Piece of History

Saudi Arabia Vs Ottomans

The Ottomans ruled Arabia for a period of 642 years, and their rule, as we have explained in multiple tweets, was merely a dictatorial and exploitative rule that left no civilization.

Although Mecca and Medina were the holiest place of Islam , they were under their hands, and although they were Muslims, they did not care about them as they cared about building their capital Istanbul, they did not even build one single mega mosque like those of Istanbul!

But they took advantage of Mecca and Medina to collect taxes from pilgrims and visitors, then they built a railway from Medina to facilitate the transfer of tax money and its collectors and soldiers

They have no relics in the Arabian Peninsula except for the forts they built to protect the tax collectors, and also as a prison for those who think about not paying tax, as they were famous for the most severe forms of torture that our ancestors still remember their ugliness.

Therefore, the Arabs could not tolerate them at all, as their massacres and the blood they shed were everywhere, as was the case in most of the Arab countries that they arrived at, and this is not restricted to the Arabian Peninsula.

In addition, they spread Sufi mysteries, such as worshiping graves, trees and stones, begging for them and circling around them and collecting money from the fools and weak who want God forgiveness to go with their money to Istanbul

Therefore, the Arabian Peninsula was living its worst days in delusion, backwardness, and horrific fragmentation and domination from the tribe leaders that the Ottomans bought their loyalty to oppress other tribes and nomads

This dire situation continued until the religious reformer Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab appeared in the early 1700s and began his call for true Islam, rejecting religious myths that the Ottomans brought & refusing to pay taxes to such rulers who never care about their people

The Ottomans disturbed by the movement of Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab and called it (Wahhabism) in order to try to portray it as if it was something contingent on Islam while it was nothing but an invitation to correct beliefs & return to true Islam.

Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab was in need of a political and military leader to support his reform movement, and he found this in Muhammad bin Saud, the Emir of Diriyah, a village in Najd in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. Here the first Saudi state was born in 1744

The Arab tribes supported that new state that saved them from the tyranny of the Ottomans, so they expelled the Ottoman garrisons and fought them until they were able to control the entire Arabian Peninsula within only 60 years!

In 1818, the Ottomans launched a brutal war against the Saudi state under the leadership of Ibrahim Pasha, who arrived in Dir'iyah and besieged it for months, then burned it and killed its people and arrested the men of the Al Saud family and the family of bin Abdul Wahhab

After the horrific massacre of Diriyah in the winter of 1818, the Ottomans took those prisoners to Istanbul to be executed and threw their heads in the Bosphorus, so that this would be the end of the first Saudi state.

In 1824, Turki ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad, a grandson of the first Saudi imam Muhammad ibn Saud who had managed to evade capture by the Ottomans started founding the second Saudi state making his capital in #Riyadh

The people of the Arabian Peninsula, who became proud to be attributed to that glorious family, and called (Saudis), supported the new state and the second Saudi state expanded until it reached its maximum expansion in 1850.

The Ottomans realized the strong relationship of the Saudi people with their ruling family, so they decided to support bin Rashid, the governor of the Hail region, north of Arabia, and provided him with money and soldiers to fight the Saudis

In 1891, Bin Rashid was able to occupy Riyadh and deport the last rulers of Al Saud, Abdul-Rahman ibn Faisal, from Najd to Kuwait

In 1902, Abdul Rahman's son, Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud–later to be known as Ibn Saud– with 63 men only was able to Riyadh and he felt that the only way to take the city was to capture Masmak fort.

Because of the loyalty of the people of Riyadh to the Al Saud family, Ibn Saud was able to control Riyadh in one night and declared himself its prince at the age of about 26, then began his dream of uniting the land of his ancestors

After 30 years, in September 1932, Bin Saud fulfilled that dream and expelled the Ottomans and their guardianship and announced the unification of the country under the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and then he was named after with King Abdulaziz, The Founder!

King Abdulaziz & his sons built a great young state, security and prosperity prevailed throughout the country, and the rare strong relationship between the Saudis & their kings became a mystery that astonishes many who did not understand the history of that relationship

The Ottoman Caliphate fell, and the Arabs would never care about the fall of the caliphate, for it was only the specter of destruction, killing and torture.

Thus, the Ottoman bloody history became just painful memories whose horrific stories are transmitted by our ancestors, as the traces of their devastation are still everywhere in the Arab world.

In the early 1970s, Saudi Arabia hosted many Muslim Brotherhood leaders as refugees from Egypt and they contributed to building education and state institutions, the agreement with them was that they would not undertake any political activity.

The Muslim Brotherhood betrayed the trust as they dreamed of restoring the caliphate!
They realized the ugly history of the Ottoman Caliphate, so they decided, in a malicious plan, to fabricate that history, taking advantage of their penetration into the educational system!

To be continued ...