T. E. Lawrence in the context of "Sherif of Mecca"

Sir Vincent Arthur Henry McMahon GCMG GCVO KCIE CSI KStJ (28 November 1862 – 29 December 1949) was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat who served as Foreign Secretary in the Government of India from 1911 to 1915 and as High Commissioner in Egypt from 1915 to 1917. As the Foreign Secretary McMahon conducted the tripartite negotiations between Tibet, China and Britain that led to the Simla Convention. Even though China did not in the end sign the Convention, the agreement governed the British relations with Tibet till 1947. In Egypt, McMahon was best known for the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence with Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, and the Declaration to the Seven in response to a memorandum written by seven notable Syrians. After the Sykes-Picot Agreement was published by the Bolshevik Russian government in November 1917, McMahon resigned. He also features prominently in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence's account of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) was a joint British, French and Arab military administration over the Levantine provinces – which had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries – between 1918 and 1920, set up on 23 October 1918 following the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and Arab Revolt of World War I. Although it was declared by the British military, who were in control of the region, it was preceded on 30 September 1918 by the 1918 Anglo-French Modus Vivendi, in which it was agreed that the British would give the French control in certain areas, and the Hashemites were given joint control of the Eastern area per T. E. Lawrence's November 1918 "Sharifian plan".

Following the occupation of the Adana Vilayet (the region of Cilicia) in December 1918, a new territory, OETA North, was set up. The administration ended in OETA West and OETA South in 1920, following the assignment of the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and British Mandate for Palestine at the 19–26 April 1920 San Remo conference.

The 1921 Cairo Conference, described in the official minutes as Middle East Conference held in Cairo and Jerusalem, March 12 to 30, 1921, was a series of meetings by British officials for examining and discussing Middle Eastern problems, and to frame a common policy. The secret conference of British experts created the blueprint for British control in both Iraq and Transjordan. By offering nominal leadership of those two regions to the sons of the Sharif of the Mecca, Churchill felt that the spirit if not the actual letter of Britain's wartime promises to the Arabs were fulfilled.

Particular concerns of the conference were to resolve the conflicting policies defined in the McMahon letters (1915), the Sykes-Picot agreement (1916) and the Balfour Declaration (1917). Winston Churchill, the newly appointed Colonial Secretary, called all the British Military Leaders and civil administrators in the Middle East to a conference at the Semiramis hotel in Cairo to discuss these issues. It was an experimental conference organized by the Colonial Office, with the purpose to solve problems more efficiently, with improved communications, without protracted correspondence.

The Sharif of Mecca (Arabic: شريف مكة, romanized: Sharīf Makkah) was the title of the leader of the Sharifate of Mecca, traditional steward of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The term sharif is Arabic for "noble", "highborn", and is used to describe the descendants of Hashim ibn Abd Manaf.

The Sharif was charged with protecting the cities and their environs and ensuring the safety of pilgrims performing the Hajj. The title is sometimes spelled Sheriff or Sherif, with the latter variant used, for example, by T. E. Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888) is a travel book by Charles Montagu Doughty (1843–1926), an English poet, writer, and traveller. Doughty had travelled in the Middle East and spent some time living with the Bedouins during the 1870s. Rory Stewart describes the book as "a unique chronicle of a piece of history that has been lost".

An abridged version was arranged and introduced in 1908 by Edward Garnett, but the original version was reissued with a new introduction by Doughty and an introduction by T. E. Lawrence in 1921. Lawrence was an avid admirer of Doughty and his writing, as shown in his introduction. Lawrence had been instrumental in having the work reprinted, with his name ensuring that Arabia Deserta reached a wider audience.

The Sharifian or Sherifian Solution (Arabic: الحلول الشريفية) was an informal name for post-Ottoman British Middle East policy and French Middle East policy of nation-building. At first put forward by T. E. Lawrence in 1918, it was a plan to install the three younger sons of Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi (the Sharif of Mecca and King of Hejaz) as heads of state in newly created countries across the Middle East, whereby his second son Abdullah would rule Baghdad and Lower Mesopotamia, his third son Faisal would rule Syria, and his fourth son Zeid would rule Upper Mesopotamia. Hussein himself would not wield any political power in these places, and his first son, Ali would be his successor in Hejaz.

Given the need to rein in expenditure and factors outside British control, including France's removing of Faisal from Syria in July 1920, and Abdullah's entry into Transjordan (which had been the southern part of Faisal's Syria) in November 1920, the eventual Sharifian solution was somewhat different, the informal name for a British policy put into effect by Secretary of State for the Colonies Winston Churchill following the 1921 Cairo conference. Faisal and Abdullah would rule Iraq and Transjordan respectively; Zeid did not have a role, and ultimately it proved impossible to make satisfactory arrangements with Hussein and the Kingdom of Hejaz. An underlying idea was that pressure might be applied in one state to secure obedience in another; as it transpired, the inherent assumption of family unity was misconceived.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the autobiographical account of the experiences of British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") while serving as a military advisor to Bedouin forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire of 1916 to 1918.

It was completed in February 1922, but first published in December 1926 originally published for the US market in 1927 as Revolt in the Desert and is the only version that was commercially released while he was alive. Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935) is a longer form of the book at almost double the page count and released to the international market.