Palestinian Leader, Hajj Amin Al-Husayni, Mufti of Jerusalem

233 Pages·1985·3.93 MB·English

by  Taysir Jabarah

PALESTINIAN LEADER
HAJJ AMIN AL-HUSAYNI
MUFTI OF JERUSALEM
BY
TA YSIR JB ARA
The Kingston Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 1456
Princeton, New Jersey 08542
Copyright o 1985 by the Kingston press, inc., Princeton, nj 08542
AU rights reserved.
No part of this pubUcation may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the pubUsher.
ISBN 0-940670-10-0
library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 85-050584
Published by
THE KINGSTON PRESS, INC.
P.O. BOX 1456
PRINCETON, NJ 08542 USA
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
U *
Preface............................................................................................ v
Acknowledgments........................................................................... xi
Abbreviations........................................... xii
INTRODUCTION: Hajj Amin al-Husayni, Mufti of Jerusalem 1
CHAPTER ONE: The Origins of the al-Husayni Family___ 5
The al-Husayni Family Relations with the Jews
Prior to World War I ........................................................... 11
Hajj Amin’s Childhood and Education .................................... IS
Hajj Amin al-Husayni—Officer in Turkey............................... 15
CHAPTER TWO: The Role of Hajj Amin al-Husayni
During the British Military Administration....................... 25
Hajj Amin al-Husayni During the British Military
Administration—The Caliphate Question......................... 30
The Role of Hajj Amin in the Demonstration of 1920 .......... 32
CHAPTER THREE: Mufti of Jerusalem ................................. 41
The Appointment of Hajj Amin al-Husayni............................. 41
The Supreme Muslim Shari'a Council
(Al-Majlis al-Islami al-Shar’i al-A‘la)................................... 46
CHAPTER FOUR: Activities of Hajj Amin, 1920-1928 ........ 61
The Restoration of the al-Haram al-Sharif............................... 61
The Caliphate Question............................................................... 65
The Mufti’s Achievements and Activities................................... 66
The Syrian Relief Committee..................................................... 68
The International Missionary Conference................................. 69
CHAPTER FIVE: The Wailing Wall Incident......................... 77
Hajj Amin’s Islamic Role in the Incident of 1928 ................... 77
Hajj Amin and the Islamic Issues in 1929................................. 83
Hajj Amin’s Islamic Activities Abroad...................................... 90
The International Wailing Wall Commission........................... 94
tit
iv Palestinian Leader Hajj Amin
CHAPTER SIX: The World Islamic Congress
in Jerusalem of 1931 .............................................................103
Hajj Amin’s Islamic Activities Before the Congress................104
Opposition to the ‘Ulama’ Congress and
Hajj Amin’s Reaction.............................................................107
The Islamic Congress.....................................................................110
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Islamic Activities of
Hajj Amin, 1932-1935 .......................................................... 119
The Financial Crises of the Supreme Muslim Council..............119
Jewish Immigration and Land Sales........................................ 125
The Conference of the ’Ulama’ ................................................ 133
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Palestinian National Strike................141
Hajj Amin’s Islamic Role in the Strike of 1936 ....................... 141
The Mufti’s Islamic Activities with the Peel
Commission and the Partition Plan.......................................154
CHAPTER NINE: Postscript:
The Mufti in Exile, 1937-1974..............................................179
The Mufti’s Activities in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.....................179
The Mufti in Europe.....................................................................183
The Mufti in Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon...............................186
Bibliography.....................................................................................197
Glossary............................................................................................212
Index................................................................................................215
PREFACE
I
As the story of the Palestinian leader, Hajj Amin al-Husayni,
unfolds, it would help the reader to keep in mind some of the
major events and trends which had taken place or come to fruition
during the years of the Great War. Basically the war had begun
over the question of how the spoils of the world economy would
be divided among a few leading countries, in particular, Britain,
France, Austria-Hungary and Russia, that is, the old European
imperial powers, and the new industrial states of Japan, Germany
and the United States. Two Asian Empires, the Ottoman Em­
pire (comprising chiefly Turks and Arabs) and Imperial China,
were expected to die of old age and technological backward­
ness. Japan had defeated Russia in 1904-05, thus giving
notice that Manchuria and Korea would be her sphere of in­
fluence. The United States had early staked out an interest in
Latin America and also had an entire continent to develop. Russia
had declared herself protector of the Slavs and the Orthodox
church, making it clear that she considered much of the Balkans
her special interest. Such a stance fell afoul of the interests of the
preeminent Catholic power, Austria-Hungary. France and Eng­
land had staked out large chunks of Africa and Asia for their
economic well-being, which left very litde to the recently-united
economic giant, imperial Germany. Newly-acquired economic
and military ties with the deeply-distressed, but far from mori­
bund, Ottoman Empire had given Germany a ready market for
her industrial goods.
