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At the beginning of the [[Arab Revolt|Great Arab Revolt]], he joined the [[Sharif of Mecca]], [[Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz|Hussein bin Ali]] alongside the Howeitat tribe.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|access-date=2022-10-15|language=en-US|title=The Wildest Brigand of the Desert {{!}} Maclean's {{!}} MAY 1ST 1920|url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1920/5/1/the-wildest-brigand-of-the-desert|website=Maclean's {{!}} The Complete Archive}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
At the beginning of the [[Arab Revolt|Great Arab Revolt]], he joined the [[Sharif of Mecca]], [[Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz|Hussein bin Ali]] alongside the Howeitat tribe.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|access-date=2022-10-15|language=en-US|title=The Wildest Brigand of the Desert {{!}} Maclean's {{!}} MAY 1ST 1920|url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1920/5/1/the-wildest-brigand-of-the-desert|website=Maclean's {{!}} The Complete Archive}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>


According to several researchers, his and his tribe's mobility and knowledge of the desert were significant factors contributing to the success of the Arab Revolt and stood out as one of their assets.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=II |first=Anthony J. Nocella |url=https://books.google.fr/books?id=279nAgAAQBAJ |title=Animals and War: Confronting the Military-Animal Industrial Complex |last2=Salter |first2=Colin |last3=Bentley |first3=Judy K. C. |date=2013-12-19 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-8652-7 |language=en}}</ref> He and his tribesmen were lead forces in the [[Battle of Aqaba|fall of Aqaba]] (July 1917)<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cohen |first=Gustave |date=1956 |title=AFFAIRE ALDINGTON contre LAWRENCE d'ARABIE |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44207315 |journal=Hommes et mondes |issue=116 |pages=487–497 |issn=0994-5873}}</ref> and [[Damascus]] (October 1918).<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Taha |first=Ibrahim Mahmoud Bani |date=2020-06-01 |title=T. E. Lawrence’s Misrepresentation of the Arabs in Seven Pillars of Wisdom |url=https://leappublish.uk/index.php/mjhss/article/view/3 |journal=Millennium Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences |language=en |doi=10.47340/mjhss.v1i1.3 |issn=2708-8022}}</ref>[[File:Auda, head chief of Howeitat tribe, 55 yrs. old, comes to offer allegiance ... LCCN2017658712.jpg|thumb|400x400px|Auda Abu Tayi (marked with an X) of the [[Howeitat]] offers allegiance to the King; a soldier next to him bears the [[Flag of the Arab Revolt|Arab flag]]. (1917)]]
According to several researchers, his and his tribe's mobility and knowledge of the desert were significant factors contributing to the success of the Arab Revolt and stood out as one of their assets.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=II |first=Anthony J. Nocella |url=https://books.google.fr/books?id=279nAgAAQBAJ |title=Animals and War: Confronting the Military-Animal Industrial Complex |last2=Salter |first2=Colin |last3=Bentley |first3=Judy K. C. |date=2013-12-19 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-8652-7 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Buck |first=Claire |title=E.M. Forster and the War’s Colonial Aspect |date=2015 |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471659_4 |work=Conceiving Strangeness in British First World War Writing |pages=81–116 |editor-last=Buck |editor-first=Claire |access-date=2023-12-27 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9781137471659_4 |isbn=978-1-137-47165-9}}</ref> He and his tribesmen were lead forces in the [[Battle of Aqaba|fall of Aqaba]] (July 1917)<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cohen |first=Gustave |date=1956 |title=AFFAIRE ALDINGTON contre LAWRENCE d'ARABIE |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44207315 |journal=Hommes et mondes |issue=116 |pages=487–497 |issn=0994-5873}}</ref> and [[Damascus]] (October 1918).<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Taha |first=Ibrahim Mahmoud Bani |date=2020-06-01 |title=T. E. Lawrence’s Misrepresentation of the Arabs in Seven Pillars of Wisdom |url=https://leappublish.uk/index.php/mjhss/article/view/3 |journal=Millennium Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences |language=en |doi=10.47340/mjhss.v1i1.3 |issn=2708-8022}}</ref>[[File:Auda, head chief of Howeitat tribe, 55 yrs. old, comes to offer allegiance ... LCCN2017658712.jpg|thumb|400x400px|Auda Abu Tayi (marked with an X) of the [[Howeitat]] offers allegiance to the King; a soldier next to him bears the [[Flag of the Arab Revolt|Arab flag]]. (1917)]]


