The true Arabs are in revolt
against his authority.
Again, it is improbable that any enunciation of Puritan reform would
find support among the northern races of Asia, which are uniformly sunk
in gross sensuality and superstition; while Constantinople may be
trusted to oppose all reform whatever. Wahhabism, when it overspread
Southern Asia, never gained a foothold further north than Syria, and
broke itself to pieces at last against the corrupt orthodoxy of
Constantinople. And so too it would happen now. Abd el Hamid, in spite
of his zeal for Islam, would see in the preaching of a moral reform only
a new heresy; and, as we have seen, the Mohdy's mission is against all
evil rule, the Sultan's and Caliph's not excepted. So that, unless Abd
el Hamid places himself openly at the head of the warlike movement in
Africa and so forestalls a rival, he is not likely long to give it his
loyal support. Already there are symptoms of his regarding events in
Tunis with suspicion, and on the first announcement of an inspired
reformer he would, I believe, not hesitate to pronounce against him. I
understand the Turkish military reinforcements at Tripoli quite as much
in the light of a precaution against Arab reform as against infidel
France.
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