Sharif Hussein bin Ali

Hussein bin Ali was the 37th direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and hereditary Sharif and Emir of Mecca from 1908. Following the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence in which the British promised support for an independent post-war Arab realm, he fired the ceremonial first shot of the Great Arab Revolt from his palace in Mecca on June 10, 1916.

Sharif Hussein's sons Faisal and Abdullah led the Arab northern armies to liberate Damascus and Transjordan from Ottoman rule. Refusing to sign the Treaty of Versailles and the Anglo-French secret Sykes-Picot partitioning of the Levant, he was forced into exile in Cyprus in 1924, spending his final months in Amman before being buried per his wish within the sacred precincts of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.