The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (8 page)

As in the 1770s, it was the coastal towns that took the brunt of the high ambitions of local and foreign invaders. When Bonaparte occupied Gaza for a short while, French soldiers rampaged through the city and many of the inhabitants met a horrible death. Twenty years after Egyptian invaders had committed dreadful slaughter, the French troops showed that they were just as capable of cruelty and indifference to human life.

The greatest difficulty during this period for the Husaynis was the presence in Jerusalem of a member of the original clan al-Husayni al-Wafa’i, known as al-Maqdasi. Though that family’s standing had declined since the
naqib
’s revolt of 1705, Hassan and most of Jerusalem’s notables felt a great regard for and attachment to this remarkable man. After the
naqib
’s revolt, his family settled in Gaza, and some of them went on to Egypt. Al-Maqdasi became one of the most outstanding scholars of al-Azhar and from time to time would visit Jerusalem, where he became Hassan’s teacher. Moreover, his family was connected by marriage to the Ghudayyas.

In 1798, al-Maqdasi led the popular revolt against Napoleon in Cairo. After the French troops had searched for him in vain for three days, he fled to Jerusalem. There he immediately took a wife, because he had left his family behind in Egypt and would return only after Napoleon had been driven out. In the meantime, it was feared that his presence in Jerusalem would attract the French. This fear grew when al-Maqdasi made it plain that he did not intend to remain anonymous. He was too active a man to sit still. He served as
imam
at Friday worship, gave lessons on the Qur’an and received from the local
qadi
the guardianship of some important properties of the religious authority. He spent three years in Jerusalem, during which time he helped Hassan but was also a dangerous lure to the French forces.
²⁹

Once again, as during the time of Dahir al-Umar, the city’s marginality saved it and its inhabitants from the heat of battle. Strategic considerations prompted the foreign invader to proceed elsewhere into the last stage of his failed journey of conquest.

As Karl Marx noted, a political vacuum never lasts. Indeed, no sooner had the French withdrawn than Abu Maraq of Gaza and al-Jazzar of Acre began to fight for control of Palestine. The Sublime Porte preferred Abu Maraq and handed over Jerusalem to him (together with
most of al-Jazzar’s previous possessions as well as Egypt). The notables and the Husaynis leading them wished the city to belong once more to Acre’s sphere of influence. And no wonder: unlike Abu Maraq, the Grand Vizier’s protégé, al-Jazzar had never taxed them oppressively or sought to limit their power. Not wishing to enter into conflict with the powers that be, however, the notables wrote to Istanbul praising the Acre magnate and maligning the Gazan. This was a bold move, considering that Abu Maraq governed Jerusalem. Yet their position mattered, since the governor’s appointment came into force only after the notables had been informed of it. Abu Maraq was not of their class but a man of the people. During the struggle against Napoleon, he had not even approached the notables but had appealed directly to the villagers, some of whom responded to his call to mount a
jihad
against the invader. His demand that the notables raise a certain number of troops for the war also alienated them.
³⁰

The ignominy continued when the heads of the families and the notables were forced to hand over to the wife of the governor’s chief aide all the weapons that they had received from al-Jazzar or obtained as spoils. This humiliating scene took place in the
qadi
’s presence and greatly intensified the resentment against Abu Maraq. Here, too, he showed his sympathy for the lower classes. He also used his power over Egypt and the districts of Palestine to strengthen trade relations between them. While harassing Jerusalem’s notables, he wrote to the city’s merchants: ‘The evil days are over, to be followed by days of blessing and joy.’ The merchants were regarded as a lower class in Arab-Ottoman society, and most of them were non-Muslim.
³¹

But Abu Maraq’s standing also rose and fell. In 1802, despite the Grand Vizier’s solid support, he was eventually defeated by al-Jazzar. He lost his position in Egypt to local forces and his other regions in a field battle with al-Jazzar, who simply ignored the Grand Mufti’s and Grand Vizier’s support for his foe. The alliance with the governor of Damascus gave al-Jazzar sufficient military strength to force Istanbul to give in to him, and so Jerusalem fell once again under Acre’s rule.

