HISTORY OF THE M AHABEES. 260 



had embraced the reformed doctrines. It had also 

 assumed a new political condition ; and instead of 

 being divided as formerly into a number of small 

 independent territories or clanships, perpetually at 

 war with each other, it became the seat of a formi- 

 dable power, under a chief whose authority, like 

 that of the first caliphs, was supreme both in civil 

 and spiritual affairs. Yet hostilities had not been 

 declared ; nor did the Wahabees encroach upon the 

 rights of the two governments nearest to them, — 

 Bagdad and Hejaz. The pilgrim-caravans passed 

 through their land without molestation. They were 

 even on friendly terms with Serour, sheriff of Mecca, 

 ?ind, in 1781, obtained leave to perform their devo- 

 tions at the Kaaba. Their increase of power seems 

 at first to have excited the jealousy of Sheriff Gha- 

 teb ; and within a few years after his accession to 

 the government he had declared open war against 

 them, which was carried on in the Bedouin style, 

 interrupted only by a few shortlived truces. Being 

 then in regular correspondence with the Porte, he 

 left no means untried for prejudicing the Ottoman 

 government against the sectarians. He represented 

 them as infidels ; and their treatment of the Turkish 

 hajjis did not remove this unfavorable opinion. 

 Similar accounts were given by the pashas of Bag- 

 dad, who had seen the neighbouring country assailed 

 almost annually by these invaders, who exacted a 

 capitation-tax from all Persian devotees that crossed 

 the desert. 



No place on the eastern border seemed better 

 adapted than Bagdad for pushing the war into the 

 heart of the enemy's territory ; and, in 1797, Soly- 

 :man Pasha despatched an expedition to attack De- 

 raiah, consisting of 4000 or 5000 Turkish troops, 

 and twice that number of allied Arabs, under the 

 command of his lieutenant-governor. Instead of 

 advancing directly to the capital, they laid siege to 

 the fortified citadel of Hassa, which resisted their 



