Allied to them but, as I understood, separate, are the Zeidites of Yemen, who are possibly also descended from the Khawarij. But, as the Zeidites are accustomed to conceal the fact of their heresy and to pass themselves when on pilgrimage as Sunites, I could learn little about them. They were, till ten years ago, independent under the Imams of Sana, and it is certain that they repudiate the Califate. In former times, before the first conquest of Arabia by the Turks, these Imams were all powerful in Hejaz, and on the destruction of the Bagdad Califate assumed the title of Hami el Harameyn, protector of the holy places. The Turks, however, now occupy Sana, and the office of Imam is in abeyance. The Zeidites can hardly number more than two millions, and their only importance in the future lies in the fact of their geographical proximity to Mecca, and in the fact that their sympathies lie on the side of liberality in opinion and reform in morals. Neither Zeidites nor Abadites have any adherents out of their own countries. Of the Wahhabites a more detailed account is needed, as although their numbers are small and their political importance less than it formerly was, the spirit of their reform movement still lives and exercises a potent influence on modern Mohammedan ideas. I have described elsewhere[9] the historical vicissitudes of the sect in Arabia, and the decline of its fortunes in Nejd, but a brief recapitulation of these may be allowed me. The early half of the last century was a period of religious stagnation in Islam, almost as much as it was in Christendom. Faith, morals, and religious practice were at the lowest ebb among Mussulmans, and it seemed to Europeans who looked on as though the faith of Mecca had attained its dotage, and was giving place to a non-curantist infidelity. Politically and religiously the Mussulman world was asleep, when suddenly it awoke, and like a young giant refreshed stood once more erect in Arabia. The reform preached by Abd el Wahhab was radical. He began by breaking with the maxim held by the mass of the orthodox that inquiry on matters of faith was closed. He constituted himself a new mujtahed and founded a new school, neither Hanafite, Malekite, nor Shafite, and called it the school of the Unitarians, Muwaheddin, a name still cherished by the Wahhabites. He rejected positively all traditions but those of the companions of the Prophet, and he denied the claims of any but the first four Caliphs to have been legitimately elected. The Koran was to be the only written law, and Islam was to be again what it had been in the first decade of its existence. He established it politically in Nejd on precisely its old basis at Medina, and sought to extend it over the whole of Arabia, perhaps of the world. I believe it is hardly now recognised by Mohammedans how near Abd el Wahhab was to complete success.