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The Fall of the First Saudi State
By Mishaal Al-Sudairy
If we want to talk and shed light on the first Saudi state, its wars and its extension from Oman to the deserts of Iraq and the Levant, and from the Arabian Gulf to the Red Sea, in the days of Imam Saud Bin Abdulaziz, then we have to look at the unholy agreement or alliance between the Ottoman Empire and Britain, formed in order to eliminate the Saudi state and control the Arabian Peninsula. The point man in all of this was Mohammed Ali Pasha, the ruler of Egypt.
At the time, Imam Saud’s forces had stormed Karbala and were about to enter Damascus, were it not for the fact that its governor Yusuf Pasha had pledged allegiance to Saud’s ideological approach. As a result, Damascene shops and markets were closed at prayer times, prostitution and alcohol were prohibited, and for the first time a hajj convoy departed without drumming, dancing or flag waving.
As his forces took control of almost the entire west coast of the Arabian Gulf, Imam Saud turned on the British boats and ships, culminating with the capture of the massive merchant ship Minerva. In my view, this was the biggest mistake that Imam Saud made, as this provoked Britain, and instead of being neutral it became an opponent. Britain began to send its warships, one of which alone contained 36 cannons, to bombard forts and sink boats in the region.
Then Britain actually began to supply gold and equipment to Mohammed Ali, as did Astana, as the Egyptian historian Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti indicates when he writes: “The supply convoys ran uninterrupted from Egypt to Yanbu”.
