Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
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Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni (alternatively spelt 'Abd al Qadir al Husseini) (1907-1948) was a Palestinian nationalist and fighter who in late 1933 founded the secret military group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle, (Munazzamat al-Jihad al-Muqaddas),[1] [2] which he and Hasan Salama commanded as the Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 'Abd-al-Ra'uf al-Qidwa al-Husayni, better known as Yasser Arafat, who claimed to be a distant relative, also claimed to have fought with him[3] and to have been his personal secretary.[4] These claims cannot be independently confirmed.
Husayni was born to the influential al-Husseini family in Jerusalem, son of Musa Qassem al-Husseini. His uncle was Amin al-Husayni, the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He graduated in chemistry at the American University in Cairo, and organized the Congress of Educated Muslims. Initially, he took a post in the settlement department of the British mandate government, but took to the Hebron Hills during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. A member of the Palestine Arab Party he served as its Secretary and became editor-in-chief of the party's paper Al-Liwa’[5] and other newspapers, including Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiyya.
In 1938 Husayni was exiled and in 1939 fled to Iraq where he took part in the pro-German Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani coup. He lived in Nazi Germany during the Second World War with his uncle, the Grand Mufti. He escaped to Egypt in 1946, but secretly returned to Palestine to lead the Army of the Holy War in January 1948, and was killed during hand-to-hand fighting for control of Qastel Hill on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, on 8 April 1948.
- See also: Ben Yehuda Street Bombing
Following his death, his forces briefly captured Qastal from the Haganah in order to recover his remains. They retreated to the Jewish settlement of Motza.[6]
He was the father of Musa, Gazi and the late Faisal Husseini.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Levenberg, Haim (1993). Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine: 1945-1948. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-3439-5
- Robinson, Glenn E. (1997) Building a Palestinian State: The Incomplete Revolution. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21082-8
- Sayigh, Yezid (2000). Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-829643-6
- Swedenburg, Ted (1999). The role of the Palestinian peasantry in the Great Revolt (1936-9). In Ilan Pappé (Ed.). The Israel/Palestine Question (pp. 129-168). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16947-X
