Ottoman–Saudi War

The Ottoman–Saudi War began after the first Saudi state and its Wahhabi allies took Mecca and Medina, challenging Ottoman religious and political authority. Sultan Mahmud II commissioned Muhammad Ali of Egypt to recover the Hejaz.

Egyptian forces under Tusun and Ibrahim Pasha campaigned through western and central Arabia. Medina and Mecca were retaken, and the Saudi capital of Diriyah fell in 1818 after a prolonged campaign shaped by desert logistics, tribal alliances and siege warfare.

The conflict provides the later setting for Rosemary Sutcliff’s Blood and Sand, whose historical protagonist Thomas Keith entered Muhammad Ali’s service, converted to Islam and rose within the army campaigning in Arabia.