ABSTRACT
The Wahhabis were burdened with the record of their first conquest of the country, more than a century ago. Their purifying of the Holy Cities had at that time been so rigorous and the reaction of orthodox, that is to say non-Wahhabi, Islam so violent that the Turkish government had been forced to intervene. Fear and anxiety had followed the rise of the second Wahhabi tide and its movement towards the holy territory. Taif had confirmed the worst fears and although the behaviour of the Wahhabis in Mecca and, later, in Medina was much less open to objection, the world of Islam was by no means reassured. Indonesia had been represented by the old leader of the Sarikat Islam, the union of Islam, Tjokro Aminoto. The language difficulty, classical Arabic being the language of the congress, had been brushed aside by the Indians who used English, but this was of no help to those who knew neither Arabic nor English.
