Saud bin Abdul Aziz bin Muhammad Al Saud [1803-1814]
After the death of Abdul Aziz, his son, Saud, ruled from 1803 (1218 AH) through 1814 (1230 AH). In 1803 (1218 AH), Saud bin Abdul Aziz, provoked by the Sharif of Makkah, marched on the Holy City and captured Mecca and Medina in 1803-1804. There he and his men performed Hajj and cleansed the holy places of all traces of what they considered idolatry. Although the Wahhabis spared Mecca and Medina the destruction they visited upon Karbala, they destroyed monuments and grave markers that were being used for prayer to Muslim saints and for votive rituals, which the Wahhabis consider acts of polytheism. The Wahhabis destroyed tombs in the cemetery of the holy men in Medina, which was a locus for votive offerings and prayers to the saints. In destroying the objects that were the focus of these rituals, the Wahhabis sought to imitate Muhammad's destruction of pagan idols when he reentered Mecca in 628.
The Saudi Kingdom now stretched from Nejd to Hasa in the west and south towards Najran. Such an increase in authority was not to pass unchallenged. The forces of Saud bin Abdul Aziz then invaded Iraq and Syria and were only driven out by a prolonged campaign led by Egyptian forces at Istanbul's behest.
Capturing the Hijaz brought the Al Saud empire into conflict with the rest of the Islamic world. The popular and Shia practices to which the Wahhabis objected were important to other Muslims, the majority of whom were alarmed that shrines were destroyed and access to the holy cities restricted. Moreover, rule over the Hijaz was an important symbol. The Ottoman Turks, the most important political force in the Islamic world at the time, refused to concede rule over the Hijaz to local leaders.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Ottomans were not in a position to recover the Hijaz, because the empire had been in decline for more than two centuries, and its forces were weak and overextended. Accordingly, the Ottomans delegated the recapture of the Hijaz to their most ambitious client, Muhammad Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt who was the semi-independent commander of their garrison in Egypt. Muhammad Ali undertook to dismantle the work of Muhammad bin Saud, his son and grandson, and to put an end to the emerging nation. Saud bin Abdul Aziz died in 1814 (1230 AH), shortly before the capture of Mecca. Muhammad Ali handed the job to his son Tursun, who led a force to the Hijaz in 1816. Muhammad Ali later joined his son to command the force in person.
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