The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (16 page)

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.
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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 world.

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.

The Young Turks supported Abd al-Hamid II, the younger brother of Sultan Abd al-Aziz II, and when the latter died as a result of falling from his bed, they were widely suspected of having conspired to bring this about. Abd al-Aziz had been a very large man, and it was not surprising that his bed collapsed under him; though by the same token his bulk should have protected him from a fatal injury. Be that as it may, in 1876 the throne was inherited by Abd al-Hamid II – destined to be the last real sultan of the great house of Uthman.

It soon became obvious that he was not a trustworthy ally of the constitutional reformists. Though he permitted the first parliamentary elections in the history of the empire, he soon suspended both the parliament and its constitution. Presumably he felt that the time had not yet come for the sultan to share power with others or to be accountable to a sovereign people instead of to God – a shocking reversal for one who has ruled by divine will. But, as Benedict Anderson notes, even autocratic rulers like Abd al-Hamid II could not ignore the age of nationality in which they found themselves, or turn the clock back.
Indeed, the one Western cultural product that the sultan warmly embraced was nationalism – an Ottoman variety thereof. Applying his supreme religious status to the national feelings animating many of his diverse subjects, he offered pan-Islamism to the Muslims, while to the non-Muslims he offered that invention of the Young Turks: ‘Ottoman patriotism’. It would soon become clear that neither tactic worked during the volatile turn of the century.
¹

The Husaynis who occupied various positions in the Jerusalem city council were among the first to hear about the reversal in Istanbul. Initially they did not appreciate its full significance, but later it would become obvious that this historical development enabled the family to consolidate its position and complete its recovery, which had begun after the Crimean War.

The family needed time to adjust to the Ottoman constitutional system, as illustrated by its failure to obtain the post of representative of the Jerusalem district in the new parliament. Eventually they would obtain this important new post too, but in 1876 Umar Fahmi lost the contest to Yusuf Daya’ al-Khalidi, who had also won the mayoralty. The district governor placated Umar Fahmi by appointing him briefly as mayor and then as governor of the district of Gaza. Unfortunately he died suddenly, and according to the historian Adel Manna, the demise of this gifted man was a grievous loss to the family and the whole of Jerusalem.
²

The contest for parliamentary representation took place while the Husaynis were adapting to the profound changes that had taken place on the local political scene and in its social makeup. In the months following the accession of the new sultan, the entire family, as a political entity, was occupied with a renewed struggle against the foreign consuls. The principal arena of this conflict was the city council.

THE 1870S – THE MUNICIPALITY AND SALIM AL-HUSAYNI

From 1870 on, the European consuls increasingly intervened in the work of the city council, in which they represented almost all the non-Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem. Utilizing to the utmost the changed legal status of non-Ottoman residents in the empire, they pressured the municipality to adopt resolutions that improved the situation of the Christians and Jews in Jerusalem, especially those who had obtained European nationality and protection.

The council met twice in 1876 and dealt primarily with the demands of the consuls to improve the conditions of the Christian pilgrims in the city. The number of pilgrims kept growing, especially when Jerusalem was connected by newly laid roads to Jaffa in 1867 and to Nablus in 1870. Under pressure from the consuls, a new gate was opened in the city wall on the northwest side to enable the pilgrims to enter directly into the Christian Quarter. Thus in the Hamidi period – the reign of Abd al-Hamid II – Jerusalem was newly connected to much of the country, and Europeans and Ottomans helped to turn it into a geopolitical center whose influence spread far beyond the administrative boundaries of the Jerusalem
sanjaq
.

The consuls did not always attend the council’s sessions. When an issue important to them was on the agenda, they would wait outside the conference room and their interpreters, who were inside, would keep them informed about the proceedings. There was only one small room for guests at the municipality, used not only by the consuls but by anyone who was concerned with the council’s agenda. When the room became overcrowded, the connecting door to the council chamber sometimes burst open and the visitors pushed their way in, even causing the meeting to be suspended. The consuls regarded themselves as allies of the district governor, who was present at the council sessions, and together they opposed the notables on issues concerning their governments’ positions or their own personal status in the city.

