Mubarak Al-Sabah Anglo-Kuwaiti Treaty with Great Britain on November 23, 1899, pledging himself and his successors not to receive foreign agents or representatives or to cede or sell territory without the approval of the British government, with this agreement, and the guarantee it represented in Kuwait and the Al-Sabah family, he is regarded as the founder of modern-day Kuwait. German explorer, Hermann Burchardt, photographed Sheikh Mubarak in 1903, in what is now an iconic photograph. Mubarak was born into Kuwaiti's powerful al-Sabah family in 1837 son of Sheikh Sabah II Al-Sabah (r. 1859-1866). Once he was older Mubarak served primarily as the
Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire 1911, Muslim intellectuals and politicians formed "The Young Arab Society", a small Arab nationalist club, in Paris. Its stated aim was "raising the level of the Arab nation to the level of modern nations." In the first few years of its existence, al-Fatat called for greater autonomy within a unified Ottoman state rather than Arab independence from the empire. Al-Fatat hosted the Arab Congress of 1913 in Paris, the purpose of which was to discuss desired reforms with other dissenting individuals from the Arab world. They also requested that Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army not be required to serve