First World War & The Arab Revolt
On 23 October 1916 at Hamra in the Wadi Safra, the first encounter took place between Faisal and Captain T. E. Lawrence, a relatively junior British intelligence officer from Cairo. Lawrence already had a vision of an independent post-war Arabian state, and knew it was essential to find precisely the right man to lead the Arab forces to achieve this.
With the help of Lawrence, Faisal sided with the British army and organised the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, helping to end the Caliphate. After a long siege he conquered Medina, defeating the defense organized by Fakhri Pasha.
Some of Faisal's critics considered fighting alongside Christians as a betrayal of 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. Iqbal wrote in one of his poems about King Faisal as, "What a beautiful message did Sanësâ give to King Faisal By descent you are Hijazi, but by heart Hijazi you could not be"
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.
Read more about this topic: Faisal I Of Iraq
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“The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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“I saw the Arab map.
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dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“Distorting hackneyed words in hackneyed songs
He turns revolt into a style, prolongs
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—Thom Gunn (b. 1929)