A MOORISH MESSIAH.
ONE of the most striking signs of the deep unrest within the Mahommedan world, an unrest visible in the Panislamic movement, the insurrection throughout North Africa, and the important though badly reported struggles for power in Mecca and the Syrian Desert, is the increased ex- pectation of the immediate arrival of the Mehdi. All good Mussulmans of all sects, whether orthodox or heretical, believe that in the dark hour of Islam, God will send down a Mehdi, or Teacher, whom Mahommed himself foresaw, and who he prophesied should be an Arab of the clan Koreish, and a descendant of his own house. He will restore Islam, reunite the Faithful, and either become Khalif, or for a time supersede him, as ruler of the Mahommedans throughout the world. Usually the belief is of no more importance than the belief of some Christians in the coming of the Millennium, but of late it has taken a stronger hold of the general Mussulman mind, has become a dogma instead of a recognised idea, crops up in many places at once, and most seriously disturbs the old established Mahommedan Governments, whose rulers are well aware that the moral basis of their authority would be wholly destroyed by the appearance of such a pretender. It is so general in Arabia and Syria, that the Turks watch the family at Mecca from which the Mehdi should come with an intent- ness that has already produced tragical results, and might any day produce a massacre. It is the evident belief of Mr. Blunt, the Arabian traveller, that the next aspirant for power in that region will call himself El Mehdi, the Teacher who is expected, and that if he appears and wins the smallest skirmish, half Arabia will flock to his standard. In Egypt, the followers of Colonel Arabi are said to be earnestly watching for the promised deliverer ; while in Tripoli, a correspondent of the Times, evidently pos- sessed of unusual information, declares that El Mehdi, the sacro- sanct head of the Senoussia community, which has monasteries by the hundred in North Africa, and even in Arabia and Syria, and is obeyed by Mahommedan tribes of the Desert whose very names are unknown to Europeans, claims to be the long- expected Teacher, and promises to proclaim himself openly to the world on November 12th, 1882. A prophecy to that effect has been carefully circulated for some years through the Moorish-Mussulman world, and is thoroughly known all through the South Mediterranean, from Aleppo to Mogador. It is believed to have been drawn up by Senoussi, the A lgerine Moor,—a Shereef, we believe, or descendant of the Prophet, though we are not quite certain, —who, in 1850, founded the great organisation which now disputes with the Turks the sovereignty of southern Tripoli, and which, the correspondent says, supplies the material resources for the resistance offered by the Tunisian tribes to the French invasion. The prophecy is couched in these words :—" On the first of the month of Moharram, in the year 1300 (12th November, 1882), will appear the El Mehdi, or Messiah. He will be exactly forty years of age, and of noble bearing. One arm will be longer than the other ; his father's name will be Muhammed, his mother's Fatima, and he will be bidden for a time prior to his manifestation." El Mehdi has the physical peculiarity referred to, his right arm reaching to his knee, and he has for four years been hidden from all eyes in religious retreat.
Prophecies of this kind, circulating among a people always ready to believe, and just now excited alike by European pressure, by the Sultan's Missionaries, who are preaching the unity of Mahommedans everywhere, and by a wave of religious revival, will be very apt to produce their own fulfilment. There was no doubt among those who carefully examined the great movement called the Indian Mutiny that the uprising, though not caused by the prophecy that the East India Company should cease to reign in one hundred and one years from Plassey—a prophecy curiously fulfilled—was accelerated by it, and owed to it much of its temporary success. The family and tribal jealousies which are so strong in Mecca may prove obstacles to a Moorish claim ; but Islam is essentially democratic, a wave of popular feeling may prove irresistible, and we think it quite reasonable to expect that a Mehdi will appear, and that his first habitat will be North Africa, where the tribes are all of one faith and language, all martial, all expectant, and where, but for the French soldiers, any considerable Mussulman leader would have no difficulty whatever in setting up an Arab Empire, reigning from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. If he has but rifles for his Arabs, there is nothing whatever, except Europe,
to stop his career. There is no force not European in existence which could arrest the tribes, for the Ottomans are powerless in the Desert; the clan itself has been wasted by the wars of a half- century, and the ordinary Mussulmansof Turkey would probably accept the Mehdi, or at least fight against him with half-hearts. That is a very serious prospect both for France and England, even if the Eastern Question were not brought up for solution by the summary extinction of the dynasty of Othman as a heretical or half-Infidel Power, and even if the movement did not spread to India. All Mussulman writers not Indian think the last-named result would happen ; but the English sway in India has something of the miraculous about it,—that is, is supported by forces not immediately apparent on the surface. The Indian Mussulmans have a deep vein of fanaticism in them, they have some grave grievances, and they are very numerous—seventy millions, at least, by the last census—but they will pause, for all that, before they encounter the British Government and the innumerable