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Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, amīr (known in Western sources as Grand Sharif) of Mecca from 1908 to 1916, and king of the Ḥijāz from 1916 to 1924, proclaimed the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, and sought the title of caliph, but lost his kingdom to the Saudi dynasty. Ḥusayn was a member of the ʿAwn branch of the Meccan Hāshimite sharīfs who, as descendants of the prophet Muḥammad, shared rule in Mecca and parts of the Ḥijāz with the Ottoman governors of that province. Born in Istanbul in 1853 or 1854, Ḥusayn passed his youth partly in the Ḥijāz and partly in Istanbul, where after 18…

The Hāshimīs (Hashemites) were a dynasty of Ḥasanī descendants of the prophet Muḥammad (sharīfs) who ruled Mecca as amīrs almost without interruption from the fourth/tenth century until 1924. After the First World War, the dynasty provided kings for Syria and Iraq, which later became republics, and gave its name to the territory that became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The dynasty was named after Hāshim b. ʿAbd Manāf, the paternal great-grandfather of the prophet Muḥammad. The majority of the Shīʿa recognised as their Imāms descendants of ʿAlī’s younger son al-Ḥusa…