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began to increase. The opening of the Suez Canal by France in 1869,
and the strong presence of Great Britain, which had treaties with a
number of small Arab kingdoms on the Gulf, brought the people of
Mesopotamia into contact with Western ideas and technology.
Meanwhile, at the very heart of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul,
a new ideology, nationalism, was beginning to supplant the old reli-
gion-based legitimacy of the empire. Nationalist Turks wished to
create a
secular
Turkish state, in which all of the people would
share a common ethnic background, culture, or heritage. In 1908
a group of young Turkish officers (who became known in the West
as the “Young Turks”) mounted a resistance movement against
Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Taking control of parliament, they staged
an election for a new parliament representative of Turkey. Rule by
the Young Turks was followed by the Committee of Union and
Progress (CUP), which controlled the remnants of the Ottoman
Empire until 1918. This period of Turkish nationalism resulted in
political and cultural repression of Arabs in the Ottoman Empire.
Use of the Arabic language was banned, and leaders who support-
ed the idea of Arab nationalism were arrested.
Everything would change after the start of the First World War
in 1914. The Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the
Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Great Britain,
fighting on the side of the Allies, landed troops near Basra in
November 1914 to seize this Ottoman territory on the Gulf. By
March 1917, British troops had captured Baghdad; by the time the
war ended, the British controlled the region as far north as Mosul.
Great Britain also encouraged the Arabs to rise up against their
Ottoman rulers. Under the leadership of Hussein bin Ali, the sharif
of Mecca, some Arabs launched a revolt in 1916. At the war’s con-
clusion in 1918, Arab forces controlled much of present-day
Jordan, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula.
I
RAQ
’
S
H
ISTORY TO
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