Wahhabi War
Wahhabi War | |||||||
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Mecca | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Mahmud II Tusun Pasha Muhammad Ali Ibrahim Pasha Ibrahim Agha † Isma'il Pasha Abu Jabal (WIA) | |||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
14,000 killed 6,000 wounded[1] | unknown |
The Wahhabi war,[2] also known as the Ottoman-Saudi War,[3] (1811–1818) was fought from early 1811 to 1818, between the Ottoman Empire and the Emirate of Diriyah, the First Saudi State, resulting in the destruction of the latter.
Names
The war is also referred to by several other names, such as the "Ottoman- Wahhabi war",[4][5][6] "Egyptian-Wahhabi war",[7] "Egyptian-Saudi war",[8] "Ottoman/Egyptian-Wahhabi war",[9][10] etc.
Background
Although
Political hostilities and distrust would eventually lead the Wahhabis and the Ottomans to declare mutual exchanges of Takfir (excommunication), many years after Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's death.[15] By the 1790s, the Muwahhidun had consolidated their rule over most regions of Central Arabia. The growing Wahhabi influence alarmed Ghaleb, the Sharif of Mecca, who responded by initiating warfare with the Saudis in 1793; until his surrender in 1803. Intending to form an armed coalition to defeat the Muwahhidun, he corresponded with the Ottoman authorities in Istanbul and sought to turn them hostile against his rivals by portraying them as disbelievers. Similar overtures were also made by the ruler of Baghdad. Such reports eventually succeeded in turning the Ottoman bureaucratic opinion significantly hostile against the Wahhabis. In 1797, Sulayman the Great, the Mamluk governor of Iraq, invaded Diriyah with around 15,000 troops in co-ordination with Sharif Ghalib and laid a one-month siege to Al-Ahsa. However, re-inforcements led by Saud ibn 'Abd al-Azeez would force the Ottomans to retreat. After three days of skirmish, Sulayman the Great and the Saudis came to a peace settlement which was to last for six years. However, the peace would be broken in 1801, when a caravan of pilgrims protected by a Saudi convoy was plundered near Hail; upon orders from the Mamluk administration in Baghdad. This attack would completely break down the already deteriorating Saudi-Ottoman diplomatic relations, and the Emirate of Dirʿiyya sent a large-scale expedition towards Iraq.[16]
In 1802,
After a phony war which lasted years, an all-out war erupted between the Ottomans and the Saudis; initiated by the invasion of the
Campaigns
Muhammad Ali was ordered to crush the Saudi state as early as December 1807 by Sultan Mustafa IV, however internal strife within Egypt prevented him from giving his full attention to the Wahhabis. The Ottoman troops were not able to recapture the holy cities until 1811.[21]
In 1811, the Ottomans landed in
In 1815, one of the main rebels, Bakhroush bin Alass of Zahran tribe, was killed and beheaded by Muhammad Ali forces in Al Qunfudhah.[28] In the spring of 1815, Ottoman forces inflicted large-scale defeat upon the Saudis, forcing them to conclude a peace treaty. Under the terms of treaty, the Saudis had to let go of Hijaz. Abdullah ibn Saud was forced to acknowledge himself as the vassal of the Ottoman Empire and obey the Turkish Sultan unquestionably. However, neither Muhammad Ali nor the Ottoman Sultan had confirmed the treaty.[29]
Suspicious of Abdullah, the Wahhabi Emir, the Ottomans resumed the war in 1816, with the assistance of French military instructors. The Egyptian troops were led by Muhammad Ali's elder son, Ibrahim Pasha, and penetrated into the heart of Central Arabia, besieging the chief centres of Qasim and Najd. Waging a war of extermination between 1816 and 1818, the invading armies pillaged various towns and villages, forcing the inhabitants to flee and seek refuge in remote regions and oases. By 1817, the armies had overrun Rass, Buraida and Unayza.[29] Saudi armies put up a fierce resistance at Al-Rass where they withstood a siege of 3 months. Faced with the advance of Egyptian Ottomans, Abdullah, the Saudi Emir retreated to Diriya.[30][31]
The Ottomans began the
It was not until September 1818 that the Wahhabi state ended with the surrendering of its leaders and the head of the Wahhabi state,
The British Empire welcomed Ibrahim Pasha's siege of Diriyah with the goal of promoting trade interests in the region. Captain George Forster Sadleir, an officer of the British Army in India was dispatched from Bombay to consult with Ibrahim Pasha in Dariyya.[34]
Aftermath
George Forster Sadleir left a record on the aftermath of the former capital of the First Saudi state:
