The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty

by Ilan Pappe

  In the fourth session, the delegates held a secret ballot to elect the executive committee, choosing the nine candidates with the largest number of votes. Al-Hajj Amin was not among the winners. Thirty-three delegates (all but the three Husaynis) chose Arif al-Dajani. Musa Kazim received only twenty-six votes but was elected, as noted, as a chairman as a tribute to his seniority. The three Husaynis did not play a prominent part in the debates, and only in one of the sessions (when the venue of future conferences was discussed) did their voices predominate. Haifa and four other centers were proposed, but al-Hajj Amin pressed for Jerusalem and won.

  The third conference also signaled the end of Kamil al-Husayni’s role in this story. He was to be replaced by Musa Kazim, al-Hajj Amin and Jamal, who became the leading figures in the Husayni clan during the British Mandate. Kamil made his last appearance in this history when he met with McCracken, Whittingham and Storrs at a reception held in the garden of the municipality in honor of the king’s birthday. It was a pleasant occasion, and the conversation was not about politics. Whittingham recalled that they talked about a custom that surprised foreign visitors – namely, Palestinian monogamy. Musa Kazim noted that most Muslims in Palestine were content to marry one woman, and suddenly the Europeans, Americans and Palestinians shared a sense of closeness.

  Kamil al-Husayni died in March 1921. It is not surprising that the Jewish High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, would describe Kamil as a symbol of Palestinian cooperation with the British. Even Storrs had to admit that with Kamil’s passing the British authorities lost the one Husayni who showed understanding for Britain’s problems, even though towards the end of his life he spearheaded the struggle against the Balfour Declaration.

  That March two very important persons visited Jerusalem: Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, and Amir Abdullah, the brother of Faysal. They would nail down decisions about the future of Palestine that the Palestinians would be unable to alter or to accept.

  Until 1920 Abdullah had been the foreign minister in his father’s government in the Hijaz and had considered himself a candidate for the throne of Iraq under a British mandate. Seeing that his father’s family was greatly weakened by the rise of the rival house of Saud and that the British government was about to install his brother Faysal in Iraq, he made an extremely shrewd move. Leaving his father’s kingdom, he advanced towards Transjordan and declared he was going to wrest Damascus from the French. In reality he settled for much less. He reached a small Circassian town called Amman and forced the British government to accept him as the ruler of the territory, which also came under the British Mandate.

  Winston Churchill was only too pleased. He separated Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan into two entities (as they had been during the Ottoman period) and accepted Abdullah as ruler of the latter. The question arose of what to do about the Balfour Declaration, which had included Transjordan, and Churchill and Abdullah discussed the matter in Jerusalem in March 1921.

  They met Musa Kazim on the steps of the Augusta Victoria Church and informed him that the Balfour Declaration would remain in force but that Transjordan would be a separate political entity under British protection. Both decisions were equally damaging and frustrating. Musa Kazim represented the Palestinians who believed that it was imperative to fight against Churchill and his schemes, by force if necessary. Overnight, Churchill became an enemy of the Palestinian people: ‘I always regarded him as a venomous and ruthless enemy,’ al-Hajj Amin would say towards the end of his life.35

  When Churchill’s car passed through Jaffa, the streets emptied and the shops and offices closed in protest against his policy. Churchill tried to draw Musa Kazim’s attention to the second part of the Balfour Declaration, which promised that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’. British politician and historian Mark Sykes writes that ‘al-Husayni did not understand politics when he rejected the second part’.36 Did he not? The second part was subsidiary and vague. It is possible that had the Palestinians accepted the Balfour Declaration in toto, they might have embarrassed Britain and caused it to reappraise the situation. But this did not happen, and it is doubtful whether in the years come, when the Zionist lobby became stronger, the obfuscating and uncommitted British attitude would have changed.

