The Wahhabis

State Mosque - Doha

Muhammad ibn 'Abd al Wahhb founded the Wahhabi movement in Central Arabia with ideological purity at its core posing the next threat to Ottoman rule in the Arab world. His schooling condemned all mystical practices.

He was exiled from his home town of 'Uyayna for ordering the public execution of a woman for adultery. He called for a return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet and his successors, the caliphs. The tenet of there being only one God was central to his beliefs. Saints were not to be prayed to or venerated. This horrified mainstream Sunni Muslim society. He hated the mysticism of Sufism. By declaring most of Ottoman Islam as polytheistic, the Wahhabis were on a collision course with the empire.

In 1798 the governor of Baghdad sent 10,000 troops to fight the Wahhabis in Wahhabi territory but they were surrounded and forced to negotiate a truce.

In 1802 the Wahhabis attacked the Shiite city of Karbala where the mosque venerated the grandson of the Prophet Muammad. They slaughtered the inhabitants and descrated the tomb of the imam causing widespead revulsion across the Ottoman world. However, the geography of Central Arabia made the Wahhabis unassailable. Mecca and Medina were taken by the Wahhabis. Sunni Muslims were banned from Mecca due to their use of music and opulence during worship. Ottoman's were denied access to Mecca even though the sultan was defender of the faith and protector of holy cities.

The Ottomans demanded their provincial governors in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo do something about it but the desert made it logistically impossible to achieve anything. The governor of Egypt, Muammed 'Ali Pasha had the ability but his attention was drawn elsewhere.