Shukri al-Quwatli (; 6 May 189130 June 1967) was a Syrian politician and statesman who was the first president of post-independence Syria, in 1943.
He began his career as a dissident working towards the independence and unity of the Ottoman Empire's Arab territories and was consequently imprisoned and tortured for his activism. When the Kingdom of Syria was established, Quwatli became a government official, though he was disillusioned with monarchism and co-founded the republican Independence Party. Quwatli was immediately sentenced to death by the French who took control over Syria in 1920, following the Franco-Syrian War. Afterward, he based himself in Cairo where he served as the chief ambassador of the Syrian-Palestinian Congress, cultivating particularly strong ties with Saudi Arabia. Quwatli utilized his connections with Saudi Arabia to help finance the Great Syrian Revolt (1925–1927). In 1930, the French authorities pardoned Quwatli and thereafter, he returned to Syria, where he gradually became a principal leader of the National Bloc. He was elected president of Syria in 1943 and oversaw the country's independence three years later.
Quwatli was reelected in 1948, but was toppled in a military coup in 1949 by Husni al-Za'im. He subsequently went into exile in Egypt, returning to Syria in 1955 to participate in the presidential election, which he won. A conservative presiding over an increasingly leftist-dominated government, Quwatli officially adopted neutralism amid the Cold War. After his request for aid from the United States was denied, he drew closer to the Eastern bloc. He also entered Syria into a defense arrangement with Egypt and Saudi Arabia to confront the influence of the Baghdad Pact. In 1957, Quwatli, who the US and the Pact countries attempted but failed to oust, sought to stem the leftist tide in Syria, but to no avail. By then, his political authority had receded as the military bypassed Quwatli's jurisdiction by independently coordinating with Quwatli's erstwhile ally, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Following months of unity talks, in 1958, Quwatli merged Syria with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic and stepped down for Nasser to serve as president. In gratitude, Nasser awarded Quwatli the honorary title of "First Arab Citizen". However, Quwatli grew disenchanted with the union, believing it had reduced Syria to a police state subordinate to Egypt. He backed Syria's secession in 1961, but plans for him to complete his presidential term afterward did not materialize. Quwatli left Syria following the 1963 Ba'athist coup, and he died of a heart attack in Lebanon weeks after Syria's defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. He was buried in Damascus on 1 July.
Personal life
Family
The Quwatlis were a Sunni Muslim mercantile family from Baghdad which moved to Damascus in the 18th century, establishing itself in the district of al-Shaghour. Their initial wealth in Damascus stemmed from trade with Baghdad and Arabia. After 1860 the family invested part of its wealth in large land tracts in the Ghouta farms surrounding Damascus. The first member of the family to own extensive tracts was Shukri's granduncle Murad (d. 1908). The family's notable status was owed to their wealth, rather than an aristocratic or religious lineage, and their traditional spheres of activity were commerce and the Ottoman civil service.
Shukri's grandfather Abd al-Ghani was involved in finance, as was his granduncle Ahmad, who was appointed the president of the Agricultural Bank of Damascus in 1894, and another granduncle, Hasan, president of the Chamber of Agriculture and Commerce, while Murad had become a member of the Administrative Council of the city in 1871 and was re-elected in the early 1890s. Shukri's father's wealth rested on the highly fertile lands he owned and later bequeathed to Shukri and his siblings in the Ghouta. His elder brother Hasan was elected President of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture. Despite the substantial wealth accrued toward the end of the 19th century, the family remained in the working class al-Shaghur and developed networks there which contributed to its future political ambitions.
In 1928, Shukri married Bahira al-Dalati, the 19-year-old daughter of nationalist Said al-Dalati, whom Quwatli met while in jail in 1916. Shukri and Bahira had five children; Hassan (the oldest, born in 1935), Mahmud, Huda, Hana and Hala. Bahira al-Dalati died in 1989.
Childhood and education Shukri Quwatli was born in Damascus in 1891. He received his elementary education at a Jesuit school in the city, then studied at the preparatory high school of Maktab Anbar in the Jewish quarter of Damascus. He obtained his baccalauréat in 1908. He then moved to Istanbul where he studied political science and public administration. Quwatli graduated from the Mekteb-i Mülkiye in 1913. He returned to Damascus in 1913 after receiving his diploma, and started working for the Ottoman civil service.
Early influences Quwatli was initially brought up in a pro-Ottoman environment, owing to his family's connections in Istanbul. The restrictions of the Abdul Hamid II era, however, started to be felt around the Ottoman Empire, and discontent was brewing even among the empire's elite. Following the Young Turk Revolution against Abdul Hamid II in 1908, parliamentary elections were called in all provinces, and liberal Arab intellectuals like Shukri al-Asali, Shafiq Muayyad al-Azm, and Rushdi al-Shama'a secured seats as deputies (members of the legislature) representing Damascus. The liberal current that established itself through these figures, and the political dailies they established including al-Qabas ("The Firebrand") and al-Ikha' al-Arabi ("Arab Brotherhood"), greatly influenced Quwatli and other Arab youths.