Having lost her favored position in the Ottoman state after
annexing Egypt in 1882, Britain grew concerned about German
trade successes, the Berlin-Baghdad railroad project and the rise
of the German navy. Yet no one expected a war in 1914 even
when the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in
Sarajevo. But Austria, the weakest of the old powers, mobi­
lized to punish tiny Serbia causing Russia to call up her poorly-
equipped troops to protect the South Slavs. Germany, tied to
Austria by an offensive-defensive treaty, now mobilized quickly
and struck a decisive blow against France and Britain in the war’s
v
vi Palestinian Leader Hajj Amin
first year. Germany also brought the Ottoman Empire into the
war on her side. Thus, England, France, Russia, Italy and even­
tually the United States faced off against Germany, Austria and
the Ottoman Empire.
The British government realized early in the War that they
could only maintain the Empire through diplomacy and propa­
ganda, for her early military operations in Europe and the Near
East had ended in disaster. Fighting seasoned German, Turkish
and Arab troops proved a different matter from subduing native
Africans armed with spears or muzzle-loading rifles. To stiffen
the backbone of her allies, the British promised each in turn a
handsome reward when the smoke of batde would setde. To
France would go the Levant, Lebanon and Syria; to imperial
Russia control of the Straits and beautiful Istanbul, the Ottoman
capital. But the Turks and Arabs in the Empire, supported by
German technology, proved to be no pushover. A division of
British troops and its general were taken captive near Baghdad.
The big guns at the mouth of the Dardenelles sunk 25 major naval
vessels, and Colonel Mustafa Kemal and his ragged artillery bri­
gade, on the heights above Gallipoli, repulsed and destroyed
wave after wave of British imperial troops.
What could be done to weaken the Germans, the Turks and
their allies? Every trick of propaganda was used to induce the
Americans to join with Britain and France against Germany. In
the end, by becoming Britian’s chief supplier of food and military
equipment, the United States jeopardized its vaunted neutrality
and invited German submarine attacks. Thus, in 1917, just when
imperial Russia withdrew from the war crumbling in the grip of a
social revolution, the United States declared war and began to send
troops to France.
II
In the same year two other British plans came to fruition. In
promising vaguely to Sharif Husayn, the Ottoman-appointed
chief religious dignitary of Mecca, that Arabs would have “free­
dom in their own lands” if they revolted against the Sultan, a con­
siderable number of Arab subjects, particularly in Syria, Palestine
and Arabia, abandoned the Ottomans for British silver, weapons
and the promise.
The Sultan, in his not-fully-accepted claim to the title of
Caliph, the Successor to the Prophet Muhammad, had previously
Preface vii
maintained the loyalty of most devout Muslims. But under the
influence of European ideas of nationalism and older ideas of
Arab solidarity, many Arabs abandoned the caliphal and Otto­
man imperial loyalties. The British and the French were quite
prepared in World War I, for the sake of their individual imperial
interests, to fragment Muslim loyalties even further in order to
maintain control indefinitely over the natural and human re­
sources of such prizes as North Africa, Egypt and India.
Even after sowing discord among the Ottomans, the British
war leaders still wanted to strike at the heart of the German war
effort by creating misunderstanding between Germans and their
most vigorous minority, the Jews. Soon an opportunity was pro­
vided by the Jews themselves. The Jews, like the Arabs, and so
many other peoples in eastern Europe, Asia and Africa were in
the throes of a national awakening. A ploy for winning the war
was suggested to both sides in the war by a group of active Jewish
nationalists, known as Zionists. To Britain the Zionists pledged
international and especially American support if Britain support­
ed the setting up of a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine after
the war. It was also intimated by Chaim Weizmann, their chief
spokesman, that a Jewish entity in Palestine would help the Brit­
ish hold onto Egypt which, prior to the War, had generated a
strong national movement. Lord Balfour, British foreign secre­
tary, felt no qualms about promising away the birthright of Pales­
tinian Arabs with a vaguely-worded letter to Lord Rothschild, the
perceived head of international Jewry. Promptly after the Bal­
four Declaration was issued in November of 1917, the British
translated the document into German and dropped it behind
German lines, a blatant attempt to undermine the loyal support
of German Jews to the Kaiser's government.
German Zionists also were working actively behind the scenes
in Berlin trying to have the Kaiser issue a similar document. The
Germans, however, had a difficult problem. They had to ap­
proach a brave ally, Ottoman Turkey, and to ask the nationalistic
Young Turk government to promise away a section of Muslim
territory on which hundreds of Arab villages and holy Jerusalem
was located.
