Page:Olmstead - The New Arab Kingdoms.djvu/5

 that the original Bulgars had been Turanians and so fit allies for the Turks, Muslim intellectuals in Trans-Caucasian Russia longed for the day when they should be restored to Turkey. To the debit side of the account must be placed the complete alienation of all the other nationalities in Turkey, Muslim equally with Christian. When the Great War began, the Arabic-speaking peoples were ripe for revolt.

Before any overt act occurred, Turkish officials seized and killed the Syrian leaders in several cities. Among the patriots thus executed were members of the tribe of the Sherif of Mecca, a descendant of the Prophet, and the official head of the sacred city. Already predisposed to revolt by the "Liberalism" of and the Committee foof [sic] Union and Progress, by their scarcely concealed agnosticism, and by the deliberate abrogation of provisions of the Sacred Law laid down in the Koran itself, the Arabs felt themselves provoked beyond endurance. In a ringing address to "all our Muslim brethren,", the son of Ali, appealed to Allah as judge, in the words of the Book, mourned the loss of Muslim prestige brought about by the Young Turk fiascoes in Tripoli and the Balkans, and its present perilous position. He condemned the horrors of deportation, the murder of leading Muslims, the banishments and confiscations of property belonging to the innocent families of victims. Then he told of the revenge taken by the Turkish garrison for the revolt of Mecca, how a shell fell but four feet from the very house of Allah, how the rug that covered the Sacred Black Stone was fired, the despair of the pious as they saw it and the killing of worshippers every day within the sacred precincts until worship was perforce discontinued. No westerner can realize the thrill of horror such sacrilege must produce in the breast of every true Muslim. Islam had not risen when the Turks, at the dictation of their infidel masters, had preached the Holy War. Henceforth, there could be no doubt as to the position every true Muslim must take.

The cup of Young Turk iniquity was full, and on the sixteenth of November, 1916, Husein was declared Sultan of the Hejaz and was promptly recognized by the Entente Powers. By their operations east of the Dead Sea, the Arabs did much to render futile the Turko-German advance against Egypt, thus saving the Suez Canal and the route to India and Australia. They played their part in the redemption of Jerusalem by drawing off troops at a time when these were desperately needed by the Turks. In the last campaign, they assisted the British in the great drive which carried the allies from Samaria to Aleppo.