Ghazi of Iraq

Ghazi bin Faisal (غازي ابن فيصل Ġāzī bin Fayṣal) (2 May 1912 – 4 April 1939) was the King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq from 1933 to 1939 having been briefly Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Syria in 1920. He was born in Mecca (in present-day Saudi Arabia), the only son of Faisal I, the first King of Iraq.

Early life
Ghazi was the only son of Faisal (later to become King Faisal I of Iraq) and Huzaima bint Nasser. In his childhood Ghazi was left with his grandfather, Hussein bin Ali, the Hashemite Grand Sharif of Mecca and head of the royal house of Hashim, while his father was occupied with travel and in military campaigns against the Ottomans. The Hashemites had ruled the Hijaz within the Ottoman Empire, before rebelling with British assistance, in the later stages of World War I.

Unlike his worldly father, Ghazi grew up a shy and inexperienced young man. Following the defeat of his grandfather's army by Saudi forces in 1924, he was forced to leave the Hijaz with the rest of the Hashemites. They travelled to Transjordan where Ghazi's uncle Abdullah was King. In the same year Ghazi joined his father in Baghdad and was appointed as crown prince and heir to the Kingdom of Iraq. His father had been crowned King Faisal I of Iraq following a national referendum in 1921.

The flying carpet
When Ghazi was a sixteen year old school-boy, he met the traveller-adventurer Richard Halliburton and his pilot Moye Stephens during their round-the-world flight (shortly after Charles Lindbergh's celebrated transatlantic flight). Ghazi was taken for his first flight by Halliburton and Stephens in a biplane named 'The flying carpet'. They flew down to see the ruins of ancient Babylon and other historical sites, and flew low over the princes own school so that his schoolmates could see him in the biplane. An account of young prince Ghazi's experience flying over his country can be found in Richard Halliburton's The Flying Carpet.

As King of Iraq
On 8 September 1933, King Faisal I died, and Ghazi was crowned as King Ghazi I. On the same day, Ghazi was appointed Admiral of the Fleet in the Royal Iraqi Navy, Field Marshal of the Royal Iraq Army, and Marshal of the Royal Iraqi Air Force. A staunch pan-Arab nationalist, opposed to British interests in his country, Ghazi's reign was characterized by tensions between civilians and the army, which sought control of the government. He supported General Bakr Sidqi in his coup, which replaced the civilian government with a military one. This was the first coup d'état to take place in the Arab world. He was rumored to harbor sympathies for Nazi Germany and also put forth a claim for Kuwait to be annexed to Iraq. For this purpose he had his own radio station in al-Zuhoor royal palace in which he promoted that claim and other radical views.

Ghazi died in 1939 in a mysterious accident involving a sports car that he was driving. According to the scholars Ma'ruf Al-Rusafi and Safa Khulusi, a common view amongst many Iraqis at the time was that he was killed on the orders of Nuri as-Said, because of his plans for unification of Iraq with Kuwait.

Faisal, Ghazi's only son, succeeded him as King Faisal II. Because Faisal was under age, Prince Abdul Ilah served as Regent until 1953.

Marriage and children
On 25 January 1934 Ghazi married his first cousin, Princess Aliya bint Ali, daughter of his uncle King Ali of Hejaz in Baghdad Iraq. They had only one son:
 * Faisal II, King of Iraq – born 2 May 1935, died 14 July 1958

External references