Muhammad bin Saud and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab found the Emirate of Diriyah

Story: 1744 C.E.  |  Last updated: January 1, 1744

In the Najdi town of Diriyah, in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, a handshake between a political ruler and a religious reformer set in motion one of the most consequential state-building experiments in the history of the Arab world. The year was 1744 C.E. The agreement between Muhammad bin Saud Al Muqrin and the scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab would eventually give rise to the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — though neither man could have known it at the time.

What the evidence shows

• Emirate of Diriyah: The founding pact of 1744 C.E. established a polity in Najd that combined political authority under the House of Saud with a religious reform movement propagating Wahhabi doctrine.
• First Saudi state: The emirate expanded rapidly, eventually controlling Najd, parts of the eastern Arabian coast, the highlands of Asir, and — briefly — the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
• Wahhabi movement: The religious framework created in 1744 C.E. proved more durable than the state itself — surviving the emirate’s military defeat in 1818 C.E. and shaping subsequent Saudi political identity to the present day.

A pact in the desert

The town of Diriyah sits in the Wadi Hanifah valley, northwest of what is now Riyadh. In the eighteenth century, it was a modest settlement — one of many competing centers of power in a fragmented Najd. What made 1744 C.E. different was the alliance it formalized.

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had been developing a reform theology that called for a return to what he understood as original Islamic practice, stripping away centuries of what he viewed as corrupted additions. He had been expelled from other towns for his views. Muhammad bin Saud offered him shelter and, crucially, political backing.

Their agreement was direct: Ibn Abd al-Wahhab would provide religious legitimacy to the House of Saud’s rule; the House of Saud would use its military and political power to spread the reformist doctrine. It was, in essence, a compact between religion and governance that would define the Arabian Peninsula’s political character for centuries.

Rapid expansion across Arabia

The alliance moved quickly. The House of Saud and its allies conquered Najd and extended their reach along the eastern coast from Kuwait down toward the northern borders of Oman. The highlands of Asir came under their influence as well.

Muhammad bin Saud died in 1765 C.E., passing leadership to his son Abdul-Aziz. By 1803 C.E., forces loyal to Abdul-Aziz’s son Saud bin Abdulaziz had taken Taif, then Mecca, then Medina — all cities that had been under Ottoman suzerainty since 1517 C.E. This was a direct challenge to Ottoman imperial authority over the two holiest sites in Islam.

For roughly seven decades, the Emirate of Diriyah had grown from a small town compact into the dominant force across a vast swath of the Arabian Peninsula — a remarkable arc for what began as a localized political-religious agreement.

The end of the first state — and the beginning of something larger

The Ottoman Empire’s response was decisive. The powerful viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, was tasked with dismantling the Saudi state. His son Ibrahim Pasha led Ottoman forces into the heart of Najd, capturing town after town. In the winter of 1818 C.E., Ibrahim placed Diriyah under siege until it surrendered.

Many members of the House of Saud were shipped to Egypt and Constantinople. The last ruler, Abdullah I, was executed in the Ottoman capital, his death marking the formal end of the first Saudi state.

But the movement survived. Just six years later, in 1824 C.E., a second Saudi state was founded. It lasted until 1891 C.E. From that lineage, through further political evolution and consolidation, the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia emerged — formally unified in 1932 C.E. under Abdulaziz Ibn Saud.

In 2022 C.E., the Saudi government officially designated 1727 C.E. — the year Muhammad I assumed leadership of the Sheikhdom of Diriyah — as the formal beginning of the Saudi state, and declared February 22 as Saudi Founding Day. This positions the state’s origins 17 years before the 1744 C.E. pact most scholars cite as the founding moment, reflecting how founding narratives are always, in part, political choices.

Lasting impact

The 1744 C.E. pact between Muhammad bin Saud and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab established a template for state-building that proved uniquely resilient. The intertwining of political authority and religious legitimacy in a single compact — what historians sometimes call the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance — shaped not just the three Saudi states but the governance philosophy of the modern kingdom.

The Wahhabi movement, now more broadly termed Salafism, spread well beyond the Arabian Peninsula during the twentieth century, influencing Muslim communities and reform movements across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. This theological reach was made possible in part by the original political infrastructure the 1744 C.E. emirate created.

The historic ruins of Diriyah are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized as the birthplace of the Saudi state and as a remarkable example of Najdi architecture — the mud-brick fortresses and palaces of At-Turaif district still visible in the valley where the founding pact was made.

Blindspots and limits

The Emirate of Diriyah’s expansion carried real costs. In 1801 C.E., forces under Abdul-Aziz attacked the Shia holy city of Karbala in Ottoman Iraq, destroying shrines and killing more than 5,000 civilians — an act that deepened sectarian wounds that persist across the region to this day. The Wahhabi movement’s hostility to Shia practice and to Sufi traditions was not merely theological; it was enforced through military force.

The founding narrative of the emirate, like most state founding narratives, also tends to center the rulers and the scholar — the named men who signed the pact. The farmers, traders, tribal communities, and ordinary Najdi people who navigated these shifts in power, or resisted them, are largely absent from the historical record.

Read more

For more on this story, see: Emirate of Diriyah — Wikipedia

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• The Good News for Humankind archive on Saudi Arabia

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