The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (9 page)

By now the family was clearly made up of two branches – the ‘Tahiri’ one, which would retain the
mufti
’s post down to al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, and the ‘Umari’ one, which would inherit the
niqaba
until the position lost its meaning with the end of Ottoman rule. The two branches were independent families who maintained their unity by marriage, inheritance and solidarity. Whenever the
naqib
and the
mufti
cooperated
vis-à-vis
the central and regional government, and later foreign invaders from Europe – which occurred quite frequently – they formed a single entity.

CHAPTER 2

In the Shadow of Acre and Cairo

The Third Generation

In 1813 Umar al-Husayni’s daughter married Musa Tuqan, the governor of Nablus and scion of one of its leading families, and Musa Bey’s daughter married Umar’s son Abd al-Salam II. The weddings were held together in Jerusalem. That evening (Muslim weddings were usually held in the evening) the two young couples walked under an immense canopy carried by house servants in a procession that marched towards the Haram al-Sharif. It was illuminated by blazing tar-dipped torches, also borne by servants, and followed by a drummer thumping a great tin drum, giving the beat to a deafening band of pipers. The Husaynis and Tuqans walked serenely behind the musicians, accompanied by many notables and other friends.

A double wedding was a great joy, especially when it consolidated the family’s standing. Circumstances in the new century required the Husaynis to expand the family’s power base, and once again the daughters were mobilized for the purpose. Musa Bey was not the most important member in the Tuqan family, but he was very close with his brother Khalil, the head of the family, and was on excellent terms with the regional ruler, the governor of Damascus. The family had friendly relations with the former ruler, but had so far failed to establish their position with his successor. Now, thanks to the newly forged link with the Tuqans, Tahir al-Husayni retained his post of
mufti
of Jerusalem, and the new governor sent a heartwarming letter congratulating him on his reappointment: ‘We shall not allow any harm to come to the Husaynis under our rule, and we wish them all the prosperity and success due to their status.’

Adminstrative boundaries under the Ottomans

But that year the Husaynis also received a reminder that a family’s power was liable to fluctuate. A Jerusalem family by the name of Abu al-Su‘ud had become very prominent, and in 1813 the sultan invited its head to his court – an honor never bestowed on a Husayni. The following week the sultan himself called on Abu al-Su‘ud in Jerusalem, with regard for his great age (he died later that year) and as a gesture of respect.
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Such reminders prompted the Husayni family to strengthen their connections in the imperial capital and their position in the region. The ties with the Tuqans helped them to cope with the upheavals on the regional stage after al-Jazzar finally died at a ripe old age (frustrating both his supporters’ hopes and his enemies’ wishes).

As noted in the previous chapter, Jerusalem was formally restored to the rule of Damascus, but in practice the governors of Acre acted as proxies. Thus the network of contacts needed to maintain the family’s position in Jerusalem had to include not only the rulers in Damascus but also the potentates of Acre and al-Jazzar’s heir, Suleiman Pasha, with whom the Tuqans had useful contacts. But such a dual rule fueled the ambitions of the regional opposition. Jaffa potentate Muhammad Aga Abu Nabut rose up against Suleiman, helped by the unchallenged strongman of the Jerusalem mountain region, Sheikh Uthman Abu Ghosh. The cause of the insurrection was the usual one in the region: they sought economic power based on tax gathering. Their immediate aim was to restrict the range of Acre’s power, and since Abdullah was weakest in Jerusalem, this became their first target. Once again, the Husaynis of both houses had to take a stand.
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So long as there was no hint of defiance against the rule of Istanbul, the Husaynis tended to stay out of these often bloody local politics. But now the Abu Ghosh family’s involvement made neutrality impossible. Its position in the village of Einab – where it had settled upon its arrival from Kurdistan hundreds of years before – preceded the Husaynis’ and intimidated them. The younger Husaynis admired the Abu Ghosh men as models of bravery in the face of regional and even imperial power. The older Husaynis saw them as a liability, as the Abu Ghoshes were rather unpopular in the ruling circles.