  The meeting with Churchill depressed not only Musa Kazim. Many of the politically active people in Jerusalem and all of Palestine felt helpless and despairing in the face of the new force that had arisen in their world – namely, Zionism. Had this feeling impelled them to act, they might have succeeded. But their low spirits only deepened the dissension, and especially the inter-clan rivalries, amongst them.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Grand Mufti and His Family

  Al-Hajj Amin Elected Mufti

  Not all the heads of the family were shaken by the fall of Faysal’s rule in Damascus. But those who had cast their lot with Greater Syria were stunned to hear about the French army’s swift advance to the plain of Maysalun, northwest of Damascus, and the crushing defeat inflicted on Faysal’s small army. Now their political energy had to be diverted to building up a Palestinian national movement. The Arab Club preferred by the Husaynis and the Nashashibis’ favorite, the Literary Club, were replaced by the Muslim-Christian Association.1

  The fall of Faysal was not the worst setback to contend with – harder still was the British government’s hostility to the demands of the new national association. The government refused to recognize the executive committee of the third Palestinian Congress as a representative body. Yet it treated the Jewish leadership with sympathy, and the pro-Zionist High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel dealt with it as though it were a quasi-government. Though the High Commissioner’s advisers persuaded him to maintain working relations with the Palestinian executive, this was not enough to bridge the gap, which would grow wider through the years of the mandate.

  Despite the drama of the British conquest, the family had a sense of unity and continuity. Most of the family lived in the same neighborhood, known as the Husayniyya. Half of its twenty-two houses were occupied by the family. When they did not discuss the major issues of the day, the politicians of the family gave much thought to the mufti’s successor as Kamil’s health deteriorated during the winter of 1920–1. Hearing that he was ailing, several members of the family returned from other parts of the Arab world. Kamil’s brother al-Hajj Amin and his son Tahir III were the main contenders for the post. Kamil himself had hinted more than once that he regarded al-Hajj Amin as his successor, but since Tahir also wanted the post the family had to choose between them.2

  However, new conditions called for unprecedented political and social efforts – this time the mufti had to be elected. In Ottoman times, the sheikh al-islam, the Grand Mufti of the empire, would generally choose the mufti of Jerusalem from among the family dynasties that had held the post, so that it passed from father to son or another heir. In any case, Ottoman law required that the mufti be chosen from among the notables. The British rulers did not wish to change local customs, believing that international law demanded they follow the Ottoman law that laid down the procedure for choosing a new mufti.

  Had the Ottomans been in power, they might also have chosen al-Hajj Amin. In any event the Husaynis would have retained the post, since very few families could boast a lineage as grand as theirs. A typical product of the age of nationalism, al-Hajj Amin was a natural for the post, having served in Faysal’s entourage and shown leadership qualities during the events of April 1920. But the Ottomans were gone, and Kamil died in March 1921. Not long before his death, the British rulers weakened his position by making Sheikh Khalil al-Khalidi president of the Shari‘a Court of Appeal, a post that had been Kamil’s.3

  Ottoman law required a special gathering of the ulama and members of the district and city councils to propose three candidates, one of whom would be chosen by the sheikh al-islam as the next mufti. This time it was decided that a
n ad hoc council of religious scholars would select four candidates and then vote on the final choice. Al-Hajj Amin was the Husaynis’ candidate, while the rival Nashashibis wanted to put forward a candidate of their own, hoping to deprive the Husaynis of this power base. The sharp break between the families was probably occasioned by the appointment of Raghib al-Nashashibi as mayor in place of the deposed Musa Kazim, as described in the previous chapter.

  But the Nashashibis had no suitable candidate of their own, and so they turned to the Jarallahs. During the eighteenth century, before the Ghuddayas had become the Husaynis, the Jarallahs competed with them for the posts of mufti and naqib. Two centuries later, in 1948, when East Jerusalem was annexed by the Hashemite kingdom, the post of mufti was given to the Jarallahs, in keeping with Jordan’s policy of sidelining the Husaynis.4 In the past, the Jarallahs had twice been defeated in contests for senior posts in Jerusalem. The first time was in 1720, but it is doubtful that they were impelled by such a distant memory. The second time was in 1856, when the post of mufti went to the Husaynis, which may well have been sufficient cause for the Jarallahs to support the Nashashibi bid.

