Battle of Al-Dirʿiyyah

Arabia [1818]
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Quick Facts
Date:
April 1818 - September 9, 1818
Location:
Saudi Arabia
Participants:
Egypt

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)