Within just a few years, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb seems to have been able to convince most of the people of al-ʿĀriḍ that the Islam they had been practicing was shirk, and the movement continued to grow. Then, by a stroke of luck, he managed to form an alliance with the leader of al-Dirʿiyya, Muḥammad ibn Suʿūd, who offered him protection and agreed to promote his doctrine as the basis of his emirate’s expansion. Gradually, the minor emirate developed into the first Saudi state.
