When the United Nations announced its parti-
tion plan for Palestine in 1947, al-Husayni, still in
exile, rejected it and called for Muslims to rise up
in support of the Palestinians and against a Zion-
ist state in the Muslim holy land. In the wake of
the defeat of the Palestinians, al-Husayni spent
the rest of his life traveling throughout Muslim-
majority lands speaking on behalf of the Palestin-
ian nationalist cause and denouncing the creation
of israel.
See also arab-israeli conFlicts.
Nancy L. Stockdale
Further reading: William L. Cleveland, A History of the
Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,
2000); Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj
Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).
Husayn ibn Ali, Sharif of Mecca (1854–
1931) ruler of Mecca who allied with Great Britain
and led the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule during
World War I
A dynamic but ultimately flawed political leader,
Husayn ibn Ali was a fundamental player in the
breakdown of Ottoman aUthority over Arabia.
Self-declared caliph of the Arabs, he lost his
family’s centuries-old custodianship of mecca
and medina yet lived to see his sons take control
of new Arab nations carved from the Ottoman
Empire.
Husayn ibn Ali was born around 1854 in the
Ottoman capital of istanbUl (Constantinople).
A member of the Hashimite clan, his family
had either ruled or held guardianship as sharifs
(descendants of mUhammad) over the holy cit-
ies of Mecca and Medina since 1201. In 1908,
Husayn himself became emir (commander, ruler)
of Mecca. As the sharif and emir, he used his
descent from the prophet Muhammad to legiti-
mate his authority over the holy cities and worked
to keep the peace of the Hijaz for the ruling Otto-
man Empire. Despite his privileged position under
the Turks, however, Husayn gained international
attention with a variety of anti-Ottoman policies
during World War I. In a series of letters between
himself and Britain’s high commissioner of Egypt,
Sir Henry McMahon, written between July 1915
and March 1916 (known as the McMahon-Husayn
correspondence), Husayn pledged to raise an
army against the Ottomans in exchange for Brit-
ish assistance in establishing an independent Arab
state after the war. Claiming to be the king of the
Arabs, Husayn disagreed with McMahon about
the boundaries of a future state but nevertheless
raised an army that successfully displaced the
Ottomans from most of the Hijaz in 1916.
The Arab revolt continued to the Red Sea at
Aqaba in 1917 and on to damascUs in 1918. Led by
his son Faysal (d. 1933), Husayn’s army was a deci-
sive factor in bringing the Ottomans to their knees
in the region. However, at the San Remo Confer-
ence, Britain and France divided the Arab territo-
ries of the now-defunct Ottoman Empire between
themselves, destroying Husayn’s idea of a united
Hashimite Arab kingdom. His son Faysal was even-
tually made king of the newly created iraq, while
his son Abd Allah (d. 1951) became king of the
new nation of Transjordan (now Jordan).
Despite the new political landscape, Husayn
declared himself caliph in March 1924 from his
base in Mecca. However, by October of that year,
he was forced to flee by the Saudi forces. Defeated,
he made his way to Cyprus, where he lived in exile
until 1930. For his final year of life, Husayn lived
in Amman, the capital of Transjordan. It was there
that he died, exiled from his family’s traditional
place as custodians of the holy cities, in 1931.
See also colonialism; hashimite dynasty;
ottoman dynasty; saUdi arabia.
Nancy L. StockdaleFurther reading: Haifa Alangari, The Struggle for Power
in Arabia: Ibn Saud, Hussein and Great Britain, 1914–1924
(New York: Ithaca Press, 1998); William L. Cleveland, A
History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: West-K 318 Husayn ibn Ali, Sharif of Mecca