The year 1813 was especially pleasant, and not only on account of the double wedding. Naquib Umar al-Husayni renovated a covered area in the Old City and built shops and a soap factory there. This enterprise would be the sound basis of the Umari branch of the family’s wealth for years to come. Breaking with a tradition of conservative business
dealings, the family also expanded its interests beyond the city and invested in Jaffa and its environs.
³

The family’s economic prosperity enabled it to devote time and thought to the restoration of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. In 1816 the governor of Acre, Suleiman Pasha, ordered the restoration of the al-Aqsa mosque. He dispatched a special messenger to Umar, who showed the visitor the ruinous and dilapidated condition of the shrine. They were accompanied by Ahmad Arif Hikmet, a minor Ottoman official who served as
qadi
in Jerusalem and was a close friend of the Husaynis on account of his claim that he was also a descendant of the Prophet. Hikmet was Tahir’s age, and the two young men became bosom friends. This connection would be very important in the middle of the century, when Hikmet was appointed the Grand Mufti of the empire. He would be the person who assured the family’s continued predominance in Jerusalem through one of the worst times in its history, perhaps the very worst until the catastrophe of 1948.

Following this visit, Sultan Mahmud II issued a decree demanding that the governor of Acre expand the restoration works in the mosque. In keeping with the custom, the inhabitants had to pay for their ruler’s generosity. Tahir and Umar were among the first appointed to collect taxes, and later they imported builders and engineers. Bashir II, the ruler of Lebanon, was also roped in, and he and the governor of Beirut held a special tax–collection tour in their territories for the project. Ships laden with cedars of Lebanon were sent to the Port of Jaffa, where Abu Nabut took part in the enterprise. When the restoration was complete, details of the contributions of the sultan and Suleiman Pasha were engraved on a wall of the mosque. The Dome of the Rock was restored at the same time, and there, too, the name of Suleiman was engraved. But Tahir and Umar did not restrict their building activities to religious institutions. As early as 1810 they began to construct and maintain various public buildings. That year Umar received a substantial donation from the governor of Damascus with which he constructed a water conduit leading from the Pools of Solomon into the city.
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Times were good for the Husaynis. Umar’s house, adjoining the wall of the Haram, attracted important visitors, just as Abd al-Latif’s house had done a hundred years earlier. Sheikh Hassan al-Attar, who would later become the
sheikh al-azhar
, came calling, and he noted the warm cultural atmosphere at the Husaynis’. Like many visitors before and after him, he accompanied them at the head of the procession when they led celebrants to the tomb of the Prophet Moses in Jericho.

It was also during this time that the first European visited the Husaynis: Scottish physician Richard Richardson repaid Umar’s hospitality by curing him of an eye infection that had troubled him for years.
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Richardson was also the first European to be admitted to the Haram al-Sharif more or less formally – that is, with the permission of the Sheikh al-Haram, who happened to be Umar al-Husayni. Wearing a black turban lent him by Umar, the Scot sneaked into the Haram in the dead of night. Later he complained that he had been unable to appreciate the beauty of the place in the dark, and Umar relented and smuggled his guest into the place in broad daylight in 1818. But Richardson did not keep the secret, and Umar came to regret the gesture, because then more Europeans asked to be allowed in. His consent suggests either that he was aware of the changing circumstances or that he did not consider the matter vitally important. Be that as it may, historians of the Middle East would later discover how flexible Islam was in Ottoman times, unlike some of its more rigid radical forms that sprang up in the latter half of the twentieth century.

