56

The Hāshimite Sharīfs of Mecca from the ‘Awn family

1243–1344/1827–1925

Mecca and Hijāz latterly, with branches in the Fertile Crescent countries

1. The original line in Western Arabia

2. The post-First World War branches of the Ḥashimite family

in the Fertile Crescent countries

(a) The line in Syria

(b) The line in Iraq

(c) The line in Transjordan and then Jordan

The Hāshimite Sharīfs (‘noble ones’) of Mecca traced their descent directly back to the Prophet Muḥammad and his clan in Mecca of Hāshim. The Sharīfs held power in the Holy City from the tenth century onwards, in later times under Mamlūk and then Ottoman protection. In the early nineteenth century they were subjected to attacks by the Wahhābls of Najd under the amīr Su‘ūd b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz, who captured Mecca in 1218/1803 (see above, no. 55). Liberated in 1228/1813 by Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad ‘Alī of Egypt‘s army, the Sharīfate alternated during the nineteenth century between the Zayd and ‘Awn branches, not finally settled in favour of the ‘Abādila of the ‘Awn until 1299/1882, by which time the Ottomans had for some four decades been controlling Ḥijāz as a province of their empire.

With Turkey‘s involvement in the First World War on the side of the Central Powers, the Sharīf Ḥusayn became caught up in the Arab Revolt of 1916 which cleared all Ḥijāz except Medina of Ottoman troops and which, in concert with the British army advance from Egypt, eventually freed Greater Syria from Turkish control. Early in the Revolt, Ḥusayn proclaimed himself ‘King of the Arab lands‘, but the Allies would only recognise him as King of Ḥijāz. After 1918 his authority was confined to Ḥijāz, where he came to arouse much Arab hostility by an ill-judged attempt in 1924 to assume the caliphate personally after Muṣṭafa Kemāl‘s abolition of that institution in Turkey. His eldest son and successor ‘Alī had to abandon Ḥijāz to the Su‘ūdī invader ‘Abd al-‘Azīz b Su‘ūd, who soon afterwards formed his united kingdom of Ḥijāz and Najd (see above, no. 55).

In the post-First World War arrangements for the Arab lands of the former Ottoman empire, other sons of Ḥusayn were, however, to play a prominent role. The third son Fayṣal from 1918 onwards endeavoured to assume power in the Greater Syria region, and in 1920 was elected King of a united Syria by the Second Syrian General Arab Congress, but had to leave there shortly afterwards when Syria passed under French Mandatary tutelage. Instead, in 1921 and with British support, he became King of Iraq, under a British Mandate; the Hāshimites had no particular connection with Iraq, but no more suitable candidate presented himself. The Ḥashimite monarchy in Iraq, although ruling the first Arab country to free itself from Mandatary control, never put down deep roots, and in 1958 was overthrown by a bloody army coup led by ‘Abd al-Karlm al-Qāsim in which Fayṣal II was killed. More successful and enduring was the establishment of Ḥusayn‘s second son ‘Abdallāh as amīr of the Trans Jordanian lands separate from Mandatary Palestine, which after the Second World War became the independent Hāshimite Kingdom of Jordan, still ruled until today by one of the great survivors of Middle Eastern politics, ‘Abdallāh’s grandson King Ḥusayn.

Zambaur, 23.

EI² ‘Hāshimids’ (C. E. Dawn); ‘Ḥusayn b. Alī‘ (S. H. Longrigg); ‘Makka. 2. From the Abbāsid to the modern period’ (A. J. Wensinck and C. E. Bosworth).

C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mecca in the Later Part of the Nineteenth Century, Leiden 1931.

Naval Intelligence Division, Geographical Handbook series, Western Arabia and the Red Sea, 268ff., with a genealogical table at p. 282.

Gerald de Gaury, Rulers of Mecca, London 1951, with a list of rulers of Mecca at pp. 288–93.