeeded him. Muscat is the most powerful of all the Arab States, extending to about 176,000 square miles, and containing some 2,500,000 inhabitants. The city of Muscat is the key to the Persian Gulf, and a most important center of trade, where the productions of Europe, Africa, and the East, are exchanged. Its population is already 60,000, and is increasing with great rapidity. The possession of the city and the empire of Muscat gives to the Wahabees the whole of Central and Eastern Arabia, and as they are no less hostile to the Turkish and Persian Mohammedans than to the Christians, it cannot fail that before long they will come into collision with neighboring countries.

The Wahabees revive the fanaticism and ferocity of ancient Mohammedans, and they are more hostile to Christianity on that account than the present rulers of Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and Morocco. And yet their recent successes may be of great service to Christianity, for it is plain, at first sight, that their rise will increase the confusion within the Mohammedan world, and lessen its power of resistance to the missionary onset of Christianity.