First World War & The Arab Revolt
On 23 October 1916 at Hamra in the Wadi Safra, the first encounter took place between Faisal and Captain T. E. Lawrence, a relatively junior British intelligence officer from Cairo. Lawrence already had a vision of an independent post-war Arabian state, and knew it was essential to find precisely the right man to lead the Arab forces to achieve this.
With the help of Lawrence, Faisal sided with the British army and organised the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, helping to end the Caliphate. After a long siege he conquered Medina, defeating the defense organized by Fakhri Pasha.
Some of Faisal's critics considered fighting alongside Christians as a betrayal of Islam; this motivated Iqbal to write against him. Though Faisal was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Arab nationalism and independence, not religion, was his main motivation. Iqbal wrote in one of his poems about King Faisal as, "What a beautiful message did Sanësâ give to King Faisal By descent you are Hijazi, but by heart Hijazi you could not be"
Faisal also worked with the Allies during World War I in their conquest of Greater Syria and the capture of Damascus, where he became part of a new Arab government in 1918.
Read more about this topic: Faisal I Of Iraq
Famous quotes containing the words world, war, arab and/or revolt:
“... the trouble is that most people in this country think that we can stay out of wars in other parts of the world. Even if we stay out of it and save our own skins, we cannot escape the conditions which will undoubtedly exist in other parts of the world and which will react against us.... We are all of us selfish ... and if we can save our own skins, the rest of the world can go. The best we can do is to realize nobody can save his own skin alone. We must all hang together.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German Empire and the old Apostolic Austrian one. It ... gave votes and seats in Parliament to women.... But if society can be reformed only by the accidental results of horrible catastrophes ... what hope is there for mankind in them? The war was a horror and everybody is the worse for it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“Distorting hackneyed words in hackneyed songs
He turns revolt into a style, prolongs
The impulse to a habit of the time.”
—Thom Gunn (b. 1929)