King Faisal I of Iraq (1930s)
King Faisal I of Iraq (1919)

King Faisal I of Iraq (May 20, 1885 – September 8, 1933), also known as Faisal bin Hussein, was the King of Iraq from 1921-1933 and the son of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.

Quotes

  • We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.... We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.
    • From correspondence with American Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.
    • Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Indiana UP, Bloomington and Indianapolis. P. 152.

Memorandum about Independence of Iraq

  • Iraq is a kingdom ruled by a Sunni Arab government founded on the wreckage of Ottoman rule. This government rules over a Kurdish segment, the majority of which is ignorant, that includes persons with personal ambitions who lead it to abandon it [the government] under the pretext that it does not belong to their ethnicity. [The government also rules over] an ignorant Shiite majority that belongs to the same ethnicity of the government, but the persecutions that had befallen them as a result of Turkish rule, which did not enable them to take part in governance and exercise it, drove a deep wedge between the Arab people divided into these two sects. Unfortunately, all of this made this majority, or the persons who harbor special aspirations, the religious among them, the seekers of posts without qualification, and those who did not benefit materially from the new rule, to pretend that they are still being persecuted because they are Shiites.
    • The Making of State and Nation Since 1920, p. 71
  • Osman, Khalil Sectarianism in Iraq: The Making of State and Nation Since 1920, London: Routledge, 2014
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