A correspondent of the Times publishes on Monday an account
of the unrest in Arabia which is certainly of some, and may be of much, political interest. He believes that a descendant of the Wahabee dynasty, crushed in 1818 by Ibrahim Pacha, has seized Riadh, and is being enthu- siastically supported by three of the more powerful tribes. If be can maintain himself he will be joined by all the Wahabees of the oases,—that is, by the whole strength of the Puritan party in Arabia. Unlike the Bedcarine, who take their religion lightly, the Wahabees are intensely fanatical; their missionaries penetrate through the whole of Asia and Africa—they govern the Mussulmans of Eastern Bengal, for example, and of the Hinterland of Algeria—and if they see a chance, they will probably lead a new outflow from Arabia. The correspondent believes that the Sultan may direct this outflow against the Bedouin power, the centre of which is the city of Hail, and this is conceivable enough, as the first Wahabee object is to control Mecca; but that object attained, the Turks will have to look to themselves. Nothing can make of a fanatical Arab anything but an enemy of the Ottoman, or cure his belief that the Khalifate can only belong of right to one of Arab descent. England cannot permit the foundation of a Wahabee Empire, for its head would claim Egypt as his God-given inheritance ; but apart from European interference, we might see a new Arab rush upon Western Asia, with which other Mussulmans might find it difficult to contend.
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