  They chose Husam Jarallah, partly because he was a graduate of al-Azhar. While his diploma did not represent a serious advantage, it became central to the Nashashibis’ campaign simply because al-Hajj Amin had failed to graduate from that august institution. Husam was also the superintendent of the Shari‘a courts, and most important, he was an older man, as were the other two candidates. Since the electors among the ulama were also older men, it was reasonable to assume that young al-Hajj Amin would strike them as unsuitable.5

  To Tahir’s dismay, the family decided that, young as he was, al-Hajj Amin was the right man for the post and began to campaign for him. Since the creation of the municipality, the main method of campaigning had been to circulate a petition. The young members of the family wrote the petition proclaiming that al-Hajj Amin was ‘the people’s choice’, and distributed and pasted it up all over the city. Some of the flyers had been written in advance, others were actually penned by supporters. The ones signed ‘the common people’ were probably written by a member of the family.

  Among the signatories in the Haifa area was Izz al-Din al-Qassam, a Syrian Muslim cleric. After having taken part in the national revolt against the French, he had been captured and sentenced to death but managed to escape to Haifa. This man, who would have considerable influence over al-Hajj Amin’s future, contributed to the latter’s election as leader of the Muslim community in Palestine.6 His name is as familiar to students of Palestine at the beginning of the twenty-first century as it was during the mandatory period.

  One reason the family believed that al-Hajj Amin would win despite his youth was that he had the support of Muhammad Abu Saud al-Ghori, the qadi of Jerusalem. Immediately after Kamil’s death, al-Ghori wrote Governor Storrs that ‘his brother, al-Hajj Amin Effendi, is his heir’.7 This greatly impressed the family, who saw it as approval from on high. Directly after his older brother’s death, al-Hajj Amin put on the hamama (the Hajj’s white hat) and began to grow a beard as though he were already the mufti. That day he discarded his European suit for ever.

  Elections were held on 12 April 1921. Husam Jarallah received most of the votes while al-Hajj Amin only made it to fourth place.8 Shocked, the family gathered in Ismail’s house and railed against the results. Ismail and Jamil had conducted the campaign for al-Hajj Amin, and though he was not their favorite, they all felt that the family’s prestige hung in the balance. Now they all assembled to launch an intensive second campaign to change the outcome. Helped by his friends in the Arab Club, Jamil invited ulama and notables from all over Palestine to his house and asked them in the name of the people to organize an opposition in the towns and villages. The result was hugely successful: hundreds of petitions arrived from all over the country along with the especially heartening support of the heads of the Christian communities. Faysal, the exiled King of Syria, and his brother Abdullah also sent letters of support. In later years, Abdullah would become al-Hajj Amin’s nemesis, but such are the vagaries of history – today an ally, tomorrow an enemy.9

  The petitions advanced two arguments – one, that the choice of mufti concerned all Palestine; two, that the post should be held by the descendant of a family of muftis – combining older concepts with contemporary national realities and illustrating the transition of Palestinian society from a tradition-bound community to a national society.

  Typical of the gossipy nature of politics at that time, other petitions circulating sought to convince the Palestinian public that a Nashashibi-Zionist conspiracy was afoot. On the night of 19 April 1921, a week after the vote, young Husaynis pasted five posters on the walls of the Old City warning the public that the Jews were trying to install a traitor as mufti, one who would accept Zionism and try to kill the Palestinian national spirit. This traitor would sell the religious property known as Abu Maidan – which included the area of the Wailing Wall – to the Zionists, who were trying to take over the Haram al-Sharif in order to build the third Jewish temple upon its ruins. The poster quoted Zionist leaders who spoke of building the Temple of Solomon anew on the Temple Mount. It is doubtful that anyone actually read those posters, because they were removed the following morning, but this message was transmitted by other means and served al-Hajj Amin’s campaign.10 The Husaynis were gathering sympathy for their cause.