"The site of Deriah is in a deep ravine north-west of Munfooah, about ten miles distant. It is now in ruins, and the inhabitants who were spared, or escaped from the slaughter, have principally sought shelter here ... Munfooah ... was surrounded with a wall and ditch which the Pacha ordered to be razed .... Riad is not so well peopled .... The inhabitants were at that time in a more wretched state than at any prior period since the establishment of the power of the Wahabees. Their walls, the chief security for their property, had been razed ... The year's crop had been consumed by the Turkish force"[35]
Saudi ruler 'Abdullah ibn Saud was transported first to Cairo and then to Istanbul, wherein he was beheaded alongside several other Wahhabi Imams.[36] Other than 'Abdullah, most of the political leaders were treated well but the Ottomans were far harsher with the religious leaders that inspired the Wahhabi movement, executing Sūlayman ibn 'Abd Allah Aal-Shaykh and other religious notables, as they were thought to be uncompromising in their beliefs and therefore a much bigger threat than political leaders. The executions were also motivated by Ottoman resentment of Wahhabist views.[21]
After the
Later, Ibrahim Pasha and his troops went on to conquer Qatif and el-Hasa. Remnants of Saudi fortifications were demolished across Najd. Emir's relatives and important Wahhabi leaders were made captives and sent to Egypt. In December 1819, Ibrahim Pasha returned to Egypt after formally incorporating Hejaz into the Ottoman Empire. However, they were unable to totally subdue the opposition forces and Central Arabia became a region of permanent Wahhabi uprisings.[29] In the 1820s, Prince Turki ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Muhammed ibn Saud , gathering growing support from tribes and groups that opposed the Turkish occupation, would lay Siege to Riyadh in 1823. By August 1824, Saudi forces would capture Riyadh in a Second Siege, thus establishing the Second Saudi State with Riyadh as its capital.[38]
Following the fall of Emirate of Dirʿiyya, the British empire launched their Persian Gulf campaign of 1819. A formidable force consisting of 2,800 British soldiers and 3 warships fought the Qasimi tribesmen allied to Dir'iyya. Their city Ras al Khaimah was demolished in 1819. The General Maritime treaty was concluded in 1820 with the local chieftains, which would eventually transform them into a protectorate of Trucial States; heralding a century of British supremacy in the Gulf.[39]
This war had formed the basic hatred of the Wahhabi movement amongst the Ottomans, and continues to influence modern Turkey wherein many Turkish Islamic preachers consider Wahhabism to be un-Islamic. The Saudis, who would form the nation a century later, considered it as the first struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire, and continued to view Turkey with suspicion. The current state of Saudi-Turkey relations are still influenced by this hostile past. To the present day, both Saudi and Turkish nationalist writers accuse each other of engaging in systematic campaigns to rewrite history.[40][41][42][43][44]
See also
- Fitnat al-Wahhabiyya
- Hadith of Najd
- List of wars involving Saudi Arabia
- Nejd Expedition
- Saudi Arabia–Turkey relations
References
- ISBN 978-0-8147-8809-7. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
- ^ Sources:
- James Wynbrandt (2010). A Brief History of Saudi Arabia. ISBN 978-0-8160-7876-9.
Wahhabi war
- Franzén, Johan (2021). Pride and Power: A Modern History of Iraq. London, UK: Hurst publishers. p. 507. ISBN 9781787383951.
- Hurgronje, Dr. C. Snoucke (1917). The Revolt in Arabia (PDF). New York, USA: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 22. LCCN 17007479.
- Lyall, Jason (2020). "Appendix I". Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War. Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press. p. 436. ISBN 9780691192437.
- James Wynbrandt (2010). A Brief History of Saudi Arabia.
- ^ Sources:
- ISBN 978-0-691-14705-5.
The Ottoman-Saudi War...
- Commins, David (2006). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. London: I.B Tauris. p. 46. ISBN 1-84511-080-3.
- McNabb, James Brian (2017). "1: Napoleon's Egyptian campaign and the Decline of the Ottoman empire". A Military History of the Modern Middle East. California, USA: ABC-CLIO. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-4408-2963-5.
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The Ottomans pushed back with the 1811–18 Ottoman Wahhabi War, led by the Ottoman's viceroy in Egypt.
- ISBN 978-1-4408-5705-8.
Although the Ottomans were able to defeat the First Saudi State in the Ottoman-Wahhabi War (1811–1818), the House of Al Saud was able to restore its rule in Central and Eastern Arabia in a short time.
- ISBN 978-0-8160-7876-9.
Egyptian-Wahhabi war
- ISBN 978-0-691-14705-5.
