ABSTRACT

The Hashemite-led Arab revolt was marked by a contradiction between its two main underpinnings: its ambitious ideology advocating the establishment of a large Arab empire, on the one hand, and its loose administrative structure, which was too unstable to serve as the hub of an expanding domain, on the other. Its ideology focused on establishing a kingdom, or caliphate, which would encompass most of the Arab territories; moulding their Arab inhabitants into one cohesive nation; and replacing waning Ottoman rule by a strong, centralized, Sunni Muslim, Hashemite government. The resulting guerrilla war against the Ottomans has been the subject of much analysis,1 while the revolt's tenuous regional control and its effect on tribes and local rulers has been less thoroughly researched. Yet the latter played an equally important, albeit less glorious, role. In their bid for an Arab empire, the Hashemites failed to develop stable relations with their Arab neighbours nor did they exert lasting control even over their own tribal groups.