Ottoman sultan Mahmud III, appalled at the…

Ottoman sultan Mahmud III, appalled at the At-Ta'if slaughter and the Saudi capture of the holy cities but preoccupied in other directions, assigns the task of crushing the Wahhabi “heretics” to Muhammad (Mehmet) 'Ali Pasha, the virtually independent viceroy of Egypt.

Acknowledging the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan and at his command, Muhammad Ali dispatches an army of twenty thousand men (including two thousand horses) under the command of his son Tusun, a youth of seventeen; the Egyptians land on the Hejaz coast.

By the end of 1811, Tusun has received reinforcements and captured Medina after a prolonged siege.