Diriyyah
The Pact at Diriyyah
A scholar and an emir in a Najdi oasis, 1744
1157 AH / 1744 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Diriyyah, Wadi Hanifa, Najd
24.7337, 46.5755 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
In 1744 (1157 AH) at the oasis town of Diriyyah in Wadi Hanifa, in the Najd of central Arabia, the scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (rahimahu Allah) and the local emir Muhammad ibn Saud entered into a pact that founded the first Saudi state, the Emirate of Diriyyah. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was a Hanbali scholar from the Najdi town of al-Uyayna who called for what he held to be a return to the pure monotheism of tawhid and the removal of practices he judged to be innovation or to compromise the worship due to God alone. Opposition forced him from al-Uyayna, and he found refuge at Diriyyah. The two Najdi chroniclers, Husayn ibn Ghannam in his Tarikh Najd (Rawdat al-Afkar wa-l-Afham) and Uthman ibn Bishr in Unwan al-Majd fi Tarikh Najd, record how the emir received the scholar and the two reached terms: Ibn Abd al-Wahhab would give the religious leadership of a call to tawhid and the Sunna, and Muhammad ibn Saud would give it his protection, his authority and his arms, the two binding themselves by a mutual oath of support in the manner of a bay'a. Ibn Bishr preserves the often-quoted exchange in which the emir pledged his hand and his sword to the dawah and the scholar pledged that he would not leave him. From this small mud-brick town the alliance of the house of Saud and the teaching of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab spread across Najd and, over the following decades, far beyond it. The movement, called Wahhabiyya by others and described by its adherents as a call to tawhid and the Sunna, has been received in markedly different ways within the wider Muslim world, embraced by some as a revival and sharply criticised by others; the assessment of its theology lies outside the scope of this scene, which records the historical pact and the state it founded. The first Saudi state grew powerful enough that the Ottoman government eventually turned against it, and it was destroyed by an Egyptian expedition under Muhammad Ali Pasha, which captured and razed Diriyyah in 1818. This scene depicts the moment of the agreement itself: a circle of robed men gathered on a carpeted rooftop terrace of the Najdi oasis town, the written pledge laid out between them and the emir's horse waiting at the edge, rather than any portrait of the two men.
What you see
On a carpeted rooftop terrace a small circle of robed men sits face to face around papers spread on the rug, the two leading figures clasping the moment of agreement. This is not a feast or a court audience but a compact being struck between two parties.
Behind the gathering a tall many-storeyed tower-house of sun-dried earth rises in stepped tiers, its walls pierced by rows of small triangular vent slots and topped by stepped crenellations. This is the Najdi mud-brick palace manner, plain and angular, unlike the cut stone of the Hijaz or the Levant.
The town clings to one side of a rocky valley whose floor runs green with date palms while bare dunes roll off to the horizon on the other side. This is an oasis deep in the interior of a great peninsula, the Najd, not the coast, the Hijaz or the green Sahel.
Loose sheets and a bound volume lie open on the carpet at the centre of the circle, the written word rather than arms or a throne placed between the two parties. The meeting turns on a pledge set down in words, an oath of mutual support.
Long-beaked brass coffee pots and rounded clay vessels stand on the rug before the seated men, the dallah and the gear of Najdi hospitality. A guest has been received and a host's protection extended.
At the edge of the terrace an attendant holds a saddled horse beside a lone date palm, the desert glare of the open Najd beyond. The mount of a ruler waits while the men inside bind themselves to a common cause.
A scholar's call meets a ruler's authority in a small mud-brick desert town, sealing a pact that joins a programme of religious reform to political and military power. From this oath grows a new state, the seed of the first Saudi emirate.
Further reading & cross-references
Husayn ibn Ghannam, Tarikh Najd (Rawdat al-Afkar wa-l-Afham) (late 18th c.): The contemporary chronicler of the movement and its earliest historian, writing from within Najd. The primary narrative source for the career of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the pact at Diriyyah. Sympathetic to the movement, so read with that in mind. Confidence high for the sequence.
Uthman ibn Bishr, Unwan al-Majd fi Tarikh Najd (19th c.): The standard Najdi history of the first and second Saudi states, building on Ibn Ghannam. Preserves the often-quoted exchange of the mutual oath (bay'a) between the emir and the scholar at Diriyyah. Used for the founding pact, the expansion, and the fall of Diriyyah in 1818. Confidence high for the Najdi narrative.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Kitab al-Tawhid (18th c.): The scholar's central work, the primary statement of the reform call on which the mission rested. Used to characterise the programme, not to adjudicate it. Confidence high as a witness to the teaching.
David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (I.B. Tauris, 2006): Standard modern academic history of the movement and its alliance with the house of Saud. Used for the framing of the pact, the chronology and the varied reception. Confidence high.
Michael Cook, On the Origins of Wahhabism (JRAS, 1992) and Madawi al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, 2002): Used for the source-critical study of the early accounts and the political history of the first Saudi state and its fall. Confidence high.
Ruins of the at-Turaif district of Diriyyah (extant, UNESCO World Heritage): The surviving mud-brick ruins of the Saudi capital, razed in 1818, constrain the Najdi adobe architecture and the oasis setting. Confidence high for the material setting.
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