Vol. XXXVI, No. 5 WASHINGTON 



November, 1919 



THE RISE OF THE NEW ARAB NATION 



By Frederick Simpich 



Author of "Where Adam and Eve Lived," "Mystic Nedjef, the Shia Mecca," 

 "A Mexican Land of Canaan," etc. 



AMONG all the small, new States to 



/\ emerge from the melting pot of 



X J^, war, none is more interesting nor 



a more significant factor in world politics 



than the new nation of Arabia. 



Twelve per cent of all the people in 

 the world take their rules of conduct and 

 laws of life from Mecca, and take a keen, 

 personal interest in all that happens in 

 Arabia, and to Arabia. One man in 

 every eight, throughout the whole world, 

 hopes some day to visit Mecca, to paint 

 his beard red, and to bear the honored 

 Islam title of Haji the rest of his life. 



So, empty and obscure though Arabia 

 may be, and scant as our first - hand 

 knowledge of Mecca has been, the rise of 

 this new nation brings Christian and 

 Moslem into new, close contact, affecting 

 the religious and political destinies of 

 223,000,000 people. And remote, little- 

 known Arabia, ancient and mysterious, 

 is the stage on which this great political 

 drama of the Middle East is being played. 



The first act was the break-up of the 

 Ottoman Empire ; this is now a /a/7 ac- 

 compli. France, we hear, will watch 

 over Syria, Britain over Mesopotamia 

 and Arabia, etc., leaving only Anatolia to 

 Turkey. 



MOHAMMEDANS AID ALLENRV's CRUSADE 

 IX PALESTINE 



Act II in the drama was the famous 

 manifesto from the Agha Khan, the 

 great Moslem leader, declaring that Tur- 



key had lost her high position, religiously 

 speaking, when she lent herself as the 

 tool of Germany. Proof, amazing proof 

 of this was revealed when Arab troops 

 joined Allenby's column in the march on 

 Jerusalem and Moslem fighters of India 

 "threw in" with the British against Ger- 

 man and Turk alike. Shades of Peter 

 the Hermit and Lion-Hearted Richard ! 

 Here is a crusade they never dreamt of! 



Act III : Scene, the palace of the Grand 

 Shereef, in the forbidden city of Mecca. 

 "The Soul of Islam," where men are 

 killed who say that Christ was the Son of 

 God. The Grand Shereef, surrounded 

 by slaves and eunuchs, pens a telegram to 

 leaders of Christian powers ; he asks that 

 Arabia be admitted to the family of na- 

 tions ! In one fell blow, apparently. 

 Christian warfare indirectly brought 

 about the fall of the citadels of bigotry 

 and fanatic isolation, against which 

 Christian missionaries had vainly ham- 

 mered for generations ! 



Even previous to 19 T4, however, a 

 restless group of Arab students sojourn- 

 ing in Paris were agitating for Arabian 

 independence. One of them. Najob 

 Azoura, wrote a book called "Le Reveil 

 de la Nation Arabe," pleading for "a 

 united Arabia, independent and progress- 

 ive, a force in civilization, a cradle of 

 the renaissance of Arabian art. literature. 

 and science." This idea was warmly 

 supported by the more advanced Arabs 

 living in Egypt and Syria, and the world 



