Faisal I of Iraq

Faisal I of Iraq
King of Iraq and Syria
King Faisal, in white suite, in Jerusalem in 1933
Reign	11 March, 1920 – 25 July, 1920 (Syria) 23 August, 1921 – 8 September, 1933 (Iraq)
Predecessor	El-Sharif Hussein bin Ali
Successor	Gazi Iand Mohammed
Names Faisal bin Al Hussein Bin Ali El-Hashemi
Dynasty	Hashemite dynasty
Father	Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca

Faisal bin Al Hussein Bin Ali El-Hashemi , GCB, GCMG (Arabic: فيصل بن حسين Fayṣal ibn Ḥusayn; May 20, 1883 – September 8, 1933) was for a short time king of Greater Syria in 1920 and king of Iraq from August 23 1921 to 1933. He was a member of the Hashemite dynasty, a descendant of the tribe of Muhammad.

Early life

He was born in Ta'if (in present-day Saudi Arabia) in 1883, the third son of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, the Grand Sharif of Mecca.

In 1913 he was elected as representative for the city of Jeddah for the Ottoman parliament.

In 1916, on a mission to Istanbul, he visited Damascus twice. On one of these visits he received the Damascus Protocol, joined with the Al-Fatat group of Arab nationalists, and his father became king of Hijaz.

First World War

Faisal sided with Great Britain in World War I and with the help of T. E. Lawrence organised a revolt against the Ottoman Empire and this way helped ending the Caliphate. He conquered Medina after a long siege, after defeating the defense organized by the Ottoman Fakhri Pasha. Some of Faisal's critics considered fighting along side Christians as a betrayal to Islam. This motivated Iqbal to write against him. Though Faisal was a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad, Arab nationalism and independence, not religion, was his main motivation. 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. He led the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and, with the support of the knowledgeable and influential Gertrude Bell, argued for the establishment of independent Arab emirates for the area previously covered by the Ottoman Empire. His role in the Arab Revolt was described by T. E. Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, although the accuracy of that book has been criticized by historians.

On January 3, 1919 Faisal and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, in which Faisal conditionally accepted the Balfour Declaration based on the fulfillment of British wartime promises of independence to the Arabs. These promises were not immediately fulfilled, but Arab states were granted autonomy from the European powers years after the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, and these new Arab nations were recognized by the Europeans and the U.N., so Weizmann argued that the fulfillment was kept eventually and therefore the agreement still held.

King of Iraq

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Kingdom of Syria under Faisal, as claimed by the Syrian National Congress

On March 7, 1920 he was made king of Greater Syria by the Syrian National Congress. In April 1920, the San Remo conference gave France the mandate for Syria, which led to the battle of Maysalun on July 24, 1920. Faisal was expelled from Syria by the French and went to live in the United Kingdom in August of that year.

The British government, mandate holders in Iraq, were concerned at the unrest in the colony. They decided to step back from direct administration and create a monarchy to head Iraq while they maintained the mandate. Following a plebiscite showing 96% in favor, Faisal agreed to become king. In August 1921 he was made king of Iraq.

King Faisal's statue at a square named after him at the end of Haifa Street

He was instrumental in making his country nominally independent in 1932.

He died on September 8, 1933 when he had a heart attack whilst he was staying in Berne, Switzerland. He was succeeded on the throne by his oldest son Ghazi. A square is named in his Honour at the end of Haifa Street, Baghdad where an equestrian statue of him stands. The statue was knocked down following the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, but later restored.

Film

He has been portrayed on film three times: in the 1951 film Sirocco (dealing with the Syrian insurrection against France), by Jeff Corey; David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962), played by Alec Guinness, and in the unofficial sequel to Lawrence, A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (1990) by Alexander Siddig. On video, he was portrayed in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Chapter 19 The Winds of Change (1995) by Anthony Zaki.