Ghazi I of Iraq | |||||
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King of Iraq | |||||
Reign | 8 September 1933 – 4 April 1939 | ||||
Predecessor | Faisal I | ||||
Successor | Faisal II | ||||
Born |
Mecca, Emirate of Mecca, Ottoman Empire |
2 May 1912||||
Died | 4 April 1939 Baghdad, Kingdom of Iraq |
(aged 26)||||
Burial | Royal Mausoleum, Adhamiyah | ||||
Spouse | Princess Aliya bin Ali | ||||
Issue | Faisal II | ||||
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House | Hashemite | ||||
Dynasty | Hashemites of Iraq | ||||
Father | Faisal I | ||||
Mother | Huzaima bint Nasser | ||||
Religion | Sunni Islam |
Full name | |
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Ghazi bin Faisal |
Ghazi bin Faisal (Arabic: 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, the only son of Faisal I, the first King of Iraq.
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. He attended Harrow School.
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 following a national referendum in 1921.
As a 16-year-old schoolboy, 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 prince's 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.