The Arabs: A History

The slaughter, the desecration of Husayn’s tomb and mosque, and the plundering of the town established the Wahhabis’ violent reputation in Arab public opinion. The brutality of the attack and the killing of so many unarmed men, women, and children in a place of worship provoked widespread revulsion across the Ottoman world. The residents of towns and villages in southern Iraq, eastern Syria, and the Hijaz turned to the Ottoman government to shield them from this grave threat. The Ottomans faced great difficulty in confronting the Wahhabi challenge. The reform movement was based in Central Arabia, beyond some of the most remote Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman troops had to march for months from Anatolia to reach the borderlands of the Najd. As the governor of Baghdad had already discovered, it was very difficult to fight the Wahhabis on their own terrain. Just keeping large armies supplied with food and water proved a tremendous challenge for the Ottomans in such a hostile environment. The Ottoman government found itself powerless to contain the Wahhabi menace. The Wahhabis next struck at the very heart of Ottoman legitimacy by attacking the holy cities of Islam—Mecca and Medina. In March 1803, the Saudi commander Sa‘ud ibn ’Abd al-’Aziz advanced on the Hijaz; by April, he entered the city of Mecca. His army met no resistance and promised no violence. They first explained their beliefs to the residents of Mecca and then imposed their new laws: silk clothes and smoking were ba

In 1807 a Syrian caravan without the mahmal and musicians sought entry to Mecca and was nevertheless denied. With or without the mahmal, the Wahhabis believed Ottoman Muslims to be no better than polytheists and denied them entry to Islam’s holiest places. The most important of the sultan’s imperial titles emphasized his role as the defender of the faith and protector of the holy cities of the Hijaz. The Wahhabis’ a

Although the Ottomans were quick to dismiss the Wahhabis as savage Bedouins of the desert, they knew it would be difficult to defeat the movement. As modern wars in Kuwait and Iraq have shown, great powers face huge logistical problems in fighting wars in Arabia. Troops would have to be sent on sailing ships and marched great distances overland, in terrible heat, with long and vulnerable supply lines. They would be forced to fight on the Wahhabis’ own terrain. And the Wahhabis were zealots, convinced that they were doing God’s work. There was always the risk that Ottoman soldiers might respond to the Wahhabis’ powerful message and cross over to the other side. There was no question of sending a campaign force all the way from Istanbul to the Hijaz. The Ottomans lacked both the financial and military resources for such an enterprise. Instead, they made repeated demands of their provincial governors in Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo. The governor in Baghdad was fighting continued Wahhabi attacks in his southern provinces and had yet to succeed in repelling the raiders. The Kurdish governor in Damascus, Kanj Yusuf Pasha, promised Istanbul to reopen the pilgrimage route. However, he lacked the resources to undertake such a campaign. As the Syrian chronicler Mikhayil Mishaqa observed, Kanj Yusuf Pasha “could neither send enough soldiers nor supply them with enough ammunition to drive the Wahhabi from the Hejaz, which was a forty-day march away [from Damascus] through burning sands without food or water along the way for themselves or their beasts.”26

There was only one person who could mobilize the necessary forces and had demonstrated sufficient ability to defeat the Wahhabis and restore the Hijaz to the Ottoman Empire. Since 1805, Egypt had been ruled by a governor of extraordinary ability. Yet the talent and ambition that so recommended him to address the Wahhabi challenge would soon be turned against the Ottoman state. Indeed, Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha proved the culmination of a dangerous trend, of provincial leaders challenging Istanbul’s rule in the Arab provinces. Muhammad ’Ali proved strong enough to threaten the overthrow of the Ottoman dynasty itself.

CHAPTER 3

The Egyptian Empire of Muhammad ’Ali

In June 1798, British ships appeared without warning off the coast of Egypt. A landing party rowed ashore to be received by the governor and notables of what was then the modest port town of Alexandria. The British warned of an impending French invasion and offered their assistance. The governor was indignant: “This is the sultan’s land. Neither the French nor anyone else has access to it. So leave us alone!”1 The very suggestion that an inferior nation like France posed a threat to Ottoman domains, or that Ottoman subjects might turn to another inferior nation like Britain for assistance, clearly offended the notables of Alexandria. The British rowed back to their tall ships and withdrew. No one gave the matter any further thought—for the moment. The people of Alexandria awoke on the morning of July 1 to find their harbor filled with men-o’-war and their shores invaded. Napoleon Bonaparte had arrived at the head of a massive invasion force, the first European army to set foot in the Middle East since the Crusades. Outnumbered and outgu