He had ruled parts of the kingdom since , having previously been Emir , Sultan , and King of Nejd , and King of Hejaz. The family were exiled from their residence in the city of Riyadh in Ibn Saud reconquered Riyadh in , starting three decades of conquests that made him the ruler of nearly all of central and north Arabia.
He consolidated his control over the Nejd in , then conquered the Hejaz in He extended his dominions into what later became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Ibn Saud's victory and his support for Islamic revivalists would greatly bolster pan-Islamism across the Islamic world.
He fathered many children , including 45 sons, and all of the subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia as of The Al Saud family had been a power in central Arabia for the previous years. Under the influence and inspiration of Wahhabism, the Saudis had previously attempted to control much of the Arabian Peninsula in the form of the Emirate of Diriyah , the First Saudi State, until its destruction by an Ottoman army in the OttomanβWahhabi War in the early nineteenth century.
Ibn Saud was 15 at the time. Later, the Al Sauds moved to Qatar and stayed there for two months. The Ottoman State allowed them to settle in Kuwait [ 18 ] where they settled and lived for nearly a decade. His father, Abdul Rahman, did not endorse these visits, perceiving Mubarak's lifestyle as immoral and unorthodox.
On 14 November Ibn Saud and some relatives, including his half-brother Muhammad and several cousins amongst them Abdullah bin Jiluwi , set out on a raiding expedition into the Nejd, targeting mainly tribes associated with the Rashidis.