  Some Husaynis did not fight on the anti-Nashashibi front. Shaker al-Husayni (grandson of Mayor Hussein) of the Umari branch not only sided with the Nashashibis, he also headed their efforts to reach an understanding with the Jewish Agency. In February 1923, Shaker met with Colonel Kisch, an Anglo Jew enlisted by Weizmann to head the Zionist executive in Palestine. Shaker told Kisch about his attempt to persuade the Husaynis to support the idea of an advisory council, a kind of joint Palestinian-Zionist parliament with an equal number of representatives for each group (though the ratio in the country was nine Palestinians to one Jew). The formation of such a body would have implied Palestinian acceptance of the Jewish claim to at least a part of the country. The idea had been worked out with Raghib al-Nashashibi and Arif al-Dajani. Kisch worked hard to unify these Palestinian forces and was successful to some extent.11

  The British government was now under pressure. On the one hand, there were the results of the preliminary vote for the mufti, while on the other, there was clear popular support for al-Hajj Amin’s candidacy. The High Commissioner was faced with a dilemma: al-Hajj Amin was inexperienced and had taken part in anti-British activities, but there was no denying his family’s prominent position in local politics. Sir Herbert Samuel had little sympathy for al-Hajj Amin. This was due not only to Samuel’s pro-Zionist inclination but also to the influence of al-Hajj Amin’s chief opponent in the British administration, Sir Wyndham Deedes.

  Al-Hajj Amin won this contest of wills: the vote was canceled, and he was appointed mufti by the mandatory government. The day after he became mufti, Deedes resigned his post. Samuel met with al-Hajj Amin the day before the preliminary vote and was favorably impressed, believing that the young man would use his own and his family’s influence to bring calm to Jerusalem and the entire country.12 Later that month they met again, and according to Norman Bentwich, a future public prosecutor in the mandatory government, al-Hajj Amin promised to cooperate with the government and even expressed regret over his part in organizing the events of April 1920.13 He also maintained that the violent demonstrations that occurred at the time had been spontaneous and unplanned. Bentwich, who would come to regard al-Hajj Amin as a very dangerous man, believed that he was sincere in his promises to appease the country, as shown by the fact that it was quiet between 1922 and 1929. The public never knew the details of these talks, but many suspected that Samuel’s support had been won by al-Hajj Amin’s moderation – an assumption that would become a central argument of the Palestinian opposition in years to come. Both his Palestinian opponents and the Zionists described hi
m as an opportunist because he cooperated with the British to secure his position. At any rate, he obtained the government’s support. Just before leaving the High Commissioner, al-Hajj Amin asked him directly, ‘Which do you prefer – an avowed opponent or an unsound friend?’ ‘An avowed opponent,’ Sir Herbert replied.14 Perhaps this final exchange convinced the High Commissioner that he had chosen well.

  The government vacillated throughout April, which ended with the Nabi Musa celebrations. The festival was peaceful and orderly that year. Al-Hajj Amin conspicuously worked hard to keep them quiet, and his impressive conduct as a man of religion, rather than of politics, impressed the British authorities. Astutely, he took the mufti’s place at the head of the procession to Nabi Musa, where he made a conciliatory speech, and everything passed off calmly. To reinforce the impression that a peaceful new era had begun, he invited Sir Herbert to a kosher dinner at his house, which marked a real rapprochement between him and the British authorities.15 The High Commissioner felt that al-Hajj Amin had matured and meant to follow his late brother’s cooperative ways.

  Ernest Richmond, a political adviser to the city governor, was instrumental in persuading the High Commissioner to cancel the final vote and appoint al-Hajj Amin. Richmond was an architect who had served in the Public Works Department in Egypt before the Great War. His close friend Storrs had rescued him from a gloomy job at the Imperial Internment Department in Cairo and brought him to Jerusalem. There Storrs made Richmond supervisor of the restoration of the Dome of the Rock on the Haram al-Sharif, a position that brought him into close contact with the Husaynis and their world. As mufti, al-Hajj Amin devoted himself to the restoration of the two shrines, enlisting the help of his adored teacher Rashid al-Rida and Prince Muhammad Ali, the uncle of King Fuad of Egypt. As a consequence of his work on the shrines, Richmond became an informal adviser to Storrs, in whose house he stayed (as he had done in Egypt before the war), and in 1918 he was made an official adviser. His unreserved support for the Palestinians, notably the Husaynis, won him a place of honor in the family history. However, his career in Jerusalem came to an end in 1924 when a pro-Zionist British administration drove him out of the city.16