The Arab Revolt (1916): its background

03The Arab Revolt (1916): its background

Hussein and the building of an Arab state

• Hussein bin Ali had worked to build an Arab state ever since the sharifate of Mecca was entrusted to him after the 1908 coup against the Ottoman Sultan, and he carried on a political activity of relatively wide range inside the Peninsula and beyond it.
• His son Prince Abdullah contacted Sir Ronald Storrs — the Eastern Secretary in the British High Agent's administration in Cairo — to sound out the British authorities on the Turkish attempt to remove the Sharif from his position.
• The English showed sympathy with the Sharif, and once the war came the channels of communication between the sharifate of Mecca and the High Agency in Cairo became active.

A problem for the English

• The British Government of India preferred to come to terms with Abdel Aziz al-Saud in Riyadh, while the Government of London was keen to come to terms with the Sharif.
• Both Abdel Aziz bin Saud and Sharif Hussein rejected the Ottoman theory of the state as the representative of the general Islamic state (the Caliphate) — the theory which the English themselves were adopting at the time.
• London found that Sharif Hussein, with his position in Mecca and his lineage and descent, was the one qualified to declare a resounding revolt and to launch a call of jihad counter to the Sultan's call.