Page 472 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

428

WAHABEES.

This sect was founded about the year 1615, by an Arab of the name
of Shaikh Mahomed, the son of Abdool Wahab, whose name they have
taken. Shaikh Mahomed connected himself, in the attempt to reform
the religion of his country, with Ebin Saood, the Prince of Deriah, the
capital of the province of Nujd. Through the efforts of the saint, and
the aid of the temporal power of Ebin Saood, and his son and successor
Abdool Azeez, the religion of the Wahabees was established all over
the peninsula of Arabia. The leading principle of the sect is to destroy
and plunder all who differ from them ; and those Mahomedans who do
not adopt their creed were represented as far less entitled to mercy than
either Jews or Christians. The first mention made of this in the
Bombay records is in the year 1787.
2. Abdool Wahab, the Shaikh, inhabited the Desert about eight
days* journey westward of the town of Kateef, on the Arabian shore of
the Persian Gulf.
3. Urged by the tenets of their religion, they had long threatened
to destroy all those who acknowledged and followed the religious
precepts of the Prophet. The Montific, Beni Khalid, and Anisa Arabs
collected in that year a large force, under the command of Shaikh
Tweney, of the first-mentioned tribe, and proceeded on an expedition
against the Wahabees; it was not attended, however, with any
advantage.
4. The Wahabee Shaikh had before 1795, in prosecution of his
ambitious views, taken Lahsa, annihilated the
a. d. 1797.
power of the Beni Khalid Arabs, and threatened
Bussora. The fears of the Turkish Government of Bagdad were ex­
cited by these events.
5. An Arab force was detached by the Pacha against the Wahabees,
under the command of Shaikh Tweney, who, having been killed in an
action on the 3rd July, led to the failure of the expedition. Prepa­
rations were however made by the Pacha for the prosecution of the war
during the course of the winter.