British wartime policy, not Arab nationalism, launched the Arab revolt

Evidence

The immediate impetus to the rise of the Arab movement during the First World War came from British policy. In 1915 the British government entered into negotiations with Hfi usayn, the Sherif of Mecca, with a view to persuading him to lead a revolt against his Ottoman suzerain. Britain had a double purpose in this enterprise. One was to weaken the Ottoman Empire and in particular to relieve pressure on Egypt by deflecting attention to an Arab revolt. The second purpose was to counter the danger which was apprehended from the Ottoman jihad. After the outbreak of war the Ottoman government had proclaimed a jihad, a holy war, against the allied and associated powers. It was feared that this appeal would have dangerous effects among Muslims under British rule, espe­ cially in India and Egypt, as well as on the Muslim subjects of the French and Russian Empires. In fact this danger turned out to be largely illusory, but the idea of meeting the appeal of the Ottoman sultan with a counter-appeal from the Sherif of Mecca offered obvious attractions. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 860

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates/qualifies Said-adjacent claims about Western powers manufacturing Middle Eastern political movements to suit strategic interests — the Arab revolt framed as a British anti-jihad instrument.
• QUESTION: The claim that the Ottoman jihad danger ‘turned out to be largely illusory’ — worth chasing how colonial officials calibrated or inflated the perceived threat for counterpropaganda purposes.