With an Arab revolt in the Middle East and overwhelming
American support in France, the war came to its conclusion in the
Middle East on October 30, 1918 with Britain in occupation of
Arab Palestine. Shortly afterwards, France took possession of
viii Palestinian Leader Hajj Amin
Lebanon and Syria and pushed out the Arab Legion forces under
the command of Prince Faisal, the son of Sharif Husayn. Mean­
while Husayn had declared himself King of the Arabs, a move
particularly annoying to Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia who would
soon drive King Husayn out of Arabia altogether. Only later did
the British present the King’s sons with the Kingdoms of Trans­
jordan and Iraq as the family payoff for the Arab revolt.
The Entente powers together with President Wilson of the
United States had met in Versailles to draft a peace treaty. Fear­
ful for the future of their empires and smarting under their con­
tinual humiliadon by Germany and the Ottoman Empire during
the war, Britain and France, in particular, assured that the peace
would be very punidve. Never again did they want to give Ger­
many or the Turks the opportunity to challenge their world
hegemony and their monopoly of most of the world’s markets.
Regarding the Arabs, who had turned their backs on their co­
religionists to help the Bridsh in the hope of controlling their
own affairs after the war, the men of Versailles were quite equivo­
cal. As a salve to President Wilson, who had issued the 14 Points
upon which the peace was supposed to be based, especially the
principle of self-determinadon, Clemenceau and Lloyd George
agreed to the setdng up of a world deliberative body, the League
of Nations. Within the framework of the League, the British now
proceeded to deliver on her promises made during the heat of
battle. To France was allotted Lebanon and Syria, as a “mandate,”
that is, a protecting power under the ultimate jurisdiction of the
League of Nations. Britain, under the same rubric, now took
charge of administering Palestine and Iraq. Ottoman Turkey
was annexed out of existence, but as a sop to the Turks, an ethnic
bloc in Asia Minor and Thrace of about 15 million people, a small
territory on the shores of the Black Sea was designated “Turkey.”
It was this ethnic bloc which rose up against the one-sided peace
arrangements and under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, the
hero of Gallipoli, drove out the occupying French, Italian, Greek
and other allied troops and formed the modern state of Turkey.
Ill
The fate of Palestine had been sealed by the Balfour Declara­
tion. It is difficult to estimate the roll of that document in the sub­
sequent plight of the Jews in Germany. In Palestine, it meant that
Preface ix
the native Arab population had been relegated to second-class
citizenship by the stroke of a pen. When the Balfour Declaration
was incorporated into the basic statutes of the Versailles treaty
and those of the League of Nations, the Jews had been given the
right to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers to establish a
“National Home,” a euphemism meaning a National State. At the
close of the War, it was reliably estimated that Jews made up a-
bout 10% of the population of Palestine, west of the Jordan river.
Owing to the favoritism of the British administration and the
pressure on the Jews of Germany and eastern Europe, the ratio
of Jews to the Arab population of Palestine was to rise to about
33% at the end of the 1930s.
The study at hand by Taysir Jbara, himself a native-born
Palestinian, details the years 1921 to 1937 in the life of Hajj Amin
al-Husayni when he served as Mufti of Jerusalem, the highest
Islamic post in Palestine. As the author points out, his authority
and influence, partly by tradition and partly because of the un­
settled nature of the times, extended far beyond the realm of
religion into the politics and the plight of the Arabs in the Middle
East. More than any other political figure in the 1920s and 1930s,
Hajj Amin saw that the British intended to remove or reduce to a
minority the Palesdnian Arabs and replace them with a large in­
flux of Jews from Europe. Because of his struggle to reverse this
plan, the British forced him out of Palestine in 1937.
It is not the purpose of this preface to review the many tactics
attempted by Hajj Amin to awaken other Muslims and his coun­
trymen, largely an illiterate peasant population, to the approach­
ing ethnic disaster planned for them by Britain and the Zionists.
This intricate story is well-told by Dr. Jbara, who has uncovered
a large array of new sources to give us deep insight into the events
of Palestine before World War II.
Perhaps one should say a word in parting about the tendency
of previous biographers to denigrate the important role of Hajj
Amin because, after his expulsion, he collaborated, as best he
could, with Germany during World War II. This attempt to help
the German war effort is not a theme new to Arab leadership nor
to leaders in other parts of the world who wanted to escape from
the arbitrary economic and political power which the British and
French Empires exercised over their lands and peoples.
x Palestinian Leader Hajj Amin
Even the Zionists sought to collaborate with Hitler’s Germany
in order to save Jewish lives. The Hajj Amin faction sought col­
laboration with Germany to save their homeland from the British
and Jewish setders. Helpless people with their backs to the wall
have always been forced into pacts with the devil to defeat their
oppressors. In a nutshell, this has been the story of Palestine,
for both the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs.
C. Max Kortepeter
New York University