Al Qibla
TypeOfficial newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Founder(s)
PublisherWilāya Press
Editor-in-chief
Founded1916
LanguageArabic
Ceased publicationSeptember 1924
HeadquartersMecca
CountryKingdom of Hejaz

Al Qibla (Arabic: Direction of Mecca) was the official gazette of the Kingdom of Hejaz.[1] The paper was backed by the British. It was in circulation between 1916 and 1924 and headquartered in Mecca.[2] The paper was a four-page broadsheet and published twice a week, on Mondays and on Thursdays.[3]

The slogan of Al Qibla was the following verse taken from Quran:[4]

And We did not make the qibla which you used to face except that We might make evident who would follow the Messenger from those who would turn on their heels.

History and profile

Al Qibla was first published on 15 August 1916, five weeks after the capture of Mecca by Sharif Hussein.[5][6] The founders of the paper were Muhib Al Din Al Khatib and Fuad Al Khatib.[7] They were tasked by the British to start the paper to address the whole Arabic-reading public.[8] It was published by Wilāya Press in Mecca[6] on a semi-weekly basis.[5] Muhib Al Din Al Khatib was also its founding editor-in-chief.[9] Tayeb Al Sassi also served in the post.[3]

Shortly after its start Sharif Hussein became the King of Hejaz, and the coronation ceremony held in October 1916 was fully covered in Al Qibla.[10] The paper featured international news based on the official communiques from Cairo, local news and writings of leading Arabic writers concerning ethical and social virtues.[11] It also published reports from European and other foreign newspapers and periodicals.[11] The British agents in the region helped the distribution of the paper.[12]

Following capture of Hejaz by Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud, founder and later king of Saudi Arabia, Al Qibla was replaced by Umm al Qura.[1][5] Al Qibla folded after the publication of the last issue in September 1924.[6] It produced a total of 852 issues during its lifetime.[5]

Contributors and political stance

Sharif Hussein was closely interested in the design of the paper and the language used in the news.[3] He also published several articles in the paper[13] which was supported by the British authorities.[7] From 1919 his name appeared as the editor-in-chief of the paper in the masthead.[6] The contributors of Al Qibla were mostly Syrian exiles living in Egypt.[14]

Al Qibla had an Arabist and Islamist ideology.[7] The goal of the paper was to strengthen the awareness of the Arabs and Muslims about the threats of Wahhabism against Islam.[7] Al Qibla also opposed to the Committee of Union and Progress and the military alliance of the Ottoman Empire with the Central Powers in World War I.[11] In addition, Sharif Hussein employed the publication to justify his revolt against the Ottoman Empire.[7] Following the publication of the Balfour Declaration in November 1917 he published a number of articles in Al Qibla in which he called for the cooperation with Jews and asked Arabs to avoid conflicts with the British in that they would help them achieve independence.[15]

Al Qibla frequently praised the rule of Sharif Hussein whom it compared to Muhammad Ali Pasha, ruler of Egypt between 1805 and 1848.[8]

Legacy

In the anniversary of the foundation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz several issues of Al Qibla were reprinted and distributed as a supplement of the Jordanian daily newspapers, including The Jordan Times, in 2016.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 Joshua Teitelbaum (2020). "Hashemites, Egyptians and Saudis: The tripartite struggle for the pilgrimage in the shadow of Ottoman defeat". Middle Eastern Studies. 56 (1): 43. doi:10.1080/00263206.2019.1650349. S2CID 202264793.
  2. ↑ "Eight volumes of Al Qibla newspaper launched". The Jordan Times. 21 December 2016. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 "Al Qibla — The First Arab Hashemite Newspaper". Arab Revolt. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  4. ↑ Farah Al Sherif (10 January 2018). "Jerusalem: The Moral Qibla". The Maydan. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Abdulrahman Saleh Shobaili (1971). An Historical and Analytical Study of Broadcasting and Press in Saudi Arabia (PhD thesis). Ohio State University. pp. 47–48. ISBN 9798658527567. ProQuest 302622210.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Thomas Aplin (2015). Ambivalence and the National Imaginary: Nation and Canon Formation in the Emergence of the Saudi Novel (PhD thesis). University of Edinburgh. pp. 66–67. hdl:1842/21006.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 M. Talha Çiçek (2014). "Visions of Islamic Unity: A Comparison of Djemal Pasha's al-Sharq and Sharīf Ḥusayn's al-Qibla Periodicals". Die Welt des Islams. 54 (3–4): 467–468, 473. doi:10.1163/15700607-05434P07.
  8. 1 2 Adam Mestyan (2023). Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East. Princeton, NJ; Oxford: Princeton University Press. pp. 177–178. doi:10.1353/book.113384. ISBN 9780691249353.
  9. ↑ Amal N. Ghazal (2008). "Power, Arabism and Islam in the Writings of Muhib al-Din al-Khatib in al-Fath". Past Imperfect. 6: 134. doi:10.21971/P73K50.
  10. ↑ Elie Podeh (April 2010). "The bay'a: Modern Political Uses of Islamic Ritual in the Arab World". Die Welt des Islams. 50 (1): 129. doi:10.1163/157006010X487155.
  11. 1 2 3 M. Reeves Palmer (April 1917). "The Kibla: A Mecca Newspaper". The Muslim World. 7 (2): 185–190. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1917.tb01541.x.
  12. ↑ James Renton (2017). "The End of the Semites". In James Renton; Ben Gidley (eds.). Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe. A Shared Story?. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 114. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-41302-4_5. ISBN 978-1-137-41299-7.
  13. ↑ Ronen Yitzhak (2021). "Unwritten treaty: The historical background to Jordanian–Israeli relations, 1921–1951". Middle Eastern Studies. 57 (3): 416. doi:10.1080/00263206.2021.1898383. S2CID 233302672.
  14. ↑ Samir Seikaly (9 November 2016). "Arab Bureau". International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
  15. ↑ Aida Ali Najjar (1975). The Arabic Press and Nationalism in Palestine, 1920-1948 (PhD thesis). Syracuse University. p. 42. ISBN 9781083851468. ProQuest 288060869.
  16. ↑ "Al Qibla's 43rd issue reprinted". The Jordan Times. 25 September 2016. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
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