The Wahhabi movement in Nejd now began to assume serious proportions.
Burckhardt landed in Jidda in July 1814, when Mehemet Ali had already driven the Wahhabi invaders out of Hejaz, and was preparing for his farther advance against their stronghold in Nejd.
Burckhardt had hoped in 1815 that the advance of the Egyptian expedition would have given him the opportunity to see something of Nejd, but he had already left Arabia before the overthrow of the Wahhabi power by Ibrahim Pasha had opened Nejd to travellers from Hejaz, and though several European officers accompanied the expedition, none of them left any record of his experience.
The old reservoirs on this route attributed to Zubeda, wife of Harun al Rashid, were destroyed during the Wahhabi raids early in the 19th century, and have not been repaired.
In 1798 a Turkish force was sent from Bagdad into El Hasa, but was compelled to retreat without accomplishing anything, and its discomfiture added much to the renown of the Wahhabi power.