The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty

by Ilan Pappe

  The signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war in March 1856, had important implications for the political life of Jerusalem. Britain and France used their wartime assistance to the Ottoman Empire to obtain further privileges for its Christian subjects and greatly strengthened the position of their consuls.

  The consuls were influential in other ways as well. They gave the city a more cosmopolitan look, but the process entailed various humiliations of the local inhabitants. For example, Ottoman soldiers and guards had to stand in the presence of a consul’s son, a gesture of respect that had never been accorded even to the notables.23 Eventually the Husaynis were able to cope with this challenge too.

  The family’s ability to contend with the power of the consuls after the Crimean War was due to their greatly increased wealth as well as their political standing. One of their financial resources was the money paid by the various Christian denominations fighting amongst themselves for possession and management of their sacred sites. Their political rise was due to frequent changes of governors in Jerusalem, much as it had been in Damascus. As each new man came in, he had to quickly establish a modus vivendi with the notables, whose power and self-esteem grew accordingly. Their principal field of operations was the city council, whose composition had hardly changed since the days of Egyptian rule, and this continuity gave it added power.

  ADDING A NEW POWER BASE: THE MUNICIPALITY

  Considering their situation in the late nineteenth century, it may be said that the Husaynis did better in the new world of the twentieth. In the short term, their main rivals, the Khalidis, adapted more successfully to the new realities, benefited from their support for the existing regime and their connections among the new forces in Istanbul and won a dominant, if short-lived, position in the new power base created by the reformists – namely, the municipal council. When the term of the first mayor of Jerusalem, Abd al-Rahman al-Dajani, ended, it seemed only natural that the government would offer the post to Yusuf Daya’, a bright young Khalidi who was only twenty-five. His friendship with the Ottoman foreign minister also helped consolidate the Khalidis’ standing in Jerusalem. (This same Yusuf would later overcome the Husaynis in the contest for another powerful post devised by the reformists, that of district representative in the parliament launched in 1876.)

  In 1863 the opening of the first municipality building – a fine edifice, and only the second municipality in the empire after Istanbul – gratified all the other notables as much as it did the Khalidis, and it seems they all took part in the ceremony. The event also marked the start of a new sartorial fashion among the elite: many of them appeared wearing the tarbush (‘headgear’ in Persian), a hat that had been introduced in Jerusalem in 1861 after it made its first appearance in Istanbul and Cairo.24

  Before long the Husaynis realized that if they wished to maintain their position in the city, they had to have some control over the municipality.25 Yet only in the sixth round, during the 1880s, did they put up a candidate of their own. Since it was a secular post, they chose someone from the Umari branch, the family’s social side. Umar Fahmi, the son of Muhammad Ali, was elected as the sixth mayor of Jerusalem, and thereafter the post often remained in Husayni hands. Yet the Umari branch did not retain the post for long, and Umar Fahmi’s successor was Salim, the son of Abd al-Salam. In fact, since the two main branches had formed more matrimonial bonds between them, Salim Hussein – known as al-Shaqir (‘The Benefactor’) – belonged to more than one branch of the family. His own son and successor, Hussein Salim, was a scion of the family as a whole, though after him the post of mayor passed to the religious Tahiri branch of the family, which also held the post of mufti. Centralizing reforms caused the two Husayni posts of naqib al-ashraf and sheikh al-haram to lose their elevated status (in Palestine at any rate and certainly in Jerusalem), and these were held by the Umari branch (Bashir, the son of Umar Fahmi, would be sheikh al-haram). In contrast, the Tahiri branch filled two powerful positions – the old one of mufti and the new mayoralty.

  Future historians, many of them Israelis and some – for example, Elie Kedourie – unsympathetic to the Palestinian nation, would argue that al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni became a powerful figure in Palestine by deceiving the new rulers, particularly the British. This ignores the tremendous power of the Husayni branch to which al-Hajj Amin belonged. The British rulers did not ignore this but took it into account. At any event, in the final stages of Ottoman rule there were other senior posts to be had in the local officialdom. It seems that the administrative pie was fairly evenly divided between the branches of the family.

  In the period under discussion, only the municipality was added to the array of coveted local posts. Though in future the mayoralty would become a significant institution, it was less influential during the 1860s, if only because its budget was too meager for it to carry much weight. Nevertheless, after the promulgation of the vilayet law in 1864, the municipality became more important, and it became even more so in 1872 when Jerusalem became a district in its own right.

  The situation changed in 1875 when the prerogatives of the municipality were enlarged to include exclusive control over the city’s budget and development. Two years later it changed still further when the new institution became more powerful following the promulgation of the law of municipalities. From that point on, the mayoralty was usually in the hands of Husaynis.26

  In the late 1870s the Husaynis and other families, notably the Khalidis, waged an unprecedented, intense contest for the post of mayor. The mayor was chosen first by the city council, which consisted not only of notables but also of the leaders of non-Muslim communities and representatives of the poorer classes. Then the chosen candidate had to win the support of all the townspeople who were Ottoman citizens. This contest took place during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876–1909), who favored the Husaynis more than had his predecessor, Abdul Aziz II. Perhaps it was thanks to this imperial favor that the family took over the institution and retained it.