During the 31 March Incident, Quwatli strongly supported the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) against Abdul Hamid II. Nevertheless, after the failed countercoup, the CUP accused Arab provinces of supporting Abdul Hamid II and initiated a policy of Turkification, whereby all local officials were substituted by Turkish ones. Soon after, the parliament was dissolved, and the liberal Arab politicians were forced out in the following elections.
Early nationalist activities Quwatli's early involvement in the Arab nationalist movement came through the Arab Congress of 1913. Shortly after starting his career at the Ottoman civil service in Damascus, he received an invitation to attend the conference in Paris. However, the conference was strongly condemned by the Ottoman authorities, and Arab notables were forbidden from attending. Nevertheless, the congress had succeeded in rousing nationalist feelings in Arab provinces. Quwatli's first confrontation with the Ottoman authorities came in February 1914 during a visit by Jamal Pasha, the governor of Syria at the time, to the offices of the Governorate of Damascus, where Quwatli worked. During the visit, Quwatli refused to follow the normal protocol—bending over and kissing Jamal Pasha's right hand—and was promptly thrown in prison at the Citadel of Damascus. He was bailed out of prison a few days later through his family's connections, but he lost his job at the civil service.
Al-Fatat
The growing hardships in the country during the early years of World War I pushed Quwatli to join the secret society of al-Fatat, which was facilitated by his childhood friend and co-founder, Nasib al-Bakri. Al-Fatat was an underground organization established in Paris in 1911 by Arab nationalists with the aim of gaining independence and unity of the various Arab territories in the Ottoman Empire. In 1913, the society established its main branch in Damascus, and was successful in attracting the Syrian elite into its ranks.
In 1915, Sharif Hussein, trying to garner support for his planned uprising against the Ottomans, sent his son Faisal to Damascus to lobby the Syrian notables on his behalf. Faisal, a member of al-Fatat himself, met secretly with other members of the society, including Quwatli, in the house of Nasib al-Bakri. When the Ottoman authorities learned of the meeting, they ordered the arrest of al-Bakri and his two brothers, Fawzi and Sami, accusing them of treason. Quwatli was charged by the al-Fatat leadership with the task of facilitating their escape, in which he succeeded. In retaliation, Ottoman authorities placed him under arrest, in which he was subjected to torture and humiliation. Nevertheless, Quwatli refused to confess to anything, and his captors failed to implicate him in the operation so they released him a month later. The tremendous pressure of that experience, however, took its toll on the young Quwatli, and upon his release he retired to his country house in Saidnaya and stopped all contacts with members of al-Fatat and the opposition.
In late 1916 he was approached by Fasih al-Ayyubi in hope that Quwatli could help him secure an escape route for his ailing father, Shukri al-Ayyubi, who was arrested by the Ottomans, like he did for Nasib al-Bakri. However, despite Quwatli's refusal to help, Ottoman authorities tracked down the contact and arrested both men. Quwatli was subjected to further torture to coerce him to reveal the names of his al-Fatat colleagues. In an attempt to prevent himself from surrendering the names, Quwatli tried to commit suicide. After cutting his wrists, Quwatli's life was saved at the last minute by fellow inmate, al-Fatat member and practicing doctor, Ahmad Qadri. He spent four more months in jail, before being released on bail by his relative, Shafiq al-Quwatli, who served as a deputy at the Ottoman Parliament, on 28 January 1917. His experience in jail and the story about his attempted suicide turned Quwatli into a nationalist hero in Syria.
Kingdom of Syria
On 1 October 1918, an Arab army under the leadership of Emir Faisal and British general T. E. Lawrence entered Damascus, and by the end of October the rest of Ottoman Syria fell to the Allied Forces. Emir Faisal became in charge of administering the liberated territory. He appointed Rida al-Rikabi as prime minister, and Quwatli's friend, Nasib al-Bakri became a personal adviser to the Emir. Quwatli, at the age of twenty-six, was appointed assistant to the governor of Damascus, Alaa al-Din al-Durubi.
However, many of Quwatli's generation were unimpressed with Faisal's leadership skills, and were drawn to a republican, rather than monarchist, view of governance. Furthermore, they were suspicious of Faisal, and his brother Abdullah's ties with the British. On 15 April 1919 they founded a loose coalition under the name of al-Istiqlal Party ("Independence Party"). The party had a pan-Arab, secular, anti-British and anti-Hashemite outlook and attracted mostly youth activists from the elite classes. Well-known members, other than Quwatli, included Adil Arslan, Nabih al-Azmeh, Riad al-Sulh, Saadallah al-Jabiri, Ahmad Qadri, Izzat Darwaza and Awni Abd al-Hadi. Although ostensibly working for the government, Quwatli devoted his efforts to nationalist activities outside the government's auspices. In addition to al-Istiqlal, he was also a member of the Palestinian-led Arab Club's Damascus branch.