Kingdom of Hejaz

The Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz was a short-lived monarchy on the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula, covering the region that holds Islam's two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina. It was proclaimed in June 1916 by Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, when he launched the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire with British backing, and it was conquered by the Saudi ruler of Nejd in 1924–1925.

For centuries the Ottoman sultans, as caliphs, appointed a member of the Hashemite family, who claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad, as Sharif of Mecca, often playing rival branches of the family against one another. Hussein bin Ali, of the Dhawu Awn clan, was kept under watch in Istanbul from 1893 and was appointed Emir of Mecca in 1908 by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. He had little sympathy for the Young Turk government that took power that year, and his estrangement from it grew.

When the Ottoman sultan declared a holy war against the Entente in 1914, during the First World War, British officials hoped to win the Sharif to their side, partly to protect their shipping routes to India. In exchange for joining a wider Arab revolt, Hussein understood Britain to have promised an independent Arab kingdom stretching across much of the Arab east. Learning that the Ottomans might depose him, he rose in June 1916. His forces drove the Ottomans out of most of the Hejaz, although Medina held out under Ottoman control throughout the war. Hussein styled himself King of the Arab Countries, but the Allies recognised him only as King of the Hejaz, notifying him of this in December 1916.

The peace settlement disappointed him. Syria went to France, while Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan became British mandates, though Hashemite princes were installed as monarchs in Iraq and Transjordan. In protest at the mandates and the Balfour Declaration, Hussein would not ratify the Treaty of Versailles. In 1921 he rejected a British treaty accepting the mandate system, saying he could not be expected to "affix his name to a document assigning Palestine to the Zionists and Syria to foreigners". A border dispute with Transjordan over Ma'an and Aqaba added to the strain. Around 1920 the kingdom had roughly 850,000 inhabitants, and its capital was Mecca.

Late in 1923 Britain stopped paying subsidies both to Hussein and to his rival in central Arabia, Ibn Saud, and talks on a new treaty with Hussein broke down in March 1924. That same month, after Turkey abolished the Ottoman caliphate, Hussein proclaimed himself caliph, a claim widely rejected in the Muslim world. In August 1924 Ibn Saud's forces, with Ikhwan tribesmen, invaded. Taif surrendered, Mecca fell without a fight on 13 October 1924, and Hussein abdicated in favour of his son Ali and went into exile. Jeddah, Medina and Yanbu, funded by local merchants, held out into 1925, but Medina surrendered in early December and King Ali gave up Jeddah later that month.

Ibn Saud was proclaimed King of the Hejaz in January 1926 and ruled it together with Nejd as the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd. In 1932 his lands were united as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Hashemites lost their ancestral seat but continued to reign in Transjordan and Iraq.

Our 1920 map shows the Kingdom of Hejaz, labelled Hejaz, along the Red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula; the kingdom itself lasted from 1916 to 1925.