Political and Intellectual Background

The Ottoman Empire had ruled much of the Arab world since Sultan Yavuz Selim conquered the Mamluk Empire in the 1510s. Syria, Iraq, and Egypt had been core provinces of the Ottoman State for centuries, but Ottoman control also extended to distant Arab regions in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa.

At its core, the Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic state. The ruling family was Turkish, but the population was made up of Turks, Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, Bosnians, Serbians, Persians, Arabs, and others. And for the most part, this multi-ethnic empire did not suffer from its diversity. In the 1800s, however, a wave of European nationalism began to hit the Ottoman realm. In 1832, the Greeks (with strong British support) managed to gain independence from the Ottomans. The Serbs attempted to follow, supported by Russian arms and money.

Nationalistic feeling also spread to the Turks themselves. Many young Turkish students studied in European cities such as Paris and London in the 1800s, and adopted European ideas of nationalism, which conflicted with the multi-ethnic nature of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish nationalism was slowed somewhat by the reign of Sultan/Caliph Abdülhamid II, who reigned from 1876 to 1908. He emphasized pan-Islamism and the unity of the empire’s subjects based on their religious affiliation, not their ethnic identities.

But even Abdülhamid’s authoritarian rule could not turn back the rising tide of nationalist thought. A group of Western-educated Ottoman army officers, known as the Committee of Union and Progress, or the Young Turks, overthrew Abdülhamid in 1908. The Young Turks took control of Ottoman government and began a process of Turkifying the empire, at the cost of marginalizing the empire’s other groups.

Meanwhile, the empire’s Arab regions were not immune from nationalism either. Major Arab cities such as Damascus, Beirut, and Cairo became hubs of Western thought, where the concept of Arab nationalism began to take form. It was especially aided by American missionaries, who were unable to convert local Muslims to Protestantism, but succeeded in establishing numerous educational institutes that imbued a sense of national identity among Arab students.

It is important to note, however, that while nationalist though was beginning to take hold among Western-educated Turks and Arabs, it was hardly a mainstream ideology. Most Arabs and Turks were content to be a part of a multi-ethnic empire. Some simply demanded more autonomy for ethnic groups within the Ottoman State. A wide range of nationalist beliefs existed, but it is safe to say that those advocating for a complete break from Ottoman history and the establishment of ethnic nation-states were a small minority.

Stay tuned...................

Source:

http://lostislamichistory.com/the-arab-revolt-of-world-war-one/