SANAGAN 2013 Rethinking Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam

'vf"..
' DIE
" WELT DES
BRILL Welt des Islams 53-3-4 (2013) 315-352 ISLAMS
Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Martyr:

Rethinking 'Izz al-Dïn al-Qassäm
Mark Sanagan
McGill University
Abstract
When Shaykh "Izz al-Dln al-Qassâm died in a gunfight with the Palestine Police Force
in November 1935, the Government of the British Mandate for Palestine was ill
prepared for the public outpouring of popular support and inspiration the imâm from
Haifa's death would give to Arab Palestinian political aspirations. Al-Qassâm soon
became a powerful symbol in the nationalist fight against the British colonial power
and subsequently the State of Israel. Al-Qassâm remains a potent figure in Arab
nationalist, Palestinian nationalist, and modern "Islamist" circles. The purpose of this
paper is thus twofold: first, to provide an overview of the current state of the
historiography on al-Qassâm; and second, to add to that historiography with a
recontextualized narrative of al-Qassâm's life and death. This latter part of the paper
aims to fill some of the gaps with additional sources and place the findings alongside
contemporary historical scholarship on political identity and nationalist movements
in Palestine and the wider Mashriq. This article contends that the claims made on
al-Qassam by contemporary Palestinian, "Islamic" nationalists have silenced the
multiple contexts available if one considers the entirety of al-Qassâm's life. Viewed in
this light, it is possible that al-Qassâm never considered himself a "Palestinian" at all.
Keywords
nationalism, Ottomanism, Islamism, Palestine, Syria, 'ulamä', jihad, biography
* I would like to thank Laila Parsons for her patient guidance on this project and her
thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this particular paper. Thomas Hegghammer and
Joas Wagemakers gave a thorough reading to the first draft as well, and were excellent
editors. Lastly, Martin Bunton, Michael Ferguson, James Gelvin, Geoffrey Schad and Ken
Stein all gave kind and insightful feedback on earlier, disparate fragments of this project.
Most of the primary sources cited here will be made available on my Academia.edu profile
page {http://mcgill. academia. edu/MarkSanagan).
©KoninklijkeBrillNV. Leiden, 2013 DOL 10.1163/15685152-5334P0002

316 M. Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352
Introduction
On 21 November 1935, the head of the Arab Bank, Rashîd al-Hâjj
Ibrâhîm, lay the flags of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Yemen over the
shrouded, wrapped bodies of Shaykh 'Izz al-Dîn al-Qassám, AJimad
Shaykh Sa'îd and Sa'îd al-Masrî.' Though the three had likely never
been, nor had recourse to visit any of the three countries whose flags
would rest with them for eternity, a claim was being made on the sym-
bolism of their deaths.
The eulogies were delivered in the al-Jarîna Mosque, a low-slung
building in Haifa's docklands at the foot of the city's highest structure,
the six-storey 'Abd al-Hamîd clock tower. They spoke to the sacrifice of
the three, but to their leader al-Qassâm in particular. Shaykh Yùnis al-
Khátib, the former qädt of Mecca and nominal head of the 'ulamä' in
Haifa proclaimed: "Dear friend and martyr... I have heard you preach
from this platform, resting on your sword, now that you have left us you
have become, by God, a greater preacher than you ever were in your
lifetime."^ Another eulogy proclaimed:
None has served the homeland but you with loyalty, and where is the valour
of the sons of the homeland? [...] Those working for it with all their strength
rebel against the enemy [...] Those who were unrequited in their love of its
independence with honesty [...] since you are Izz ad-Din and the only one
who is of true faith [...] They killed you and they were not rightfully appointed
to rule you!'
" Other names have been given for the rwo companions of al-Qassâm who died with him.
For instance, in his memoirs, Rashid al-Hâjj Ibrâhîm states that it was YCisif al-Zîbâwî and
Sa'îd Hanafi 'Aftiyya. Rashîd al-Hâjj Ibrâhîm, Al-Difà' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Eilastin:
Mudhakkarät Rashid al-Häjj Ibrahim, 1891-1953 (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies,
2005), p. 154.
'' The Palestine Royal Commission Report (London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1937),
pp. 88f.; see also Shai Lachman, "Arab Rebellion and I errorism in Palestine 1929-39: The
Case of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam and his Movement", in Zionism and Arabism in Pal-
estine and Israel, eds. Filie Kedourieand Sylvia Kedourie (London, England: F. Cass, 1982),
p. 72; May Seikaly, Haifi: Transformation of a Palestinian Arab Society 1918-1939 (London:
LB.Tauris, 1995), p. 184.
^' "Hassan Yacoubi, Ttjey Killed Ko«.'(Islamic University of Gaza) 25 November, 1935"
quoted in Beverley Milton-Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine (New York: Tauris Aca-
demic Studies, 1996), pp. 12f.
M. Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352 317
The funeral procession itself began an hour late: delayed as waves of

