The great simplicity of the religion of Mohammed made it possible to effect the restoration of its pristine purity in a far higher degree than the mighty efforts of the sixteenth and subsequent centuries could effect a return to primitive Christianity; and besides, the conditions of contemporary life in Arabia were not widely different from those that had prevailed in the time of the prophet. A few of the theologians of the Ottoman empire actually recognised the Wahhabees as orthodox. These fanatical zealots were, however, obnoxious to the Turkish government for more reasons than one, and hence their power was broken by Muhammed Ali of Egypt, after a desperate struggle. Wahhabism actually exists to this day in the interior of Arabia, but under two mutually hostile dynasties and (in spite of having occasionally sent its emissaries as far as India) without any great prospect of spreading. It is firmly rooted only among the non-nomadic Arabs. The Bedouins never obey a Wahhabee ruler except under compulsion. They are at all times loath to serve a master, and though animated by the Moslem spirit, they are very negligent in the performance of their religious duties. They do not even hesitate to extort all they possibly can from pilgrim caravans, either by openly waylaying them or by levying toll for the privilege of passing through their territory. Taken as a whole, the life of the Bedouin of to-day still bears a strong resemblance to that of his ancestors long ago, but his intellectual level seems to have sunk from the height it maintained at the time of Mohammed. Even the number of places in Arabia suitable for agriculture appears to have diminished through the neglect and decay of irrigation. The fact that a few points on the coast are of some importance to European commerce and politics is of no consequence to the country as a whole, at least for the present. FOOTNOTES [1] Delitzsch, _Wo lag das Paradies_, pp. 295; 304 ff.; Schrader, _Keilschrift und Geschichtsforschung_, pp. 202, 261. [2] In Jeremiah iii, 2 and xxv, 24; Ezekiel xxvii, 21; xxx, 5; Jeremiah xiii, 20 (from the end of the Captivity); Jeremiah xxi, 13, ‎ ‎‏ערב ‎‏‎ is “desert.” [3] _Die alte Geographie Arabiens_, p. 293. Berne, 1875. [4] Cf. S. A. Barton. _A Sketch of Semitic Origins_ (New York, 1902), Ch. 1, where the various opinions of the subject are compared. [5] Var. Σαρακηνοί as a tribe. [6] Cureton, _Spicilegium Syriacum_, 16 ult. [7] The powerful Shammar of the present day, some who live in Nejd, the ancient home of the tribe, and some in the Mesopotamian desert, belong to the Tai. [8] That whole peoples should be called after certain frontier tribes by neighbouring nations is not altogether an unusual phenomenon, as everybody knows.