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Battle of Al-Dirʿiyyah
Arabia [1818]
Quick Facts
Battle of Al-Dirʿiyyah, (1818), major defeat dealt the Wahhābīs, Islamic reformers in the Najd region of central Arabia, by the forces of the Egyptian ruler Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha. The Wahhābī empire was destroyed, and the Saud dynasty that created it was virtually wiped out. Wahhābī attacks on pilgrim caravans crossing Arabia concerned the Ottoman government, whose sultan was protector of Mecca, Islam’s chief holy city. When the Ottomans attempted to invade al-Ḥasāʾ, eastern Arabia, the Wahhābīs responded by seizing the holy city of Karbala in Ottoman Iraq (1801) and then capturing Mecca itself (1802). Preoccupied in other directions, the sultan ...(100 of 287 words)