Hindoo warriors, Sikhs, Rajpoots, and Mahrattas, who would be at its disposal. We should be in frightful danger in the Madras Presidency, over which would pour streams of religious lava from the high plateaus of Mysore and the Nizam's Dominions, but the Empire might stand steady to the last. It is in Egypt that we should feel the shock. We are by no means confident in the power of the French to resist at first the rush which would pour on them from Morocco, from south Algeria, from Tunis, and from Tripoli, all at once. They would be swept back to the coast, and it would take 200,000 men to regain their authority, and a war for which they might not he prepared. If the Mehdi triumphed for a month, he would undoubtedly claim Egypt. Not only does every Arab Mussulman claim Egypt as his of right—with this justification, that a plebiscite would give the Arab Khalif or Mehdi four votes to one, against any rival— but a great Sultanet in North Africa is impossible, without possession of the Valley of the Nile. Not only is Egypt the natural treasure-house or revenue-producing province of such a dynasty, which will need treasure to make its armies regular ; but without the possession of Egypt, free communication between the North-African Empire and Arabia and Syria would be impossible. The Mehdi would undoubtedly try to seize Egypt, and the British would be compelled either to retire, or to fight for their position against land attacks both from the Libyan Desert and Syria of a much more serious kind than any that the Egyptians unaided could attempt. That we should win in such a contest is, perhaps, not doubtful. Arabs, however excited, will not face shells in the open, and fanaticism is no defence against rocket batted s ; but the contest would consume men we can ill spare, and Egypt, if permanently threatened by Arabs, must either shake off her Debt, or be a very costly possession to any European Power. We do not want to be in the position of a Power under guarantees to check any Arab or Mussulman revival.
We are quite aware how dreamy the prospect of such a struggle must appear to most of our readers, and have not the slightest wish to exaggerate the danger. It may all pass away in an hour, if M. Gambetta retires from Tunis, or El Medhi catches typhus in his cell. It is quite certain, nevertheless, that the Arab mind, whether in Arabia itself, in Egypt, or in North Africa, is strongly excited, and excited with the hope or fear that it may be shortly called upon as a religious duty to terminate the reign of the Infidel. That excitement is the very opportunity to produce a religious pretender, who receives information from 300 monasteries, and who will see before him a double opportunity of striking a blow for his faith, and setting up a most extensive empire for himself. That this is perceived by persons able to avail themselves of their know- ledge is clear from the published accounts, and if the Mehdi appears and is accepted—an acceptance depending on the result of his first battle—he will be a most formidable person, if only because his strength will lie in regions inaccessible to European arms. We can neither convince Arabs that he is an impostor, nor follow him into the African deserts. He will have the support to the death of at least nine millions of Arabs, and therefore an army limited only by his power of finding equipments, which are probably stored up in the monasteries of the Senoussia to an extent greater than we suspect. What such an army may do in such regions we may judge from the ill-success of the French, and there is no doubt whatever that it could conquer Egypt. The danger to us, therefore, is a real one, and there are no practical means of averting it. If the French, instead of half-deceiving and half-defying all the world about Tunis, had behaved with
statesmanlike common-sense, and declaring the condition of North Africa intolerable, had invited Europe to end it by allowing Spain to enter Morocco, France Tunis, Italy Tripoli, and England Egypt, the danger would have been comparatively trifling. The tribes would not have united, or uniting, would have been confronted by too heavy a mass of physical power. As it is, however, the French government, in its chauvinism, has made itself the sole opponent of the Arabs from Lebanon to the Atlantic,—that is, has given them just sufficient provocation to cause a united up- rising, while still unable to make the uprising physically diffi- cult. The tribes see only one enemy before them, and know that defeat will only leave them as they were. The Arabs can communicate, organise, and even form armies, in a secrecy which the French encamped along the coast never penetrate, and are only prevented from hurling themselves forward and driving the French into the sea by their own fears. With the appearance of a Mehdi, those fears may vanish in an hour ; and if they do, the French will have to face a rush for which they areexceedingly illprepared. If they win the first onset, well and good, there is an end of the Moorish Mehdi and Arab dreams about him ; but if they lose it—if, for instance, the city of Kai- rouan slaughtered out its garrison—not only will France have a great struggle on her hands, but the British also will within a month be engaged in an extremely difficult and costly enter- prise. We may think we can keep out ; but if we do, it will be at the cost of seeing Egypt either an Ottoman vilayet, or a province of an Arab Empire, or the prize of any European State which chooses to say that the freedom of the Canal can- not be allowed to become an open question. There may be— we incline to believe there is—serious trouble preparing for us all in the Libyan Desert, though most of us do not know where that is.
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