at Ayana in Nejd, and after studying in Basra and Damascus, and making the pilgrimage to Mecca returned to his native country and settled down at Huremala near Deraiya. The abuses and corruptions which had overgrown the practice of orthodox Islam had deeply impressed him, and he set to work to combat them, and to inculcate on all good Moslems a return to the pure simplicity of their original faith. In 1742 Mahommed Ibn Saūd, sheik of Deraiya, accepted his doctrines, and enforced them by his sword with such effect that before his death in 1765 the whole of eastern Nejd and El Hasa was converted to the faith of Abdul Wahhāb, and accepted the political supremacy of Ibn Saūd. His son and successor, Abdul Aziz, in a rapid series of successful campaigns, extended his dominion and that of the reformed faith far beyond the limits of Nejd. His attacks on the pilgrim caravans, begun in 1783 and constantly repeated, startled the Mahommedan world,[1] and compelled the attention of the sultan, as the nominal protector of the faithful. In 1798 a Turkish force was sent from Bagdad into El Hasa, but was compelled to retreat without accomplishing anything, and its discomfiture added much to the renown of the Wahhābi power. In 1801 Saūd, son of the amir Abdul Aziz, led an expedition to the Euphrates, and on the festival of Bairam, the 20th of April, stormed Kerbela, put the defenders to the sword, destroyed the sacred tomb, scattered the sacred relics and returned laden with the treasures, accumulated during centuries in the sanctuary of the Shiā faith. Mecca itself was taken; plundering was forbidden, but the tombs of the saints and all objects of veneration were ruthlessly destroyed, and all ceremonies which seemed in the eye of the stern puritan conqueror to suggest the taint of idolatry were forbidden.
On the 14th of October 1802 the amir Abdul Aziz, at the age of eighty-two years, was murdered by a Shiā fanatic when at prayers in the mosque of Deraiya, and Saūd, who had for many years led the Wahhābi armies, became the reigning amir. In 1804 Medina was taken and with its fall all resistance ceased. The Wahhābi empire had now attained its zenith, a settled government was established able to enforce law and order in the desert and in the towns, and a spirit of Arabian nationality had grown up which bade fair to extend the Wahhābi dominion over all the Arab race. It already, however, bore within it the germ of decay; the accumulation of treasure in the capital had led to a corruption of the simple manners of the earlier times; the exhaustion of the tribes through the heavy blood tax had roused discontent among them; the plundering of the holy places, the attacks on the pilgrim caravans under the escort of Turkish soldiers, and finally, in 1810, the desecration of the tomb of Mahomet and the removal of its costly treasures, raised a cry of dismay throughout the Mahommedan world, and made it clear even to the Turkish sultan that unless the Wahhābi power were crushed his claims to the caliphate were at an end.
But Turkey was herself fully occupied by affairs in Europe, and to Mehemet Ali, then pasha of Egypt, was deputed the task of bringing the Wahhābis into subjection. In October 1811 an expedition consisting of 10,000 men under Tusun Pasha, the pasha’s son, a youth of sixteen, landed in Hejaz without opposition. Saūd with his main forces had started northwards to attack Bagdad, but returning at once he met and defeated Tusun with great loss and compelled him to retire. Medina and subsequently Mecca were eventually taken by the Egyptians, but in spite of continual reinforcements they could do little more than hold their own in Hejaz. In 1813 Mehemet Ali was compelled to take the field himself with fresh troops, but was unable to achieve any decisive success, and in 1814 Tusun was again defeated beyond Taif. In May 1814 Saūd died, and his son, Ābdallah, attempted to negotiate, but Mehemet Ali refused all overtures, and in January 1815 advanced into Nejd, defeated the Wahhābi army and occupied Ras, then the chief town in Kasim. Terms of peace were made, but on the retirement of the Egyptians Ābdallah refused to carry out the conditions agreed on, which included the return of the jewels plundered by his father, and another campaign had to be fought before his submission was obtained. Ibrahim Pasha replaced Tusun in command, and on reaching Arabia in September 1816 his first aim was to gain over the great Bedouin tribes holding the roads between Hejaz and his objective in Nejd; having thus secured his line of advance he pushed on boldly and defeated Ābdallah at Wiya, where he put to death all prisoners taken; thence rapidly advancing, with contingents of the friendly Harb and Mutēr tribes in support of his regular troops, he laid siege to Ras; this place, however, held out and after a four months’ siege he was compelled to give up the attack. Leaving it on one side he pushed on eastwards, took Aneza after six days’ bombardment and occupied Bureda. Here he waited two months for reinforcements, and with his Bedouin contingent, strengthened by the adhesion of the Āteba and Bani Khālid tribes, advanced on Shakra in Wushm, which fell in January 1818 after a regular siege. After destroying Huremala and massacring its inhabitants, he arrived before Deraiya on the 14th of April 1818. For six months the siege went on with varying fortune, but at last the courage and determination of Ibrahim triumphed, and on the 9th of September, after a heroic resistance, Ābdallah, with a remnant of four hundred men, was compelled to surrender. The Wahhābi leader was soon after sent to Constantinople, where, in spite of Mehemet Ali’s intercession, he and the companions who had followed him in his captivity were condemned to death, and after being paraded through the city with ignominy for three days were finally beheaded.
Deraiya was razed to the ground and the principal towns of Nejd were compelled to admit Egyptian garrisons; but though the Arabs saw themselves powerless to stand before disciplined troops, the Egyptians, on the other hand, had to confess that without useless sacrifices they could not retain their hold on the interior.
In 1824 Turki, son of the unfortunate Ābdallah, headed a rising which resulted in the re-establishment of the Wahhābi state with Riad as its new capital; and during the next ten years he consolidated his power, paying tribute to and under the nominal suzerainty of Egypt till his murder in 1834. His son, Fēsal, succeeded him, but in 1836 on his refusal to pay tribute an Egyptian force was sent to depose him and he was taken prisoner and sent to Cairo, while a rival claimant, Khalid, was established as amir in Riad. Mehemet Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha were, however, now committed to their conflict with Turkey for Syria and Asia Minor, and had no troops to spare for the thankless task of holding the Arabian deserts; the garrisons were gradually withdrawn, and in 1842 Fēsal, who had escaped from his prison at Cairo reappeared and was everywhere recognized as amir. The few remaining Egyptian troops were ejected from Riad, and with them all semblance of Egyptian or Turkish rule disappeared from central Arabia.
For a time it looked as if the supremacy of the Wahhābi empire was to be renewed; El Hasa, Harik, Kasim and Asir returned to their allegiance, but over Oman and Yemen Fēsal never re-established his dominion, and the Bahrein sheiks with British support kept their independence.
A rival state had, however, arisen, under Ābdallah Ibn Rashid in Jebel Shammar. Driven into exile owing to a feud between his family and the Ibn Āli, the leading family of the Shammar, Ābdallah came to Riad in 1830, and was favourably received by the amir Turki. In 1834 he Ibn Rashid.was with Fēsal on an expedition against El Hasa when news came of the amir’s murder by his cousin Mashārah. By Ābdallah’s advice the expedition was abandoned; Fēsal hastened back with all his forces to Riad, and invested the citadel where Mashārah had taken refuge, but failed to gain possession of it, until Ābdallah with two companions found his way into the palace, killed Mashārah, and placed Fēsal on the throne of his father. As a reward for his services Ābdallah was appointed governor of Jebel Shammar, and had already established himself in Hail when the Egyptian expedition of 1836 removed Fēsal temporarily from Nejd. During the exile of the latter he steadily
