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Further Reading

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem

The Moslem Religious Courts had exclusive jurisdiction in matters of personal status of Moslems and Moslem waqfs. Under the Turkish Government there were Sharia Courts, each presided over by a Qadi, in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Hebron, Gaza., Beersheba, Ramleh, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkeram, Nazareth, Tiberias, Safed, Acre and Haifa. These Courts have been maintained. The Sharia Courts dealt with matters of Moslem personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, intestacy, constitution of waqf and the like), and in addition to their contentious work deal with a large amount of non-contentious business. There were Muftis (elective Moslem jurisconsults, whose duty it was to issue, in the form of a fetwa, canonical rulings on points of Moslem religious law) of the Hanafi rite in the above-mentioned fourteen towns, and a Mufti of the Shafi rite in Jerusalem. There is an appeal from the Sharia Courts to the Moslem Religious Court of Appeal, sitting in Jerusalem and consisting of a President and two members. An Inspector visits the Sharia Courts of the country and reports upon their work.

In 1905 the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Ali-BenAbderrahman, was about fortv years of age, of medium height, slender proportions, and delicate lineaments. His head, face, and hands, with the blue veins well defined beneath the wax-like skin, were said to be "perfect; the whole man bearing the unmistakable stamp which marks the highly intelligent and devout nature." One mark of distinction and appreciation of the French government was shown by the Cross of the Legion of Honor on his breast. In manners he was reserved though courteous.

Kamil Huseini Effendi

The Grand Mufti of Palestine, Kamel Effendi el Housseini [Kamil Huseini Effendi], was the head of the Moslems of all Palestine. He had been appointed Grand Mufti soon after the British occupation, had been decorated by the King of England, but like all Arabs was watching the carrying out of the Balfour Declaration with many misgivings. He belonged to the clan of the Housseini, or Hussein, as it is sometimes written in English, which derives its descent from Fatma, the daughter of Mohammed; he was therefore related to the King of the Hedjaz and to Emir Feisal, since that time elected King of Mesopotamia. He combined the office of Mufti with that of the President of the Moslem Court of Appeals, having many family disputes and misunderstandings to adjust in addition to purely legal questions to pass upon, so that his life was a very full one.

In appearance Kamel Effendi el Housseini was a medium sized man, rather slim and delicate of build with a beard of the color generally described as '' sandy,'' and not giving one the impression at all of the usual swarthy Arab type. He wore the long robe and the turban, he was most emphatically a man of distinction. Like most Arabs of education he had a special admiration for America and expanded this feeling to include also Americans as a people.

Haj Amin al-Husseini

Kamel Effendi el Housseini died on 20 March 1921, and after some delay his brother, Hajj Amin, was appointed. The British, against the local Muslim vote, appoint Amin Al-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Amin Al-Husseini came in a poor fourth place in the vote [v] . The Muslim community rejected his candidacy because he had not received any credible Islamic education. He was neither a Sheikh (religiously accredited leader) nor an Alim (Islamic scholar). He becomes the pre-eminent Arab power in Palestine.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, the most influential leader of Palestinian Arabs, lived in Germany during the Second World War. He met Hitler, Ribbentrop and other Nazi leaders on various occasions and attempted to coordinate Nazi and Arab policies in the Middle East. Haj Amin al-Husseini was the son of an aristocratic family from Jerusalem. Al-Husseini once told a native Jew that he worked with, "this was and will remainan Arab land. the Zionists, will be massacred to the last man. We want no progress, noprosperity. Nothing but the sword will decide the fate of this country".

Al-Husseini voluntarily joined the Turkish Army during World War I, but switched sides in 1917 when the British were campaigning for Palestine. Al-Husseini stated, during an interview with Dutch Canadian journalist Pierre Van Passen regarding the Arab plight in Palestine, that the Palestinian Arabs had just "shaken off the Turkish yoke and turned up the road of freedom". When confronted by the reporter, "`Did your eminence not serve as a volunteer in the Turkish Army?' Husseini got up and left the room".

In 1920, he instigated the riots of that year by inciting anger among Arabs directed against Jews "who were praying at the Western Wall". He was sentenced to 15 years hard labor, but escaped and fled to Syria. The British allowed him to return to Palestine to appease the Arabs, and then the new Palestine High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, appointed him Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. From this new religious and political position, he orchestrated propaganda and terrorism in order to undermine efforts to establish a Jewish State.

The Haycraft Commission investigating the 1920-1921 riots determined that the strife was begun by the Arabs and characterized Arabs as the aggressor98. However, due to propaganda disseminated by the Arabs, the attacks were rationalized by the commission as being caused by political and economic issues brought on by Jewish immigration. In 1922, the British took a key step to ease Arab anxieties by establishing Transjordan, for Arabs only, in theeastern portion of the Mandate for Palestine, comprising 76 per cent of the Mandate100. Thisdocument, the Churchill White Paper of 1922, attempted to satisfy the intent of the McMahon Letter to Sherif Hussain by setting aside the land specified in the letter for a future independentArab State in the Mandate for Palestine. Churchill points out that the promise to Sherif Hussain excluded "the whole of Palestine west of the Jordan".

In 1929, al-Husseini's propaganda machine was again at work inciting Arabs by accusing the Jews of endangering the mosques and other sites holy to Islam. The dispute was initially over the right of Jews to pray at the Western Wall, the result was al-Husseini calling outto the Arabs, "Itback al-Yahud!" (Slaughter the Jews!). Rumors spread throughout the country of Jewish attempts to defile Moslem holy places which caused widespread rioting.

In 1936, the Mufti al-Husseini again initiated unrest by calling for an Arab general strike. As al-Husseini orchestrated violence against Jews and British forces, he complained about Jewish immigration and Jewish purchases of land in Palestine.

In 1940, the Mufti asked Germany and Italy "to settle the question of Jewish elementsin Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of theArabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany andItaly". In 1941 while exiled in Baghdad, al-Husseini issued a fatwa (Muslim religious judgment) against Britain leading a pro-German coup. His followers then "went on amurderous rampage against Baghdad's Jewish community". After the coup was put down bythe British, al-Husseini escaped via Tehran to Italy. In Italy, he met with Mussolini who was also against the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine and said that the Jews should "establish Tel Aviv in America".

In November of 1941, al-Husseini met with Hitler and discussed plans for the solution of the Jews in Palestine. The Mufti wanted a combined declaration with Germany and Italy to "recognize the illegality of the Jewish National Home in Palestine" and to "recognize the right of Palestine and other Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements inPalestine and in other Arab countries as required by national Arab interests, and in the same wayas the Jewish question in the Axis lands is being solved". Al-Husseini spread propaganda through messages on the radio. In Berlin, he made a call to Muslims saying to "kill the Jews - kill them with your hands, kill them with your teeth - this is well pleasing to Allah!"

Shockingly, the British give Amin Al-Husseini amnesty. He returned to Palestine. Amin Al-Husseini dies in Syria in 1974.

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