Islam and the Politics of Secularism by Ardıc̦ Nurullah

Author:Ardıc̦, Nurullah.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-136-48984-6
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

The Arab Revolt (1916–1918)

A member of the Hashemite tribe in Mecca, Hussein ibn ‘Ali (1853–1931), was appointed as sharif of Mecca (1908–1916) by the Young Turks who had deposed Sultan Abdülhamid in 1909. However, the sharif, who had lived in Istanbul in exile for 15 years under Abdülhamid II’s close watch, was not very loyal to the CUP, either. He was alienated by the centralization policies of the Unionists, who established their iron rule in Istanbul after 1908. These policies tended to weaken local rulers, including the sharif himself, which, coupled with Hussein’s dynastic ambitions, eroded his loyalty to the imperial center (Kayali 1997: 147ff). However, he kept his own intentions secret virtually until the last moment: In May 1915 he sent his son, Faysal, to the CUP leader and the governor and commander of Syria, Cemal Pasha (whose harsh treatment of Arab notables is the source of Arab nationalist hatred of him to this day), to declare “his family’s readiness to shed its blood for the Ottoman Caliphate.” The sharif himself had in February written to Enver Pasha, then the deputy commander-in-chief, to assure him that he would protect the Caliphate’s rights in the Holy Land against the enemy. On July 10, just four days before he began to negotiate his independence with Britain via his infamous correspondence with McMahon (see below), the Sharif made a similar promise and requested arms and money from the government for his “jihad” against the British (Kayalı 1997: 190–192).

By mid-1915, then, he had planned to secede from the Ottoman Empire and to rule the Arab world by declaring himself the “king of the Hijaz,” which he did in 1916, and ultimately as the “caliph of the Muslims,” which he did in 1924 – though he was not recognized by the Muslim world. During this process, he was always in contact with the British, whose anti-Caliphate policy in the Middle East fit his plans (Westrate 1992). At the beginning of World War I, as mentioned above, Britain and the other Allies were concerned that the Ottomans would support Germany in the event of a war. When it became clear that the Ottoman Empire would indeed join the German side in the war, Sharif Hussein, who was already semi-independent, stood out as the best option for Britain’s hopes of undermining the Caliphate.

Though he was officially an Ottoman dignitary in Arabia, the sharif was less powerful than the Turkish governor of the Hijaz. He was not able to mobilize a large portion of the population in the region against Istanbul, also because he had two contenders: (the Wahhabi leader) Abdulaziz Ibn Saud of Najd and Ibn Rashid of Jabal Shammar. With the start of World War I, Ibn Rashid sided with the Ottomans (and the Germans) and the other two supported the British. In late October 1914, when the Ottomans entered the war, British War Secretary Lord Kitchener promised Sharif Hussein independence and guaranteed him protection from “external aggression” if the Arabs supported Britain in the war (Paris 2003: 23).

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