Originally published at crisis magazine
Thomas Edward Lawrence, the Oxford archeologist who became the famous “Lawrence of Arabia,” wrote a narrative of his adventures participating in the Arab revolt against the Turks during World War I. At an important point in the Arab revolt, Lawrence was given the opportunity to be of great influence in the war. He was as surprised by this as many who knew him would have been. He was suffering from illness but reflected about the progress Sharif Feisal, the future king of Saudi Arabia, had made in what he called the “Hejaz war.”
He summed up the achievement of Feisal’s consolidation of power from the Arab clans by saying, “Out of every thousand square miles of Hejaz nine hundred and ninety-nine were now free.” He felt as though the goals of the Arabs had been achieved, since he had concluded that the revolt was about Arab freedom from the Turks. Feisal had insisted that the fighting was not with any group of people that spoke Arabic. Lawrence was thrilled when he heard one of the leaders say that the war was not about Turkish pretensions of the caliphate or Islamic heresy but only Arab independence.
Musing on what he remembered
