The idea of Arab nationalism embracing all Arabic speaking territories first appeared in Syria and Iraq in the first decade of the present century.
Though earlier these two countries had waged struggle against domination of Ottoman Empire but they never though in terms of overthrowing the Caliphate and attaining independence. It was only after the Young Turks Revolution of 1908 in Turkey foiled their hopes for an autonomous Arab existence under a The creation of a number of states gave a setback to the Arab nationalism. As a result some Arab leaders began to think of achieving independence before striving for Arab unity.
But some other leaders felt that some sort of unity must be achieved by uniting Iraq and Syrian before launching struggle for national independence. It may be observed that at this stage the Arab nationalism did not possess any ideological basis even though some of the Arab states were engaged in struggle against different powers.