But only for two years. For in 1804 al-Jazzar died, and the city’s status changed again. Officially it was once more subordinated to Damascus, which received a new governor but which in reality continued to be ruled from Acre. For a brief while, the Jerusalemites even felt nostalgic for Abu Maraq, since al-Jazzar’s heir, Suleiman, immediately raised taxes. The inhabitants rebelled and – this should sound familiar by now – imprisoned the ruler’s representatives in the
city fortress. In response, Suleiman dispatched the commander of his army, who sent for the ringleaders, some fifty men, on the pretext of negotiations and, having caught them, had their heads cut off in public. Suleiman was content to receive the heads, and the city became quiet. Thus neither Suleiman nor Abu Maraq looked like an attractive proposition.
³²

But Abu Maraq’s shadow still hung over the city, or rather over its notables, for whom he had no use. He was highly regarded in Istanbul, where it was hoped he could help create a buffer between the empire and the Wahabiyya – a Salafi movement on the Arabian Peninsula that challenged the sultans’ right to rule over the Muslim world. The notables of Jerusalem, fearful that ‘the commoner’ planned to humiliate them again, began to agitate intensively in Istanbul for their city to be ruled directly either by Acre or Damascus.

Strangely, there is no record of the Husaynis playing a significant part in the 1804 struggle between Acre and Gaza for control over Jerusalem. The family seemed anxious not to attract attention, so as to cope with whatever developments took place in the country and their city.

The
qadi
’s deputy, a Khalidi, wrote personally on behalf of the city’s notables to the governor of Jerusalem, appointed in al-Jazzar’s days and thus loyal to Acre, to ask him to remain in his post: ‘For fear of disorder in the collection and administration of taxes, and concerned about the need to protect the poor and weak and the general populace, the revered
ulama
and the notables of the city beg you to remain in your former post.’
³³
This intervention by the local notables was exceptional, but in the course of the nineteenth century it would become more frequent, and the Husaynis would also gradually take part in such interventions.

Only Hassan al-Husayni, by virtue of his high position, was partly involved. Fearful that Abu Maraq would penalize the city for its support for al-Jazzar, he appealed to the governor of Damascus, who was staying in Jenin during the annual tax collection. The governor hastened to reassure Hassan: ‘We are aware of your concern about the forthcoming visit of our brother, Muhammad Pasha Abu Maraq, but he will only be passing through your district. We wish to make it clear that Jerusalem is still under our [Damascus’] rule, and we have no intention of letting Abu Maraq rule over the city.’
³⁴
To further reassure the families, in 1805 the governor came to the city and publicly noted that that he was forgoing that year’s
Hajj
in order to visit al-Aqsa
mosque. But this governor’s support proved useless: while he was visiting Jerusalem he was deposed by Istanbul.

But Abu Maraq, too, soon vanished from the scene – Suleiman had him killed in 1807. The imperial
firman
sent by the sultan to the notables of Jerusalem must have reassured Hassan that the bad times were over. Even if he did not agree with Suleiman that the assassination of Abu Maraq was ‘part of the
jihad
for Allah’,
³⁵
he must have felt greatly relieved.

In 1806, as part of the struggle in Istanbul between the religious establishment and the reforming Sultan Selim III, religious leaders such as the Grand Mufti of Istanbul began dismissing
muftis
throughout the empire whom they suspected of sympathizing with Selim III. Hassan was such a person. In winter 1806 came the order the Husaynis had dreaded since the unrest had begun in Istanbul. Hassan’s nephew Tahir, the current
naqib
, was also deposed. Fortunately for the family, the crisis lasted only a year, thanks to the help of Yusuf Kanj Pasha, the governor of Damascus at the time and an old family friend. Kanj was popularly known as ‘the Kurd’ (whether or not he himself was a Kurd, certainly his guard were Kurds).
³⁶
In the family’s collective memory, he occupies a very favorable place. He was indeed a real friend of the family, an ally who helped them to pass in relative calm the twilight zone between the rule of Acre and the old-new rule of Damascus.
³⁷

