“Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph”, by T. E. Lawrence

584 pages, The Folio Society

Be honest: the very second you hear the name “Lawrence” – as in “Lawrence of Arabia” – the Maurice Jarre theme popped into your head. The 1962 epic is so very out of style, I know, what with a white Englishman organizing and leading a lot of not-white Arabs in a revolt against other not-white Turks (are the Turks not white? I dunno; being woke is so dreadfully confusing) in a war in which the West came out on top in the Middle East. But anyway, after the dust had settled, Colonel Thomas Edward “T.E.” Lawrence wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph about his adventures in organizing guerrilla forces while serving as a liaison officer with the Arab tribes during the Revolt in the Desert against the Ottoman Turks from 1916 to 1918. In so doing, he met and overcame several obstacles that, ultimately, enabled the Arabs to effectively support General Allenby’s conventional forces that defeated the Turks. After several years and numerous drafts, Lawrence completed his book in February 1922 and published it in December 1926; this edition by the Folio Society was published in 2000.

The title comes from Proverbs 9:1, “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars”, which makes perfect sense, as there are brilliant passing insights into the Semitic inspirations for all the revealed religions, and their relation to the beautiful descriptions of the desert terrain, the harsh weather and the numerous obstacles encountered. Lawrence’s prose is nothing short of poetic, with the desert making for a vast dry sea of inspiration. But his subjects are wide and variable – as wide and variable as the desert itself. In one instance he speaks of his time with the Arabs, about while he could lead the Arabs in revolt, he “could not sincerely take the Arab skin: it was an affectation only”. In another he describes the Arabs in combat and “as time went by our need to fight for the ideal increased to an unquestioning possession, riding with spur and rein over our doubts” and how motivated they were “since the Arabs fought for freedom”. The desert is seen by the Arabs as theirs and theirs alone, for “men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever choice; but in fact, each hill and valley in it had a man who was acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression”. Hell, he even talks about the Arab penchant for pederasty as “they were an instance of eastern boy and boy affection which the segregation of women made inevitable”.

Reading Lawrence’s descriptions of the multiple tribes and differing customs of Arabia, it is all too clear that the invented nations created by the Western powers were neither governable nor stable. The Sykes–Picot Agreement, the thing that created this mess, was the secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France (with assent from the Russian Empire and Italy) to create mutually agreed spheres of influence and control after the inevitable partition of the Ottoman Empire. Britain was to gain control over areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, Transjordan, southern Iraq and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre. France got control over southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Russia was to get Istanbul (at long last), the Turkish Straits and Armenia. The controlling powers were left free to determine state boundaries within their areas. Given the Ottoman defeat in 1918 and the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the agreement effectively divided the Ottoman Arab provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence.

One could almost call Seven Pillars of Wisdom a how-to guide for revolting against an empire for amateurs. You will learn a great deal about blowing up railroad bridges in the desert, about how to ride a camel, the agonies of thirst and hunger and the heroism and brutality of war. The thumbnail portraits of Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi (the third son of Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Sharif of Mecca, who had proclaimed himself King of the Arab lands in October 1916…Alec Guinness, if that helps), Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashimi (the leader of the Banu Hashim clan and the Sharif and Emir of Mecca…y’know, Omar Sharif) and Auda Abu-Tayeh (the leader of a section of the Howeitat tribe of Bedouin Arabs…that would be Anthony Quinn) are full of insight. The nobility and savagery of the desert tribesmen, contrasted with the cold stoicism of the British and the inculcated cruelty of the Turks, are just some of the themes addressed during the course of the work. When Lawrence says that, from the beginning, he believed the Arab revolt would succeed because it grew out of a sympathetic population that was opposed by a modern army that could not garrison the territory it occupied, one wishes that modern-day leaders had read this book.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the wonderfully written and deeply profound story of the Arab revolt during World War I which, in itself, did much to guarantee victory for the allies, while bringing the West into the Middle East once again after centuries of forgetfulness. Lawrence exposes more than he, perhaps, had intended, as the rank hypocrisy behind this game in the Middle East – a game in which he was the principle pawn – ate away at him throughout, and can be glimpsed between the lines of his book, if you look closely enough. However, give yourself a bit of time to do it; Lawrence was a man from a vanished age that did not rush about like we do, and it shows in his writing; he has something to say and he says it in his own time and in his own fashion, and rushing through his book will only make it both unbearable and frustrating. But do read it, for even after a century after the events described, the Middle East as described by Lawrence seems as unchanged and challenging now as then…more’s the pity.