Born in Jerusalem in 1895; studied religious law at al-Azhar University, Cairo, and at the Istanbul School of Administration; went to Mecca on a pilgrimage in 1913; joined the Ottoman Turkish army in World War I and returned to Jerusalem in 1917; member and president of Nadi al-Arabi; sentenced in abstencia to ten years imprisonment on charges of fomenting the riots of early 1920; was pardoned by the High Commissioner and returned in August 1920 to Jerusalem, calling for the incorporation of Palestine into Syria; appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on May 8, 1921 (until 1948); head of the First Palestinian Delegation to London in 1921; appointed president of the first Supreme Muslim Council in March 1922 (until 1937). Remained at the top of a secret 'political black list, as the Public Security Department regarded as extreme opponent of the government; led a campaign (1928-29) rousing the Arabs of Palestine to stand against the threat to the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem; head of the Palestinian Delegation to London, 1930; elected president of the Arab Higher Committee on April 25, 1936; as such, chief organiser of the 1936 Great Revolt and the internal Arab conflicts in 1937; ordered to be deported October 1, 1937, but escaped to Lebanon, Iraq, Italy and Germany; ran the National Leadership in exile in the late 1930s; conducted after the war the Palestinian struggle against the Partition Plan from exile (Egypt); elected President in absencia of the Arab Higher Executive (Fourth Higher Committee of the Arab League); named a local leader of the Muslim Brotherhood after its establishment in Jerusalem in the mid-1940s by followers of Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928; president of the National Assembly (known as All-Palestine government), set up by the Arab Higher Committee Congress on October 1, 1948, in Gaza; died on July 5, 1974 in Beirut.

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Added: May 2006