Amin al-Husseini
Mohammed Amin al-Husseini (c. 1897 – 4 July 1974) was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine.
Life
After receiving an education in Islamic, Ottoman, and Catholic schools, he went on to serve in the Ottoman army in World War I. At war's end he stationed himself in Damascus as a supporter of the Arab Kingdom of Syria. Following the Franco-Syrian War and the collapse of Arab Hashemite rule in Damascus, his early position on pan-Arabism shifted to a form of local nationalism for Palestinian Arabs and he moved back to Jerusalem. From as early as 1920 he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of the 1920 Nebi Musa riots. Al-Husseini was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for incitement but was pardoned by the British. In 1921, Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner appointed him Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. During the period 1921–1936 he was considered an important ally by the British authorities.
His opposition to the British peaked during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making radio broadcasts and by helping the Germans recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. Upon the end of the war he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo.
Death
Al-Husseini died in Beirut, on 4 July 1974. He had wished to be buried on the Haram ash-Sharif in Jerusalem. However, Israel had captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War.
