Al-Fatat (Arabic: الفتاة, al-Fatat) or the Young Arab Society (Arabic: جمعية العربية الفتاة, Jam’iyat al-’Arabiya al-Fatat) was an underground Arab nationalist organization in the Ottoman Empire. Its aims were to gain independence and unify various Arab territories that were then under Ottoman rule. It found adherents in areas such as Syria. The organization maintained contacts with the reform movement in the Ottoman Empire and included many radicals and revolutionaries, such as Abd al-Mirzai. They were closely linked to the Al-Ahd, or Covenant Society, who had members in positions within the military, most were quickly dismissed after Enver Pasha gained control in Turkey. This organization's parallel in activism were the Young Turks, who had a similar agenda that pertained to Turkish nationalism.

Al-Fatat was formed in the aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. The original founders of the movement were Arab students who felt offended by what they perceived as the Young Turks' Turkish nationalist agenda and Turkish domination over ethnic groups within the Ottoman Empire. The three Arab students were Ahmad Qadri of Damascus, Awni Abd al-Hadi of Nablus and Rustam Haidar of Baalbek. The trio decided to form an underground organization based on the Young Turks' model but with the purpose of protecting Arab rights. While in Paris, the trio was expanded by two Arab students from Beirut, Tawfiq al-Natur and Muhammad al-Mihmisani and another student from Nablus, Rafiq al-Tamimi.

Together, the students founded the "Society of Dad Speakers" on 14 November 1909. "Dad Speakers" was a reference to the Arabs, whose alphabet contains the consonant ض, (approximately pronounced dad), a feature unique to the Arabic language. The name of their organization was quickly changed to "Society of the Young Arab Nation" and later shortened to "Young Arab Society" (Jam'iyat al-Arab al-Fatat). Wary that the word "Arab" could attract the Ottoman government's attention, the organization shortened its name further to "al-Fatat".

The Administrative Committee, in effect the supreme body of al-Fatat's hierarchy, was established in Paris in 1911 by the organization's original members with the addition of Sabri al-Khawja of Iraq. Al-Fatat continued to expand and by early 1913, the Administrative Committee was joined by Sayf al-Din al-Khatib, Subhi al-Hasibi, Jamil Mardam, Mustafa al-Shihabi of Damascus, Ibrahim Haidar and Yusuf Mukhaibar Haidar of Baalbek, Rafiq Rizq Sallum, a Greek Orthodox Christian from Homs, and Tawfiq Fa'id and Abd al-Ghani al-Uraysi of Beirut. The latter owned and edited the Al-Mufid newspaper and provided al-Fatat with a mode for public expression, while Sayf al-Din, Yusuf Mukhaibar and Rafiq Rizq were members of the Istanbul-based Literary Society. Other members to join prior to 1913 were Tawfiq al-Suwaydi of Iraq, Arif al-Shihabi and Tawfiq al-Basat of Damascus, Umar Hamad of Beirut, Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib of Cairo and Rashid al-Husami, a judiciary official from al-Karak.

In early 1913, some of al-Fatat's high-ranking members decided that a congress of Arab societies should be held in Paris and through one of their members, Muhibb al-Din, who was also a deputy leader of the Cairo-based Ottoman Party for Administrative Decentralization, the latter party agreed to participate. The purpose of the congress was to disseminate al-Fatat's ideas. None of al-Fatat's seven delegates identified themselves as members of the organization. Most delegates to the congress, who were roughly divided between Muslims and Christians mostly from Ottoman Syria, came from the Decentralization Party, one of whose members, Abd al-Karim al-Zahrawi, chaired the summit. The resolution of the Arab Congress in June centered on the administrative autonomy of the Arab provinces, Arabic's adoption as an official language in the empire and the institution of democracy to save the Ottoman Empire from "decay".

Following the conclusion of the Arab Congress, negotiations began between the Decentralization Party and the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in July. In a bid to undermine the efforts of the Arab reformist movement, the CUP secretly agreed to adopt the teaching of Arabic in primary and secondary schools and allow the Arab provinces a degree of autonomy. The CUP's offer was rescinded when the Decentralization Party made the offer public. According to Palestinian historian Muhammad Y. Muslih, the CUP used the public disclosure of the offer as a pretext to end the negotiations. The breakdown of the talks was followed by the CUP's attempts to co-opt various Arab reformers by offering Ottoman parliamentary seats to those who defected from their respective Arab reformist society.

Following the 1913 congress, most of al-Fatat's student founders returned to their homes in Ottoman Syria and the headquarters of the organization was moved to Beirut, with a branch in Damascus. Al-Mihmisani was elected secretary-general of the movement, while Qadri became head of the Damascus branch. The movement expanded further with the addition of Shukri al-Quwatli and Muslim scholar and secondary school teacher Kamal al-Qassab of Damascus, and as a result of the merger between al-Fatat and al-Ikhwan al-Ashara (Ten Brothers Society). The name of the Ten Brothers Society referred to the first ten sahaba (companions) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The group was led by its founder Muhammad al-Shurayqi and had branches in Latakia, Tripoli, Damascus and Beirut.

The core members of the Beirut headquarters of al-Fatat met weekly and al-Mihmisani composed documents containing details of the meetings which were then sent out to members based in places outside of Beirut. The members based outside of Beirut were not given an indication of the location from which the letters originated from with "The Desert" being named by al-Mihmisani as the address of origin. In March 1914, the Beirut headquarters decided to adopt a flag for al-Fatat consisting of the colors white, black and green which symbolized the Arab-led caliphates of the Umayyads, the Abbasids and the Fatimids, respectively. The flag was officially composed by Muhibb al-Din in Cairo with cooperation from the Decentralization Party's secretary-general Haqqi al-Azm, who also agreed to adopt the flag for his party. Thereafter, al-Fatat's members carried badges with the tricolor.