THEIR ORIGIN, HISTORY, TENETS, AND INFLUENCE. 315 
the inhabitants massacred, and spoils of immense value were 
taken from the shrine and put into the Wahabi treasury. 
Flushed with the success of this campaign against the 
idolatrous Moslems of the north, the Wahabis now turned 
toward Mecca. Taif, the fertile garden-city near to Mecca, 
was subdued with great bloodshed, and in a few months 
Mecca itself came into Wahabi hands. Ghalib fled to Jiddah, 
which was the only place in all Hejaz that held out against 
their invasions. To Saood, the son of Abd-ul-Aziz, was 
given the governorship of Mecca, and in a noteworthy letter 
he dictated to the Porte the terms on whichalone the annual 
pilgrimage would be permitted. In 1804 Saood conquered 
Medinah, treating the inhabitants with great severity and 
plundering all the riches which had accumulated for 
centuries around the prophet’s tomb. The tomb itself barely 
escaped being utterly demolished by the desert iconoclasts, 
who preached a thorough reformation and butchered all 
Turks as idolaters. From that time until 1811 the Wahabi 
armies made incursions into Turkish territory as far as 
Damascus and Anah on the Euphrates. The Wahabis on the 
Persian Gulf began to use their new religion as a cloak for 
piracy, and two expeditions sent from Bombay broke up the 
robber-nest of Ras-el-Kheymah, and taught the zealots a 
lesson never since forgotten. The so-called pirate-coast is 
now under British protection, and the inhabitants, although 
still Wahabis, are friendly to Great Britain. 
Meanwhile (since the pilgrimage to the holy cities was 
limited to those who embraced the Wahabi reform), many 
complaints reached the Sultan of Turkey. After some futile 
efforts of his own, he entrusted the task of conquering the 
Wahabis and re-taking Mecca to Mohammed Ali Pasha, his 
already over-powerful Egyptian vassal. 
Tousson Beg, the son of Mohammed Ali, commanded the 
first expedition, landing at Yenbo, the port of Medina, in 
1811. By the end of the following year Medina was taken. 
The troops made a fearful massacre of the Wahabi garrison 
and the inhabitants, and treacherously murdered even those 
1,500 to whom they had promised safe conduct. |The 
intrigues of Mohammed Ali had meanwhile detached the 
Shereef Ghalib from the Wahabi cause; and Jiddah was 
occupied by the Turks in 1813. Mohammed Ali now came 
over in person, collected a large army, and in 1815 advanced 
toward Yemen. Shortly after Gunfidah, a small town on 
the Red Sea, was taken by the army, discontent broke out 
