[31] These regiments were all maintained by the Ruling Princes of their respective States in India.
NOTE ON THE ARAB MOVEMENT
A SHERIF (plur. Ashraf) is one who claims descent direct from the Prophet Mohammed, through his daughter Fatima, wife of Ali, the third Khalif. These Ashraf are found all over the Arabic-speaking world, but only those whose pedigrees are inscribed in the Register of Mecca are universally accepted as true descendants of the Prophet. This register has been kept with extraordinary care, and it is probable that it dates back to the time of Mohammed himself. There are in the Hedjaz several families of these true Ashraf, who form the aristocracy of the Arab world, live under a law of their own, and enjoy a number of special privileges.
For the first four centuries after the death of the Prophet, the Ashraf, though regarded with veneration and respect by the Arabs, held no temporal power. At the end of the tenth century, however, a Sherif of Mecca proclaimed himself Emir of the Ashraf, and succeeded in establishing his dynasty as the temporal chiefs (under the Khalif) of the Hedjaz. The ruling prince of the Ashraf of Mecca was known for centuries in Europe as 'The Grand Sherif of Mecca,' and, in former times, when the city was not as jealously guarded as it now is, more than one Christian sovereign sent an embassy to him there.
During the succeeding five hundred years, internecine strife, resulting in frequent changes of dynasty, weakened the temporal power of the Emirs of Mecca, and correspondingly increased the ascendancy of the Turks. In the sixteenth century, however, the Emir Katada, by a series of conquests of rival claimants, possessed himself of the chief power in the Hedjaz, and established his own family as the head of the Ashraf.
Sherif Hussein, a lineal descendant of Katada, succeeded to the Emirate in 1908. A man of powerful will and strong ambitions, Hussein began almost at once to consider the possibility of securing the independence of the Hedjaz, and possibly even of all the Arabs, from Turkish dominion. His task was an exceedingly difficult one. The Sultan of Turkey, as Khalif of Islam, was regarded as the spiritual head of all Moslems, and any open action against him would be likely to meet with strong opposition in all Moslem countries outside Arabia. A Turkish Army Corps, with its headquarters at Sanah, near Aden, garrisoned and controlled the country; and the Emir's own people, split up into innumerable tribes and clans, were torn by bitter inter-tribal feuds, many of which dated back for centuries.
The ease with which the Sultan Abdul Hamid was overthrown by the Committee of Union and Progress at the time of the Turkish Revolution, encouraged the Sherif in his dream of establishing an independent Arab State. He became the representative of the Hedjaz in the Turkish Parliament, and for a time lived in Constantinople. Very soon, however, disgusted with the intrigues and jealousies of the C.U.P., and realising that he had nothing to hope for from this body of needy adventurers, he retired from his position, and went back into the desert, where for the next four or five years he lived the rigorous life of a patriarchal desert Sheikh, preparing his four sons for the struggle to come, and gathering round him a small number of chiefs pledged to the cause of Arabian independence.