THE ARABS A SHORT HISTORY BY PHILIP K. HITTI PROFESSOR OF SEMITIC LITERATURE ON THE ‘WILLIAM AND ANNIE 8. PATON FOUNDATION PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LONDON MACMILLAN & CO. LTD 1948COPYRIGHT PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAINPREFACE , THe events of the past few years have made us realize as never before the importance of the Arab world, the world that lies athwart the great international highway of trade and transit connecting the three historic continents. The military operations in North Africa and the eastern Medi- terranean, the use of the supply route through Persia to Russia and the holding of historic inter-Allied conferences at Casablanca, Cairo and Teheran called attention to the region’s strategic position. More recent events are making it clear that the establishment of a firm peace may well depend on the solution of some of the region’s political problems. These problems involve potential conflicts between all of the larger European countries, and they cannot be dealt with without affecting the politics of a much larger area in Africa, Asia and south-eastern Europe, where 275,000,000 Moslems form an important part of the population. Our interest in the region is not merely political or economic. We have long had significant cultural ties with the Near East, through the British and American schools and colleges which have played a leading part in its intel- lectual development and through the work of large numbers of missionaries. Until the frst World Way almost th Entire Arab Asia was in the embrace of the man ‘Empire. Now Iraq, after a period of tutelage as a British mandate, is an inde- pendent state under an Arab king in Baghdad. The Republic of Syria and the: Republic of Lebanon -have now been freed from the Fyench mandatory., Mesei/the Arab peninsula is today under two native potentates :