Zahrāwī, ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd, 1855 or 1856-1916

Abdul Hamid al-Zahrawi (Arabic: عبد الحميد الزهراوي; 1855 – 6 May 1916) was a Syrian Arab nationalist and former member of the General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire. A journalist with the Arab newspaper Al Qabas he supported the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a Young Turks movement that carried out a successful coup in 1908. Zahrawi sat for the CUP in parliament but turned against them when they started replacing Arab officials with Turks and was replaced in a rigged election in 1912. Zahrawi argued against the Ottoman entry into the First World War in 1914 and when this was unsuccessful urged Syrians not to support the war effort. He joined the Arab resistance movement Al-Fatat in 1915. That same year the Ottoman governor of Syria Djemal Pasha planned to have Zahrawi arrested and in 1916 Zahrawi was tried on charges of high treason. Despite pleas for clemency from Ottoman leaders Talaat Pasha and Enver Pasha Zahrawi was executed alongside other Arab nationalists at Damascus on 6 May 1916. The date is commemorated in Lebanon and Syria as Martyrs' Day.