It was not so easy for Mrs Belzoni when she wished to visit the Haram. Her husband, Giovanni Belzoni, was a prominent explorer of Egyptian antiquities, but his English wife was not content to follow his expeditions to the Pharaonic past and wished instead to observe the contemporary Middle East. In her memoirs she recounts proudly that by emulating Richardson’s bold act she proved that she was not afraid to risk death. Ottoman law permitted the execution of any Jew or Christian who presumed to enter the Haram, though in practice the penalty was much less severe. Mrs Belzoni befriended a group of Christian builders and craftsmen whom the governor had brought in to restore the Haram shrines, and persuaded them to allow her to join them as though she were the wife of one of their team. But they dithered, and by the time they agreed the work had been finished. Then she tried to bribe Umar al-Husayni to let her go in, but he was under no obligation to her as he had been to Richardson, and he threw her out of his house. In the end, she put on traditional local dress and went in on her own. Richardson and Mrs Belzoni blazed a trail that would be followed by many, and their incursions into the sacred enclosure marked the decline in the status of the Husaynis and the disappearance of the world they had known for 400 years.
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Later Sarah Berkeley Johnson, the daughter of an American missionary, would imitate Mrs Belzoni. Dressed as a local Muslim woman, she entered not only the Haram but also the Tomb of David, which was also sacrosanct.

Easy times came to an end under the son of Suleiman, al-Jazzar’s grandson, known as Abdullah Pasha (in power from 1818 to 1831). The rulers of Acre were determined to dominate all the potentates of southern Syria, obliging the Husaynis to act very circumspectly. Taking advantage of Istanbul’s inability to cope with each successive crisis in its far-flung empire, Abdullah Pasha proceeded to change the divisions in the region. Before long he reduced Damascus to his rule and transferred the governance of Jerusalem to his own districts of Acre and Sidon. Now Jerusalem’s notables were squeezed by both Damascus and Acre. The main pressure was financial, as both capitals periodically raised the taxes they demanded from their subjects, and every
dura
(the annual tax collection) was likely to stimulate a revolt somewhere. The Husayni family apparently helped these insurrections only when its own interests were affected.

While the Husaynis’ relations with Suleiman caused them to become involved in regional politics, they were also drawn willy-nilly into the greater political sphere – namely, the conflict with the Janissaries, the elite Ottoman military corps that had outgrown its usefulness and was threatened with being disbanded by the reformists. When Sultan Mahmud II proposed creating a new army, the Janissaries all over the empire went on the offensive. In 1819 it was Jerusalem’s turn.

The Janissaries succeeded in provoking a crisis between the government and society. The pretext was their demand to stop the restoration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which had burned down in 1808.
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Some of the townspeople fell for their incitement, since any excuse would do to resist higher taxation, and together with some outsiders they converged on the governor’s office in the city’s fortress. They demanded that he appoint Janissaries as exclusive guards around the fortress, since only they could be trusted to protect the honor of Islam against the Christian encroachment represented by the restoration work at the church. If their demand was not met, they threatened, they would kill everyone inside the fortress. When the governor hesitated, the rebels closed the gates of the city and overran the fortress. If nowadays the seizure of a broadcasting station or presidential palace symbolizes an assault on or overturning of the ruling power, in those days in Jerusalem or other provincial capitals seizure of the fortress meant a putsch. On their way the rebels demolished the restorations at the church and killed some of the monks. Then they elected one of their own, an unknown individual of no special rank, as governor of Jerusalem.

The Husaynis reacted very cautiously, as they had done during the revolt of Abu Nabut. The uprising was aimed at a friend of the family, the governor of Damascus, Yusuf Kanj, whom they did not wish to alienate. Moreover, they wanted the work at the church to continue, since they received a constant stream of gifts and grants that would cease with the suspension of the restoration. Why, then, did they hesitate to oppose the revolt? Presumably because they were being made to pay a special and onerous tax to fund the new imperial army.

Since 1813 the Husaynis, whose exalted status had generally kept them exempt from taxation, had paid a special impost of a considerable sum to the new army fund. Mahmud II was casting around for every possible source of income, up to and including the notables of Jerusalem. It seemed to be a question of simple arithmetic – the tax burden was likely always to be greater than the donations of the Christians, but the family appreciated the stability of the new government after a long period of upheavals and thus avoided clashing with it.
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