Mecca scholarship governed by the Hashemite Sharifs. In 930, Mecca was attacked and sacked by Qarmatians, a millenarian Ismaili Muslim sect led by Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī and centered in eastern Arabia. The Black Death pandemic hit Mecca in 1349. In 1517, the Sharif, Barakat bin Muhammed, acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Caliph but retained a great degree of local autonomy. In 1803 the city was captured by the First Saudi State, which held Mecca until 1813. This was a massive blow to the prestige of the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, which had exercised sovereignty over the holy city since 1517. The Ottomans
Battle of Mecca (1916) 1916 most of the Ottoman army had gone to Taif, a hill station in Arabia accompanying Ghalib Pasha, the governor of Hijaz. Only 1,000 men were left to defend Mecca. Many of them were asleep in barracks in the valley on June 10 when the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali fired a shot into the air from the window of the Hashemite palace signaling the beginning of the Arab Revolt. Hearing this his 5000 supporters started firing on Turkish troops in three fortresses overlooking the holy city, and at the Jirwall barracks on Jeddah road. The attack upon the