Faisal I of Iraq

Faisal I فيصل الأول
King of Iraq
Reign	23 August 1921 – 8 September 1933
Predecessor	Military occupation
Successor	Ghazi I
Prime Ministers	See list Abd al-Rahman al-Gillani Abd al-Muhsin as-Sa'dun Jafar al-Askari Yasin al-Hashimi Tawfiq al-Suwaidi Naji al-Suwaidi Nuri al-Said Naji Shawkat Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
King of Syria
Reign	8 March 1920 – 24 July 1920
Predecessor	Military occupation
Successor	Monarchy abolished
Prime Ministers	See list Rida Pasha al-Rikabi Hashim al-Atassi
Born	(1885-05-20)20 May 1885[1][2] Mecca, Hejaz Vilayet, Ottoman Empire[1][2]
Died	8 September 1933(1933-09-08) (aged 48) Bern, Switzerland
Burial	Iraqi Royal Cemetery, al-'Adhamiyya
Spouses	Huzaima bint Nasser
Issue	Princess Azza Princess Rajiha Princess Rafia Ghazi I
Names Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi
House	Hashemite
Father	Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz
Mother	Abdiyah bint Abdullah
Religion	Sunni Islam[3]

Faisal I bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi (Arabic: فيصل الأول بن الحسين بن علي الهاشمي, Fayṣal al-Awwal bin al-Ḥusayn bin ʻAlī al-Hāshimī; 20 May 1885^[1][2][4] – 8 September 1933) 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.^[5]

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 Muslims and Shii 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.