
The Green Dome
The Mamluk sultans to whom Qa’itbay belonged were followed by the Ottomans who took control of the Arabian Peninsula, especially the Hijaz with its two holy cities of Makkah and al-Madinah. Their domain extended to Palestine, then a province of al-Sham (Syria) encompassing present-day Lebanon and Jordan. The Ottomans administered the Hijaz through their governors (the sharifs) from 1517 until the end of the Fist World War (1918), when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated and British puppets took control of the region effectively falling into the hands of the British.