  GROWING AFFLUENCE AND ITS PRICE

  For the Husaynis, the 1870s were also a time when property and commerce became very significant factors. Until the previous decade, they had still been very cautious about economic expansion and, as we have seen, about the reforms, which – at least until 1875 – tended to favor Jerusalem’s Christian and Jewish merchants. The conservatism of the Muslim elite constrained their development, but once they shed their traditional stance the notables also began to reap the financial benefits of the increasing integration of the local and European economies. Following the deaths of Muhammad Ali and Mustafa in 1869, a younger and bolder generation of Husaynis came to the fore, and in 1870 they began to look beyond the city walls.

  Rabah al-Husayni, the son of Muhammad Ali and grandson of Umar al-Husayni, was more interested in the accumulation of wealth than in local politics. He was a scion of the Umari branch of the family, whose decline in public affairs may have spurred its members to succeed materially. At first Rabah did quite well. His great wealth gave him political influence, and it was only natural that he was appointed naqib al-ashraf like his father and grandfather before him. Like his kinsmen Salim, Shukri and Ismail, who had headed the family in the reign of Abdul Hamid II, he discovered that continued social prominence and the guardianship of Muslim sacred properties could be profitable. Personal wealth became another weapon in the arena of the local economy, which was increasingly linked to that of the world at large.

  The chief losers in this struggle were the Palestinian farming community – that is, most of the population – which was obliged to turn from cultivation for personal consumption to cash crops. The Christian and Jewish merchants, and later the great Muslim families who also mediated between the cultivators and the outside world, could withstand the sweeping process by acting as middlemen in the export of raw materials (chiefly from neighboring countries) or by importing manufactured goods. Towards the end of the century they also took up speculating and dealing in real estate, includ
ing properties of the Muslim religious council.

  Rabah al-Husayni enlarged the family holdings in the neighboring villages and bought lands in the villages of Ayn Sinniya and Ajul. He was also the first to display the family’s wealth and to change its residential habits. During the 1860s, young members of the family who returned to the city late often found themselves threatened by wild animals and bandits. (Since the time of Governor Surraya [c. 1700] the city gates were closed every evening at nightfall.) Rabah came up with the idea of moving the family’s residences adjacent to the religious properties they managed – mostly beside the Haram – outside the walled city. Perhaps the move was also prompted by the desire to live among orchards and groves, rather than in the increasingly crowded walled city, whose population doubled in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.27 In 1870 Rabah built himself a palatial home near the mosque at Sheikh Jarrah, making him the first Husayni to live outside the city.

  These buildings outside the walls of Jerusalem, to which new Jewish neighborhoods would later be added, were changing the character of the city. During the reign of Abdul Aziz (1861–76), there was a dramatic surge in construction, including the Russians’ extensive purchase of lands both inside and outside the city. The process entailed the westward extension of water pipes and roads as well as gardens. The Austrians contributed by paving the road to Jaffa, improving the link between Jerusalem and the rest of the country. The first carriages appeared in Jerusalem in 1860 and gradually replaced the traditional covered litters.28

  Rabah lived in his new house with his four wives. Since none of them bore him a son, the niqaba passed to the Tahiri branch of the family, that of the muftis. It did not pass directly: first Rabah’s brother Abd al-Latif won the post, but since there was an open contest for it, the government (or perhaps the family itself) preferred Hassan’s grandson Ahmad Rasim al-Husayni to be the naqib. Thus at the end of the century the Umari branch of the family lost another power base (having already lost the mayoralty to the stronger Tahiri branch). In reality, by this time the post of naqib no longer carried any political weight and was chiefly a vestige of the old nobility. Rabah lost not only the nostalgic title but also his entire fortune in a miscalculated land transaction, in which he sold his palatial home and its surrounding land to an American family who would later establish the American Colony on the site.29

  Two of Rabah’s kinsmen did much better and made the most of the new opportunities created during the Tanzimat. One was Umar Fahmi al-Husayni, whose fortunes recovered extremely well after the incident that had led to his exile in Rhodes late in the reign of Abdul Aziz. As Umar Fahmi’s name indicates, he was a scion of the Umari branch of the family, which had lost much of its political power. His own financial acumen was as poor as that of his kinsman Rabah, but his family’s decline drove Umar Fahmi, like many of his younger relatives, to opt for an administrative and parliamentary career. The imperial constitutional reform did not separate these powers, and it was possible to combine them. Umar Fahmi was one of the first to study at the new Ottoman schools of administration, where he was a brilliant student. In 1872, his first appointment was as chief of the land registry in Jerusalem, where he received a handsome baksheesh for every registered land transaction – which frequently led to rows with the Europeans. But Umar Fahmi soon rose higher, and under Abdul al-Hamid II (1876–1909), the last effective sultan, he became a member of the Ottoman Parliament and Mayor of Jerusalem.30

