centuries, these Wahhabis succeeded in obtaining the mastery of the Holy Cities and in forcing the Shereefs to recognise their authority. With infinite difficulty the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, later the first Khedive, succeeded in fulfilling the mission entrusted to him by the Sultan of Turkey and in reconquering the Holy Land in his turn.
The then Shereef was punished for his inefficiency in repelling the Wahhabis from his realm, by banishment, together with several members of his family, while the head of another branch of his kinsfolk was appointed to his vacated post. At this crisis, too, there was no talk of abolition of the Shereefate.
With the expulsion of the Wahhabis from the Hijaz in 1813, begins the latest historical phase of the Shereefate. The Protectorate exercised by the first Khed-
