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 Ainah, 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 Ainah, 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