Auda abu Tayi is considered a hero of the Arab revolt.<ref name=":1">Lawrence, ''Seven Pillars'', p. 169</ref>
Auda abu Tayi is considered a hero of the Arab revolt.<ref name=":1">Lawrence, ''Seven Pillars'', p. 169</ref>

Revision as of 22:56, 27 December 2023

Auda Abu-Tayeh
عودة أبو تايه
Photograph of Auda abu Tayi, probably taken by G. Eric Matson (1888–1977).Tabuk, Hejaz 1921
Born11 January 1874
Hejaz Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died27 December 1924 (aged 50)
Amman, Emirate of Transjordan
AllegianceArab Revolt Bedouin Arabs
Service/branchHuwaytat
Battles/warsArab Revolt
RelationsMohammed al-Dheilan (cousin)
Ibn Zaal (nephew)

Auda Abu Tayeh or Awda Abu Tayih (Arabic: عودة أبو تايه 11 January 1874 – 27 December 1924) was the leader (shaikh) of a section of the Howeitat or Huwaytat tribe of Bedouin Arabs at the time of the Great Arab Revolt during the First World War. The Howeitat lived in what is now Saudi Arabia/Jordan.

Auda led the Arab forces in several battles, the most significant ones being the battle of Aqaba, where he managed to capture the city, seizing the entire Ottoman garrison and the siege of Damascus, when he took the city alongside Faisal.

Auda was a significant figure in the Arab Revolt; outside of Arabia, he is mainly known through his distorted portrayal in British Col. T. E. Lawrence's account Seven Pillars of Wisdom and from thefictionalised depiction of him in David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia. Those accounts, which presented him as a greedy and slick man, were criticized by historians.

Biography

Early life

Auda was the son of Harb Abu Tayi (?-1904).[1][2] Lawrence recorded that the Jazi Howeitat had formerly been under the leadership of the House of Rashid, the amirs of Ha'il, but had since fragmented and that Auda had come to control the Eastern Howeitat, known as the abu Tayi.[3] Auda had taken up the claims of his father, Harb abu Tayi (? – 1904), who had contested the tribe's chieftainship with Arar ibn Jazi.[1]

Auda and his ibn Jazi rival, Arar's half-brother Abtan, diverted the energies of the Howeitat—previously settled farmers and camel herders—into raiding, greatly increasing the tribe's wealth but introducing a mainly nomadic lifestyle.[4] Tensions between them and the Ottoman administration had increased after an incident in 1908, when two soldiers were killed who had been sent to demand payment of a tax that Auda claimed to have already paid.[5]

Great Arab revolt

At the beginning of the Great Arab Revolt, he joined the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali alongside the Howeitat tribe.[6]

According to several researchers, his and his tribe's mobility and knowledge of the desert were significant factors contributing to the success of the Arab Revolt and stood out as one of their assets.[7][8] He and his tribesmen were lead forces in the fall of Aqaba (July 1917)[7][9] and Damascus (October 1918).[10]

Auda Abu Tayi (marked with an X) of the Howeitat offers allegiance to the King; a soldier next to him bears the Arab flag. (1917)

Auda abu Tayi is considered a hero of the Arab revolt.[11]

Post-war years

After the collapse of the Arab government in Damascus, Auda retired to the desert, building a modern palace at Al-Jafr east of Ma'an with captured Turkish slave labour. Before it was complete, however, he died in 1924 of natural causes. He was buried in Ras al-Ain, Amman, Jordan.

He had one son, Mohammed, who died in 1987, and thirteen grandchildren, all of whom live in Jordan.