Kanj persuaded the Grand Mufti that the Husaynis were perfectly devout Muslims who would never have supported the former sultan if they had realized that he proposed to violate the sanctity of their religion and tradition. There was some truth to this argument, because the family’s loyalty to Selim III stemmed not so much from enthusiasm for his innovations or for the ideas of the French Revolution as from traditional loyalty to the head of the Muslim world.
³⁸

The year 1808 was the last of Hassan al-Husayni’s life, and it was as tumultuous as all the rest. The summer had been unusually hot, and in September the Church of the Holy Sepulchre went up in flames – one more chapter in the endless feuds among the rival Christian denominations in Jerusalem. This time the struggle for control over the church reached new heights. The blaze broke out in the middle of a thronged service. The place was more crowded than usual, and an Armenian pilgrim set the place on fire – whether by accident or by design is not known. The unusual crowding was due to that year’s great increase in the number of pilgrims, who almost outnumbered the locals.
³⁹

The blaze revealed the strength of the Husaynis’ position. Hassan was the
mufti
, and Umar had just been appointed as
naqib al-ashraf
, replacing his grandfather. They were asked to spend the night in tents in the churchyard in order to prevent looting. They responded willingly and showed that their mere presence in the place ensured obedience to the Prophet’s commandment to respect the Christian ‘People of the Book’. They also benefited from the reconstruction of the church, which began immediately and as always in those days entailed bribery to everyone authorized to approve the reconstruction of Christian houses of worship – namely, representatives of the Ottoman government and the Husaynis.

The era of Hassan ended. His fascinating personality is crucial to an understanding of how and why the Husaynis came to be the leading family in Palestine throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Almost every contemporary testimony about prominent persons in the region, including Egypt, mentions Hassan as an important religious scholar and a charismatic figure who maintained exceptional contacts with the intellectual elites of Syria and Egypt. It was he who succeeded in keeping the three most important posts in his family and who created a solid structure that would crumble only in 1948, when all of Arab Palestine fell.

The three religious posts remained in the family after his death. His nephew Tahir, inherited the post of
mufti
of Jerusalem, while Hassan’s other position as
sheikh al-haram
was passed to the grandson of his other brother Abdullah, Umar, who had already been appointed
naqib al-ashraf
during Hassan’s lifetime (in 1800). As before, the three most important positions in the city were held by two members of the Husayni family.

While the post of
mufti
was higher in the Ottoman hierarchy than the other position and would make its holder the more powerful member of the family, most people regarded the
naqib al-ashraf
as the head of the family. It is hard to know in the case of Tahir and Umar who was the informal head. As it happened, Tahir’s great learning made him the dominant figure. The records of the Shari‘a court in Jerusalem note: ‘We have elected Tahir because of his great learning and wisdom, and his outstanding service of the
ifta
’ – meaning that he had made brilliant decisions on problems of religious practice and questions posed by the faithful.
⁴⁰
Even in Hassan’s lifetime, and doubtless under his influence, Tahir spent several years at Cairo’s al-Azhar University, where he acquired his vast knowledge. He was often seen
sitting in a corner of the Dome of the Rock – the corner facing the Mount of Olives was his favorite – teaching students the Qur’an and its interpretations.
⁴¹
Umar, by contrast, was the worldlier of the two and took little interest in spiritual matters. As leaders, they formed an unusual team.

Umar acted as guardian of his grandfather Hassan’s young children – that is, Umar’s uncles and aunts, who were also his second cousins. As a result, Hassan’s own offspring had no share in the public honors. But Umar kept his promise to his grandfather and made sure that the ‘Hassans’ among the Husaynis would return to the center of the public stage no less than the descendants of Abdullah.