Faisal I of Iraq

Faisal I of Iraq and Syria
King of Iraq and Syria
King Faisal I
Reign	11 March 1920 – 25 July 1920 (Syria) 23 August 1921 – 8 September, 1933 (Iraq)
Predecessor	Sharif Hussein bin Ali
Successor	Ghazi I
Names Faisal bin Al Hussein Bin Ali El-Hashemi
Dynasty	Hashemite
Father	Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca
Mother	Abdliya bin Abdullah

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

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 alongside Christians as a betrayal to Islam. This motivated Iqbal to write against him. Though Faisal was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, 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 3 January 1919, Faisal and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation, in which Faisal conditionally accepted the Balfour Declaration based on the fulfillment of British wartime promises of development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and on which subject he made the following statement: "We Arabs ... look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organisation to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.... I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of the civilised peoples of the world ". These promises were not immediately fulfilled, but once 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., Weizmann argued that since the fulfillment was kept eventually, the agreement of development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine still held.

King of Iraq

Coronation of Prince Faisal as King of Iraq

On 7 March 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 24 July 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 in Baghdad.

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.