Legacy

Historical legacy

He was presented by some people, on the account of the movie, and to a lesser extent on the book of Lawrence of Arabia as being a sly and greedy individual.[10][12] Much of this modern-day presentation seems rooted in his sensationalised depiction by Lowell Thomas as a figure of anarchic, primitive masculine energy deliberately set against the idea of British 'civilisation' (see also Orientalism).[12][13]

However, historians have criticized these accounts of Auda as misrepresenting Arabs and Auda.[10][12]

Artistical legacy

Literature

He is an important figure in Lawrence's semi-fictionalized account of the Arab Revolt, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", which misrepresents him and the Arab people as romanticized figures.[12] T.E. Lawrence portrayed him as someone who epitomized everything noble, powerful, and proud about the Bedouin, "the greatest fighting man in northern Arabia," with an impressive lineage spanning many generations of great desert Howeitat warriors of the Arabian Peninsula.[10]

Cinema

He was portrayed in the David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia by Anthony Quinn[14], which included various stereotypes against Arabs and his figure.[12] Auda's descendants were so incensed by the portrayal of their ancestor that they sued Columbia Studios, the film's producers; the case was eventually dropped.[15]

Auda was also featured as a supporting character in Terence Rattigan's Lawrence-themed play Ross. The portrayal of Auda here is generally more well-rounded than in the film; he is shown to be a true Arab patriot, although he still retains fondness for financial reward. As Faisal and the film's fictional Sherif Ali were not present in the play, he served as the primary Arab character.

He is also portrayed in 2009 Qatari film Auda abu Tayeh, which talks about his life in Arabia to Arab Revolt, and his death.

References

  1. ^ a b Peake, F. A History of Jordan and its Tribes, University of Miami Press, 1958, p. 212
  2. ^ McGill University Library, Frederick Gerard (1934). A history of Trans-Jordan and its tribes Vol. 1. Amman : [publisher not identified]. Retrieved 2022-10-15.
  3. ^ Lawrence, T. E. The Howeitat and their Chiefs Archived 2009-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, Arab Bulletin report of 24 July 1917, from telawrence.net
  4. ^ Alon, Y. and Eilon, J. The Making of Jordan: Tribes, Colonialism and the Modern State, Tauris, 2007, ISBN 1-84511-138-9, p. 34. Lawrence (in his report above) stated that the Howeitat were "altogether Bedu", but they had in fact only recently abandoned farming for nomadism.
  5. ^ Fischbach, M. State, Society, and Land in Jordan, Brill, 2000, ISBN 90-04-11912-4, p. 48. Auda claimed that the troops were shot when they opened fire on him.
  6. ^ "The Wildest Brigand of the Desert | Maclean's | MAY 1ST 1920". Maclean's | The Complete Archive. Retrieved 2022-10-15.
  7. ^ a b II, Anthony J. Nocella; Salter, Colin; Bentley, Judy K. C. (2013-12-19). Animals and War: Confronting the Military-Animal Industrial Complex. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-8652-7.
  8. ^ Buck, Claire (2015), Buck, Claire (ed.), "E.M. Forster and the War's Colonial Aspect", Conceiving Strangeness in British First World War Writing, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 81–116, doi:10.1057/9781137471659_4, ISBN 978-1-137-47165-9, retrieved 2023-12-27
  9. ^ Cohen, Gustave (1956). "AFFAIRE ALDINGTON contre LAWRENCE d'ARABIE". Hommes et mondes (116): 487–497. ISSN 0994-5873.
  10. ^ a b c d Taha, Ibrahim Mahmoud Bani (2020-06-01). "T. E. Lawrence's Misrepresentation of the Arabs in Seven Pillars of Wisdom". Millennium Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. doi:10.47340/mjhss.v1i1.3. ISSN 2708-8022.
  11. ^ Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 169
  12. ^ a b c d e Brandabur, A. Clare; Athamneh, Nasser al-Hassan (2000). "Problems of Genre in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph". Comparative Literature. 52 (4): 321–338. doi:10.2307/1771351. ISSN 0010-4124.
  13. ^ Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire, and the Imagining of Masculinities, Routledge, 1997, ISBN 0-415-08882-8, p. 184
  14. ^ Mole (2019-05-31). "Dignity I". Journal of Cell Science. 132 (11): jcs233601. doi:10.1242/jcs.233601. ISSN 0021-9533.
  15. ^ Turner, Adrian, Robert Bolt: Scenes From Two Lives, pp. 201–206
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