Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Shiva Balaghi, Saddam Hussein: A 

Biography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006); 

Kanan Makiya, The Monument: Art and Vulgarity in Sad-

dam Hussein’s Iraq (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004); Judith 

Miller and Laurie Mylroie, Saddam Hussein and the Cri-

sis in the Gulf (New York: Times Books, 1990).

Husayni, Muhammad Amin al-

  

(Husseini)

  

(1895–1974)  influential Mufti of Jerusalem and 

Palestinian nationalist leader

Perhaps the most influential spiritual and politi-

cal leader of the Palestinians before the “calam-

ity” (nakba) of 1948, Hajj Amin al-Husayni used 

his position to attempt to thwart Zionist plans to 

establish a Jewish state in p

alestine

. Born into 

one of Jerusalem’s most notable Muslim families, 

al-Husayni was educated at 

al

-a

zhar

 in e

gypt

and  i

stanbUl

’s Ottoman War College. An officer 

in the Ottoman Army in Anatolia during World 

War I, he was appalled by the creation of the 

British mandate over Palestine and especially the 

1917 Balfour Declaration, which established the 

British desire to create a national home for Jews 

in Palestine.

By 1920, al-Husayni was very active in his 

public opposition to Zionist settlement in Pal-

estine. Despite his activism, however, when the 

British mandatory powers established the coun-

try’s Supreme Muslim Council in 1921, Herbert 

Samuel, Britain’s high commissioner of Palestine, 

declared al-Husayni its leader and grand 

mUFti

of J

erUsalem

. The Supreme Muslim Council was 

made responsible for managing all of the waqfs

(religious endowments) of Palestine, as well as 

the 

sharia

 courts and Islamic schools. With his 

prominent new post, al-Husayni became the 

most prominent religious authority for Palestine’s 

Muslims.

As mufti, al-Husayni used his power to focus 

on two crucial goals. The first was to organize 

the Palestinian population against the creation 

of a Jewish state, and the second was to promote 

the centrality of Jerusalem as a sacred Muslim 

city. Throughout the 1920s, the Supreme Muslim 

Council raised money throughout Muslim lands 

for the renovation of the Haram al-Sharif (Noble 

Sanctuary/Temple Mount), promoting the promi-

nence of Jerusalem as an Islamicate city under 

attack by the Zionists, who were not only Jews 

but also largely secular. He also hosted two impor-

tant pan-Islamic conferences in 1928 and 1931 at 

the  a

qsa

 

mosqUe

, spreading his fame far beyond 

Palestine’s borders.

With his extensive family connections and the 

power granted his position as mufti, al-Husayni 

was able to transform his religious leadership 

into political authority. When cooperation with 

the British mandate failed and the Arab revolt 

of 1936–39 broke out, al-Husayni declared his 

support for the uprising. The British responded 

by issuing a warrant for his arrest and dismissing 

him from his position as the leader of the Supreme 

Muslim Council in September 1937. Al-Husayni 

spent the next decade working against the Brit-

ish, first in b

aghdad

 trying to foment uprising 

against their authority, and then, during World 

War II, working in Germany as an adviser to the 

Nazi regime.