Arabic Authors | Page 7

then representative
of the Abbaside Khalifs (the family having been dethroned by the
Mughals at Baghdad in A.D. 1258) to Egypt, and recognised him as
possessing spiritual authority alone, but nothing else. From that time
until the taking of Egypt by Sultan Selim I. in A.D. 1517, the Abbaside
Khalifs retained the spiritual power first under the Baharite, and then
under the Circassian or Borgite Mamlooks. When Egypt became a
Turkish pashalic, Selim, the conqueror, compelled the representative of
the Abbaside Khalifs, by name Al-Motawukkel, to leave Cairo and
reside in Constantinople; and on his death the Ottoman Sultans
assumed the title of Khalif, which they hold to this day, and are
recognised by the Sunnis as the head of the Muhammadan religion, and
the successors of Muhammad.
As regards Syria and Palestine (two countries more or less closely
connected, owing to their proximity and absence of distinct and defined
boundaries), on the termination of the rule of the Omaiyides at
Damascus in A.D. 750, they remained nominally under the Abbasides
till A.D. 969, when Syria was conquered by the Fatimites, who were
succeeded by the Seljuks, who captured Damascus about A.D. 1075,
and Antioch A.D. 1085. The struggles with the Crusaders commenced
in A.D. 1096, and continued until Saladin's famous victory at Hattin in
1187, when he became master of nearly the whole of Syria and
Palestine. Fighting still went on in these countries between the Franks
and others until A.D. 1518, when Selim I. conquered the country and

incorporated it with the Turkish Empire. No Arab prince has since
reigned in Egypt or Syria, though these countries have always exercised
certain influences over Arabia.
In Arabia itself, towards the end of the tenth century and the beginning
of the eleventh, A.D., the Karmathians had risen in revolt, and detached
that country from the Abbaside dynasty to such an extent that she
returned almost to her primitive independence. Indeed, it may be said
that, in the whole of Arabia, the Hijaz, with the Haram, or sacred
territory of Mecca, under the Shariff, or nobles, the lineal descendants
of the tribe of Koraish, alone retained some kind of constituted
authority, and paid allegiance sometimes to the government of Baghdad,
and sometimes to that of Egypt.
As already stated above, in A.D. 1517 the Turkish Sultan Selim I.
conquered Egypt, and obtained from the last real, or supposed
surviving, Abbaside kinsman of the Prophet a formal investiture of the
Muhammadan Khalifate. This was more religious than political in its
bearing, but still many of the tribes in Arabia offered their allegiance to
the Ottoman Government. From that time the Turks began their
dealings with Arabia, which remained in a sort of independence under
their own tribal Shaikhs, more or less according to the circumstances of
different districts, until the rise of the Wahhabi movement, about the
middle of the eighteenth century of our era.
The Wahhabi reform movement requires special mention. It began in
Arabia about A.D. 1740. The reformer and originator of the movement
was Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, born at the town of Aïnah, in the
centre of the Nejd district, A.D. 1691. He died in A.D. 1787, aged
ninety-six. After some years spent in travel and in study, he began his
preaching about A.D. 1731. Driven from Aïnah, his native place, as
Muhammad was driven from Mecca, Abdul Wahhab established
himself at ad-Diriyyah, where Muhammad bin Saood, the Shaikh of a
sub-tribe of the Anizeh, gave him shelter, and eventually married his
daughter. By preaching and fighting, his followers increased in number,
and his reforms spread throughout the Nejd district, and many converts
were made by him and his successors.

In A.D. 1797 a Turkish army from Baghdad attacked the Wahhabis, but
were beaten, and two years later Saood II. took and plundered Kerbela,
Taif, Mecca, and other places, and seems to have retained his power
and his government for several years.
In A.D. 1811 the Turks, who had quite lost their authority in Arabia,
requested Muhammad Ali of Egypt to put down the movement, and
reconquer the country. The first expedition, commanded by his son
Tussun, in its attempt to take Madinah, was nearly annihilated, but
succeeded the following year. Later on the campaign was conducted by
Muhammad Ali in person, and afterwards by his adopted son Ibrahim
Pasha, with considerable success. The final stronghold, ad-Diriyyah,
was captured in A.D. 1818, the Wahhabi chief captured, and sent first
to Egypt and then to Constantinople, where he was beheaded in
December of that year.
The Egyptian occupation of Arabia was followed by a renewal of the
Wahhabi movement, which eventually succeeded, in A.D. 1842, in
driving out the Egyptians, occupied as they were at the time with
fighting the Turks in Syria and Anatolia. Wahhabism was then
re-established in some