In the first years of the new reign, the Husaynis developed a fairly intricate set of relationships. Their relations with the British consulate improved greatly, especially after Finn’s departure. His successor, Moore, became a friend of the family, and perhaps the seeds of the future alliance between the Husaynis and the British government, which lasted till the late 1920s, were sown at that time. Towards the end of Abd al-Hamid’s reign, the family relied on Moore in the face of the hostility of the Ottoman governor, Rauf Pasha.
³

During the first decade of the new reign, the European impact on the city was so profound that the family had no choice but to cooperate to some extent and certainly to avoid the confrontations that had marked Finn’s tenure. The consuls became much more powerful thanks to their construction projects on the lands they had acquired in the 1850s. New buildings kept cropping up, demonstrating that the political balance of power in Jerusalem had changed beyond recognition. As well as new monasteries, there were new hostelries, such as the New Grand Hotel and Joachim Fast’s hotel, which appears in almost
every contemporary photograph. These hotels accommodated the consuls’ foreign guests, who were given Ottoman citizenship for the duration of their stay.

One contemporary described the Husaynis as better adjusted to the new reality than were the Khalidis. Yitzhak Rokah, who had business dealings with the Husaynis, noted that they ‘strive to respond gracefully to learning various languages’, and that unlike the Khalidis, they ‘have grown accustomed to learning, and appreciate that there is a world outside the boundaries of Islam’. It was this pragmatism, said Rokah, that enabled the Husaynis to rise at the expense of the Khalidis. But Rokah was aware that it was not only ideological pragmatism that enhanced the Husaynis’ position. Their connection with the Hamidi monarchy was unmatched by any other Jerusalem family due to the marriage of Musa al-Husayni’s daughter to the Grand Vizier in Istanbul. The historian A. Droyanov also quotes a letter written by a Jew from Jaffa referring to Musa al-Husayni as the Grand Vizier’s father-in-law. Such a connection, if true, undoubtedly strengthened the Husaynis early in the reign of Abd al-Hamid II.
⁴

The members of the family who served on the city council appreciated the importance of taking the consuls’ views into account. They also considered what might be called public opinion, which reflected the general attitude towards the consuls and could sometimes be used against them. At that time the Husaynis learned to use the Nabi Musa festivities as a way of demonstrating to the consuls their own and the public’s protests. The German journalist Klaus Volken, who witnessed the celebrations in the late 1870s, reported to his paper that some 10,000 had taken part in the Nabi Musa procession.
⁵
He noted that the heads of the Husayni family used the occasion to express for the first time their objections to the excessive intervention of European consuls in Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem, but that even without their public declarations, the great throng that took part in the festivities protested against the consuls’ meddling in matters large and small. The sight of the processions and groups of European pilgrims – chiefly from Russia, France and Austria – that filled the city streets during the Nabi Musa celebration made it a natural occasion for expressing displeasure. The new governor of the city, who came into office in 1876 and remained until 1888, tried to prevent the holiday from turning into a political occasion but only succeeded in averting violent clashes. Year after year, until the end of Ottoman rule, while a semblance of order was maintained, the event retained and even intensified its political
character. And from the eighteenth century on, the Husayni family was at its center.
⁶

Public opinion affected more than the issue of consuls; demands from below were beginning to have an impact on municipal issues as well. For example, in 1875 the municipality responded to the clamor of the residents in the Bab al-Huta neighborhood and opened the Flowers Gate, which had been bricked up for many years.
⁷
The combined effect of the consuls’ demands and pressure from the local populace altered the sense of responsibility – or rather the scope of responsibility – of the Husaynis who engaged in politics. In the past, obeying the traditional concept of charity and welfare, they responded to the personal petitions and group demands of those who depended on their material or political benevolence, whereas now their official functions obliged them to accept responsibility for the entire community. They continued to exact payment for their generosity and responses, and only rarely did they initiate action to benefit this or that group or the community as a whole. But in the 1880s, they began to act on behalf of groups that were not their particular clients. Starting with the mayoralty of Salim al-Husayni, the family tackled issues that concerned the city’s general population. Voluntarily or not, some members of the family began to regard it as a ‘national’ responsibility (the word is in quotation marks because only in the twentieth century would it become a true national responsibility). Indeed, it seems that the Husaynis fulfilled this ‘national’ role very well before the formal birth of the national movement – that is, before World War I. They did less well in the role after the war than they had done before it, thus calling into question the notion of progress over time.