Faysal I, King of Iraq, 1885-1933

Faysal I was King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 until his death in 1933. A member of the Hashemite family, he was a leader of the Great Arab Revolt during the First World War, and ruled as the unrecognized King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria from March to July 1920 when he was expelled by the French.

The third son of Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Emir and Sharif of Mecca, Faisal was born in Mecca and raised in Istanbul. From 1916 to 1918, with British assistance, he played a major role in the revolt against the Ottoman Empire. He helped set up an Arab government in Syria, based in Damascus, and led the Arab delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In 1920, the Syrian National Congress proclaimed Faisal king, rejecting the French claim to a Mandate for Syria. In response, France invaded a few months later, abolished the kingdom and forced him into exile.

In August 1921, in accordance with the decision made at the Cairo Conference, the British arranged for Faisal to become king of a new Kingdom of Iraq under British administration. During his reign, Faisal fostered unity between Sunni and Shiite Muslims to encourage common loyalty and promote pan-Arabism in the goal of creating an Arab state that would include Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Fertile Crescent. In 1932, he presided over the independence of Iraq upon the end of the British Mandate and the country's entry into the League of Nations. Faisal died of a heart attack in 1933 in Bern, Switzerland at the age of 48 and was succeeded by his eldest son Ghazi.