HUMAN INVESTMENT IN THE HEJAZ RAILWAY PROJECT

Abstract

This article, based on the monographs of the Hejaz Railway Project, aims to underline the significance attributed to the Hejaz Railway project not only by its initiator, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, who referred to it as “his old dream” but for all the parties who directly or indirectly contributed to its actualization, regardless of ethnic and religious divisions, not only from the Ottoman lands but also from all over the world. To focus on the significance of the human investment in the actualization of the project, this work will start with its technicalities generously shared by the aforementioned monographs. Mainly based on Ottoman and British archival sources, these works provide a very detailed depiction of the Hejaz Railway Project. In this depiction, this work will focus on the human aspects of the project: the human investment and belief in the project despite all its hardships, scarcity of sources and resources, whether they may be financial, physical, or natural. In this regard, it may not be wrong to refer to the project as a “miracle” as well. The human investment in the Hejaz Railway Project is covered in the current related literature but not particularly focused on by any work. This work thus aims to bring the human aspect of this project to the forefront to provide a new angle on the topic.