Perhaps it is symptomatic of a more bellicose temper in Islam that the last few years have witnessed the rapid spread of two new puritan, fanatic movements--the Ikhwan and the Salafiya. The Ikhwan movement began obscurely about ten years ago in inner Arabia--the Nejd. It is a direct outgrowth of Wahabism, from which it differs in no essential respect. So rapid has been Ikhwanism's progress that it to-day absolutely dominates the entire Nejd, and it is headed by desert Arabia's most powerful chieftain, Bin Saud, a descendant of the Saud who headed the Wahabi movement a hundred years ago. The fanaticism of the Ikhwans is said to be extraordinary, while their programme is the old Wahabi dream of a puritan conversion of the whole Islamic world.[69] As for the Salafi movement, it started in India even more obscurely than Ikhwanism did in Arabia, but during the past few years it has spread widely through Islam. Like Ikhwanism, it is puritanical and fanatical in spirit, its adherents being found especially among dervish organizations.[70] Such phenomena, taken with everything else, do not augur well for the peace of the East. So much for Pan-Islamism's religious and political sides. Now let us glance at its commercial and industrial aspects--at what may be called economic Pan-Islamism. Economic Pan-Islamism is the direct result of the permeation of Western ideas. Half a century ago the Moslem world was economically still in the Middle Ages. The provisions of the sheriat, or Moslem canon law, such as the prohibition of interest rendered economic life in the modern sense impossible. What little trade and industry did exist was largely in the hands of native Christians or Jews. Furthermore, the whole economic life of the East was being disorganized by the aggressive competition of the West. Europe's political conquest of the Moslem world was, in fact, paralleled by an economic conquest even more complete. Everywhere percolated the flood of cheap, abundant European machine-made goods, while close behind came European capital, temptingly offering itself in return for loans and concessions which, once granted, paved the way for European political domination. Yet in economics as in politics the very completeness of Europe's triumph provoked resistance. Angered and alarmed by Western exploitation, Islam frankly recognized its economic inferiority and sought to escape from its subjection. Far-sighted Moslems began casting about for a _modus vivendi_ with modern life that would put Islam economically abreast of the times. Western methods were studied and copied. The prohibitions of the sheriat were evaded or quietly ignored.