Egyptian Saudi War (1811–1818)
- ISBN 9789674913397.
The episode was followed by the Ottoman/Egyptian-Wahhabi war that lasted from 1811 to 1818 and which resulted in the victory of the former.
- ISBN 978-0-85773-260-6.
- ^ "Wahhabism". Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 19 November 2012.
Wahhabism properly refers to the 18th-century revival and reform movement begun in the region of Najd, in what is today Saudi Arabia, by Islamic religious and legal scholar Muhammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab.
- ISBN 978-1-78074-589-3.
Nor did he acknowledge the Ottoman caliphate. The Ottomans asserted this status only after territorial losses to the Russians in the 1770s. They sought to compensate for growing political and military debilitation by claiming spiritual ascendancy over Muslims everywhere.
- ISBN 978-1-78074-589-3.
Claims that in defying the sultan the Saudi imam intended to supplant the caliph were unfounded. Classical Wahhabism never accepted the need for a universal caliphate, let alone advocated it or claimed it on behalf of the Saudis or the Arabs more generally. It was part of established Sunni thought that the legitimacy of the caliphate derived from enforcement of the shari'a. In his repudiation of the theological stance of the Ottomans and his uninhibited criticism of religious conditions in Ottoman provinces, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab made it plain that God's law remained unenforced there
- ISBN 978-1-78074-589-3.
- ISBN 978-1-78074-589-3.
- ^ Lewis Burckhardt, John (1831). "Materials for a History of the Wahabys". Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys Vol.II. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. pp. 180–186.
- ^ OCLC 166388162.
- ISBN 978-1-78074-589-3.
- ^ a b Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot. A History of Egypt From the Islamic Conquest to the Present. New York: Cambridge UP, 2007.
- ISBN 978-1-78074-589-3.
- ^ a b c d e Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Salafies, "Unbelievers and the Problems of Exclusivism". Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies), Vol. 16, No. 2. (1989), pp. 123–132. (Text online at JSTOR)
- ISBN 978-1-78074-211-3.
- ^ "Saudi Arabia – Daily life and social customs | Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ The era of Muhammad Ali. Abd al Rahman al Rafai. p. 127
- ISBN 978-0-85773-135-7.
- ISBN 978-0-521-77933-3.
- ^ Kiselev Kirill Alexandrovich. "ЕГИПЕТ И ГОСУДАРСТВО ВАХХАБИТОВ: "ВОЙНА В ПУСТЫНЕ" (1811-1818 гг.)" [Egypt and the Wahhabi State: the "war in the desert" (1811-1818)] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
- ^ Giovanni Finati (1830). Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Giovanni Finati, Native of Ferrara: Who, Under the Assumed Name of Mahomet, Made the Campaigns Against the Wahabees for the Recovery of Mecca and Medina; and Since Acted as Interpreter to European Travellers in Some Parts Least Visited of Asia and Africa. J. Murray.
- ^ ISBN 0-7147-0110-6.
- ^ ISBN 1-84511-080-3.
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- ^ ISBN 9960-29-500-1.
- ISBN 1-84511-080-3.
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The British in India had welcomed Ibrahim Pasha's siege of Diriyah: if the 'predatory habits' of the Wahhabists could be extirpated from the Arabian peninsula, so much the better for British trade in the region. It was for this reason that Captain George Forster Sadleir, an officer of the British Army in India (HM 47th regiment), was sent from Bombay to consult Ibrahim Pasha in Diriyah.
- ISBN 978-1-349-26728-6.
- ISBN 978-0-19-932795-9.)
The Wahhabi leader, Abdullah Ibn Sa'ud, was defeated and transported first to Cairo then to Istanbul, where together with several Wahhabi imams he was beheaded
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ISBN 1-84511-080-3.
- ISBN 978-1-349-26728-6.
- ISBN 978-0-691-18189-9.
- ^ "Turkophobia is behind the Saudi-washing of Ottoman history". TRT World. 5 September 2019.
- ^ "Saudi's MBC launching new drama series 'exposing Ottoman tyranny'". Ahval.
- ^ AL-TORIFI, TALAL (23 July 2020). "Turks defrauding history with Ottoman monuments narrative". Arab News. Archived from the original on 23 July 2020.
- ^ Al-Torifi, Talal (21 July 2020). "Turkey repeating Ottoman Empire's crimes against Arabs". Arab News. Archived from the original on 5 January 2021.
- ^ Al-Sulami, Mohammed (24 March 2021). "Book by Saudi author unravels Ottoman atrocities in Madinah". Arab News. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021.