'History of the imâms and seyyids of 'Omân by Salîl-ibn-Razîk, from A.D. 661-1856; translated from the original Arabic, and edited with notes, appendices, and an introduction, continuing the history down to 1870, by George Percy Badger, F.R.G.S., late chaplain in the Presidency of Bombay.' [‎65] (98/612)

and analysis.
Ixv
doctrine thus revived placed Sunnis and Shiaahs, Ibadhiyah
and Rafidhis alike in the same category, and moreover sanc
tioned their being dealt with as such, despite their negation
of any deity save one by a strict adherence to the orthodox
formula. Hence it was that " they legalized the despoiling
of the Muslims, taking their wives in marriage before they
are legally divorced from their husbands, and without observ
ing the 'Iddah, and also the enslavement of their children,"
(pp. 246-6). All these outrages, from the Wahhaby stand
point, were solemn duties imposed upon them by their obli
gations to God and Islam, which they could not forego with
out risking their own salvation. It is quite conceivable that
Muhammad-ibn-'Abdu-' 1 -Wahhab was personally uninflu
enced in his fanaticism by any motives of temporal interest;
but there can be little doubt that the majority of his fol
lowers were actuated as much by the license which his doc
trines warranted, as by zeal for what they were taught to
consider the true faith. Wahhabeeism, in fact, apart from
certain speculative notions respecting the Supreme Being,
—in the main perfectly in accordance with the theology of
the Kuran,—may be defined as a politico-religious confede
racy, which legalizes the indiscriminate plunder and thraldom
of all peoples beyond its own pale. This description of its
most prominent characteristics is fully borne out by the in
tolerant proceedings of its adherents, not only in Nejd, but
wherever they succeeded in establishing their ascendancy.
Incidentally, the Exile's narrative makes us acquainted
with a novel pretension of the Wahhabis, who profess to be
in possession of certain portions of the Kuran which the
Khalifah 'Othman, out of envy, as they allege, omitted from
the original version—compiled during the Khalifate of Abu-
Bekr—when he caused a copy of the same to be taken which,
by his authority, was made to supersede all other exemplars
then extant (p. 252). It is very unlikely that this assertion
rests upon any reliable basis, and the suspicion which it casts
h