Ḍurma

Dhurma is a settlement in a shallow basin west of the Tuwayq escarpment, on the approach to Diriyah in central Najd. Its farms and fortified houses stood along the route into the Saudi heartland. The town is remembered for its fierce resistance to the Egyptian campaign against the first Saudi state.

In 1818 Ibrahim Pasha advanced through al-Washm after securing Qasim. Shakra submitted following bombardment, but Dhurma resisted. Ibrahim's army besieged and stormed the town before continuing eastward toward Diriyah, the Saudi capital in Wadi Hanifa. The fighting and its aftermath left many inhabitants dead or displaced. Within a few years people returned, and Dhurma became one of the places from which Turki ibn Abd Allah sought to restore Saudi authority in Najd.