  The other Husayni who made the most of the new system was Musa, the son of Tahir and younger brother of Mufti Mustafa al-Husayni. Strictly speaking, Musa belonged to the Tahiri branch, that of the muftis, but in reality he figured in on a different track entirely – that of individual members of the family who broke out of the old confining framework and followed their own path. In Chapter One, we saw how in the middle of the eighteenth century the first Mustafa, the son of Abd al-Latif, had no share in the family fortunes but chose to follow a purely religious career. Musa al-Husayni was cast in the same mold. But where Mustafa had devoted himself to religion, Musa chose commerce and construction. Starting from the solid economic foundation left to his branch of the family by Tahir al-Husayni, Musa became one of the most important businessmen in the district of Jerusalem. He was elected head of the local chamber of commerce, and this led to a senior position on the district council. Though he did not seek a political career, his material success obliged him to accede to the request of the governor of Jerusalem, Kamal Pasha, to serve as the city’s mayor in 1874.31 During the 1880s Musa al-Husayni also sat as chief magistrate of the secular court that dealt with criminal cases.

  Another of their contemporaries was Tahir II, the son of Mustafa – to be distinguished from his grandfather Tahir – who succeeded Mustafa II as mufti of Jerusalem. Born during the Tanzimat in 1842 when his grandfather was in exile in Istanbul and his young father assumed the post of mufti, Tahir II is remembered as the father of al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni but deserves to be known in his own right. He was only twenty-three when he became mufti himself (his son Amin would repeat this achievement by becoming mufti at the age of twenty-five). Tahir II remained in the post for forty years – an astonishing feat in itself – and would leave his imprint on the religious atmosphere in the city, which had recently become, as it had been during the Crusades, a lodestone for the three monotheistic religions and the five European powers.

  The history of the Husaynis during the Tanzimat may be divided into ebb tide and flood tide. During the first part, which ended in 1856, the Husaynis had difficulty adapting to the changes imposed by the reforms of the sultan and his ministers that some other families managed to cope with. In fact, the Husaynis missed a historical opportunity when the balance of power in the district of Jerusalem shifted in favor of the urban notables at the expense of the mountain potentates. At high tide, a new generation adjusted fairly easily to the new Ottoman state and, by combining the economic fortune created by their predecessors with the new education, was able to restore the family’s power.

  Though the Tanzimat created additional power bases, the family was able to seize control of most of them. Other families underwent a similar process – for example, the Nashashibis, whose relationship with the Husaynis in the twentieth century has been likened to that of the Montagues and Capulets. But none of the other notables achieved such status and prestige, largely because the family had built a power base unequalled in the city or district, thanks to the cousins Umar and Tahir I.

  At their high tide after the Crimean War, the Husaynis began to fit into the new Ottoman administration. However, this did not put an end to the politics of notables, as Albert Hourani called them. The modern Ottoman state recognized the genuine social power of the local notables, who continued to command all the religious posts (except that of the qadi, which was reserved for men from Istanbul). The sultans valued their connection with holy cities such as Jerusalem and ensured that the guardians of the sacred sites retained their status.32

  For a moment in the late 1860s, it looked as if the Ottoman policy was becoming so Westernized that the mediating function of these families would come to an end. Motivated by the need for greater efficiency following the military defeats, or by economic difficulties, and certainly by European influence, a group of more radical reformers sought to launch new reforms that would tighten the link between the government and its subjects. These were democratically orientated groups of intellectuals hoping to advance reform beyond the limits imposed by the high bureaucrats running the show. This was not what the Husaynis were looking for, and they were quite happy when a more cautious reformer, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, came to the throne.

  The historian Beshara Doumani has noted that the situation in Palestine was not merely a reflection of the reformist laws. Every reformist law, when promulgated, set off negotiations regarding the new relationship between the government and the districts and brought about the creation of a new reality. This made it possible to adapt and survive in a changing worl
d.

  During the reign of Abdul Hamid II, the Husayni family assured its survival by sending its sons to take up administrative posts in the empire. To achieve this, they took advantage of Jerusalem’s private Christian educational system. This was entirely a missionary system that the family had previously resisted as a crude Christian infiltration of the holy city. One important institution was the Zion School for Boys, established in 1853 on Mount Zion by the Anglican bishop Samuel Gobat, who had come to Jerusalem in the 1840s to provide free education to indigent students. Eventually many of the Husayni men were educated by him.

  As in the past, survival still depended on good contacts in Istanbul, but it was a very different capital from the one that the family patriarch, Abd al-Latif II, had known. It was divided between the Westernizing reformists and the ‘reactionary’ guardians of tradition. It was not enough to be on friendly terms with someone in a senior position – political acumen and a sound understanding of the relative strength of the warring factions was also essential. In this setting the Husaynis, unlike many of the Arab elites in the empire, were not passive pawns in the hands of the chess players in the capital but rather active elements in shaping the process of the reforms.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Death of the Old World

  Towards the End of the Ottoman Era in Palestine

  During the 1870s the pace of change increased dramatically. In the early years of the decade the Ottoman reforms reached their peak. Divinely inspired Shari‘a law was converted into a modern codex, the Majala, while the ‘Young Turks’ – that dynamic group of Ottoman statesmen who sought to turn the empire into a modern state with a constitutional monarch – drafted a constitution and proposed the creation of a Western-style parliament.