The Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca ruled the Hejaz (Western Arabia) region starting in the 900s. The Mamluk Empire from Egypt had control over the Sharifs in the 1300s. In 1517, the Ottoman Empire from Turkey conquered the Mamluks. The Ottomans took control in the Hejaz, Yemen, and other parts of Arabia. However, European countries wanted to control more of Arabia, so they fought wars against the Ottomans. Europeans, mainly the Portuguese, won some cities on the coast in the 1500s and 1600s. Persia won control in Oman, but Oman also built its own empire. In the 1700s, a new form of Islam called Wahhabism spread to nomads in central Arabia. In the 1800s Wahhabis led by the House of al-Saud went to war against the Ottoman Empire. Britain helped the Wahhabis and gave them countries along the Persian Gulf. Britain also took part of Yemen into the British Empire. In World War I, the Allied Powers fought against the Ottomans. The Ottomans lost the war, so the Allied Powers broke up their empire into smaller countries. In 1932 Ibn Saud, from the House of al-Saud, founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 