Today I want to talk about someone who almost changed the history of the Middle East for the better, but unfortunately all too many Arabs did not heed his advice.
Faisal al-Hashimi was born on May 20, 1885 in Mecca, the holy city of Islam. His father, Hussein bin Ali, was the governor of the holy city. In theory he worked for his Ottoman Turkish overlords in Istanbul, but he, like many other Arabs, dreamed of an independent Arab nation, free from Turkish rule. In 1913 Faisal was elected to the recently created Ottoman Parliament, and World War One broke out a year later. But by 1916 he had a meeting that changed the course of his life.
While on a trip to Damascus, Faisal met a British Army officer named T.E. Lawrence, who persuaded him to raise an Arab revolt against the Turks. Faisal, fatefully, agreed.
With Lawrence's help, Faisal and his Arab rebels captured Mecca, Medina, and Damascus, kicking the Turks out of the Arab lands forever. Part of the reason for his victory was that rather than enforcing Sharia law as many other Arab leaders did, Faisal emphasized Arab rather than Muslim identity, and as a result Arab Christians and Jews rallied to his cause. As a reward for his victory Faisal was made King of Syria at the Versailles peace conference. While there, he signed a treaty with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, agreeing to support the creation of a Jewish state in the Holy Land, something that many other Arabs refused to even consider.
Looking at the Middle East in 1920, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of independent, democratic, and religiously tolerant Arab, Turkish, and Armenian states, and the Jews finally returning to their ancient homeland, it would have been tempting to see this as the dawn of a new golden age for the region. Unfortunately though, it was not to be.
In the spring of 1920 the French laid claim to Syria, and after a few months of combat, they deposed Faisal's government and he was exiled to Britain. Luckily for him though, the British had plans for him. They were looking for someone to rule over their protectorate in Iraq, and he was just the man. So in March of 1921, he was declared King of Iraq. Despite being relatively unknown among Iraqi Arabs, Faisal toured his new kingdom and won over his subjects. During his reign he improved the education system (which until then had been virtually non-existent), prevented his civil servants from trying to fire Jewish officials because of their ethnicity, built roads to connect Baghdad with Damascus, Amman, and other major Arab cities, promoted religious tolerance, and built up the Iraqi Army.
Faisal, who by now was seen as more or less the natural leader of the Arabs, dreamed of uniting Iraq and Syria into a single constitutional monarchy under his rule, but the Turks, Egyptians, and Saudis all opposed this, fearing that such a nation would dominate the region. By 1933, Faisal had fallen severely ill and was largely unable to govern the country himself, with tragic results. After a clash between Iraqi troops and an Assyrian Christian militia, several Assyrians were massacred at the village of Simele. Faisal was horrified by this, but was unable to punish the killers because many radical Muslims viewed the killers as heroes. This incident likely caused his health to deteriorate even further, and he died on September 8, 1933, some say due to poisoning.
Who knows what may have happened had he lived longer. I can't help but think that if Faisal had been in power when Israel declared it's independence in 1948 he would likely have refused to go to war with them, unlike the other Arab nations. Would this have lead to a more peaceful and tolerant Middle East? Only God knows for sure, but I'd like to think so.
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