Ibrahim Hananu

Ibrahim Hananu was born in 1869 to a wealthy Kurdish family in Kafr Takharim, a town in the western countryside of Aleppo. He studied at the Imperial High School in Aleppo, and continued his studies at the Ottoman Law Academy of the prestigious Mülkiye school in Istanbul. As a student, he joined the Committee of Union and Progress, the political organ that later took stage following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Upon graduation, Hananu briefly taught at the military academy. Later, he joined the bureaucracy of the Ottoman Empire, only to retire and manage his estates. He embraced Arab nationalism when the Arab Revolt broke out in 1916, and joined the Arab army of Faisal I. He entered Aleppo with the Allies in 1918. He also joined the secret nationalist society al-Fatat, and became associated with the League of National Defense and the Arab Club of Aleppo. Breaking out in the autumn of 1919 in the countryside surrounding Aleppo, when the French army had landed on the Syrian coast and was preparing to occupy all of Syria, Hananu launched his revolt, bringing Aleppo, Idlib and Antakya into a coordinated campaign against French forces. He received military aid from the Turkish forces of Mustafa Kemal, who were fighting the French for control of southern Anatolia. At the revolt's peak in 1920, Hananu established a quasi-state in the region between Aleppo and the Mediterranean. The rebels were dealt major battlefield defeats in December 1920, and following agreements between the French and the Turks, Turkish military support for the rebels largely dissipated by the spring of 1921. French forces overran Hananu's last stronghold in Jabal Zawiya in July. Hananu was tried by the French Mandatory authorities and was ultimately acquitted. He spent his later years in Aleppo, where he was involved in various political and social activities. He survived an assassination attempt in 1932, and died of natural causes in 1935. He is regarded as a national hero and a symbol of resistance by many Syrians.