Page:Thomas Patrick Hughes - Notes on Muhammadanism - 2ed. (1877).djvu/244

 Rh following from the ranks of Islám within British territory, he proceeded to the northwest frontier of India, and preached a Jihád, or Holy War, against the Sikhs. On the 21st of December 1826, the war against the infidel Sikhs began, and almost every place in the Peshawur valley is, in some way, associated with this fanatical struggle. The mission of this Wahhábí leader was soon brought to an untimely end; for, in the battle of Bálakot, in Hazarah, in May 1831, when the fanatics were surprised by a Sikh army, under Sher Singh, their leader, Sayyid Ahmad, was slain. But, as in the case of the Wahhábí leader of Eastern Arabia, the propagation of the religious tenets did not cease with Sayyid Ahmad's death, and within the last thirty years Wahhábyism has widely influenced religious thought amongst the Muhammadans of India. The people who hold the doctrines of the Wahhábís do not always combine with them the fanatical spirit of either the son of Abdul Wahháb, or