mourners arrived on foot from the villages outside of Haifa.^ Number-
ing in the thousands, they moved slowly and with relative calm behind
the flag-draped biers.^
Hours later, after the bodies of Sa'îd and al-Masrî had split off from
the procession to be returned to their respective villages, the remaining
mourners, still numbering in the thousands, arrived in Balad al-Shaykh.
The village, about five kilometers to the southwest of the city, contained
the cemetery in which al-Qassäm was buried.
There is no record of which of the threeflagsremained on al-Qassäm's
corpse when it was lowered into the ground.^ It is also unclear if al-Häjj
Ibrahim had placed those Hags with the purpose of assimilating al-
Qassäm into the historical trajectory of a Palestinian nationalism. Some
sort of nationalism no doubt, but there was little in common between
the socio-political make-up of the Mashriq and the tribal isolationists
in the Arabian Peninsula.'' Nor is it likely that al-Qassäm idealized the
chaos found in the British backed "independence" of Hashemite Iraq.
That al-Häjj Ibrahim saw the independence of Saudi Arabia, Yemen and
Iraq as an interim step towards a unified and independent pan-Arab
kingdom like the one envisioned by Sharif Husayn is equally unlikely.
Even if the message behind the act is ambiguous, in placing those flags
on those coflins, al-Häjj Ibrahim was making the first public claim on
al-Qassäm.
Glaims on al-Qassäm have shifted with the vicissitudes of Palestinian
political vogues since his death. More recently, al-Qassäm has become
the historical centerpiece for Palestinian movements whose outlook is
*' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 155.

^' There were reports of violence between rioters and police, but injuries were minor.
'•' Awad Halabi writes that "in the political environment of British-ruled Palestine [...]
symbols and imagery could become surreptitious tools to articulate the unspoken concerns
of the larger Arab population". This is clearly not a case of concerns being "unspoken", but
Halabi's argument is germane in the sense that symbols likeflagsand banners were already
particularly contested tools within the Arab Palestinian political vocabulary during the
Mandate years. See Awad Halabi, "Symbols of Hegemony and Resistance: Banners and
Flags in British-Ruled VAe.%úné\ Jerusalem Quarterly 36 (2009), p. 68.
^' I will use Mashriq to refer to the territory now comprised of Palestine/Israel, Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. This is usually distinguished from the Arabian Peninsula and the
Maghrib (North Africa).
self-consciously "Islamic". When it comes to contemporary claims on

al-Qassâm, what Hamas, the "Islamic Resistance Movement" in Pales-
tine lacks in historical accuracy, they make up for in zeal: Hamas's mil-
itary wing is named the 'Izz al-Dîn al-Qassâm Brigades; their projectile
of choice has been the al-Qassâm rocket; and Article Seven of their 1988
Covenant explicitly claims al-Qassâm as the first iteration of the "strug-
gle [jihad] against Zionist invaders" that begins a teleological line lead-
ing directly to Hamas.**
This article argues that popular narratives and most scholarship on
al-Qassàm's life and death have, on the one hand, decontextualized that
life and death from significant historical processes that other contem-
poraneous figures have been subjected to; and on the other hand elides
the nuances of personal experiences unique to al-Qassâm's environment.
Missing, for instance, from these narratives is al-Qassâm's upbringing in
an environment dominated by Sufism; al-Qassâm's decision to volunteer
as an Ottoman Army chaplain in the First World War; or al-Qassâm's
very public confrontation with Palestinian 'tdamä' over the acceptabil-
ity of popular "Islamic" practices. Including these aspects of al-Qassâm's
life is important if we want to have a non-essentialist understanding of
who he was, and a better appreciation for the forces shaping the Mashriq
in the first decades of the 20'*^ century.
As a corrective this article will first survey the historiography on al-
Qassâm in English and Arabic monographs, and in Arab popular dis-
course. The subsequent analysis will then build on that historiography
with a new interpretation of al-Qassâm's life thatfillsin some of the gaps
in earlier work using recently published sources, and with a particular
aim of placing it alongside contemporary historical scholarship on
political identity and social movements in the early 20''^ century Mashriq.
"' Mithäq Hamas (al-Harakat al-Muqäwama al-lslämiyya), 1988, p. 9. Whiggish historical

sense aside, the Covenant of Hamas also states that al-Qassâm's death was in 1936—an
echo of the rechronologizing Ted Swedenburg would note in popular memories of the
1936-1939 Revolt. See Ted Swedenburg, Memories of the Revolt: Vje 1936-1939 Rebellion
and the Palestinian National Past (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995),
p. 104.
Existing Literature
There are, broadly speaking, three categories of literature on al-Qassâm.

The English language literature includes three notable articles, as well as
a number of sections of monographs on broader topics. In Arabic, there
are at least a dozen hagiographies, the most significant of which were
published in the mid-1980s. Lastly is the more amorphous group of
al-Qassäm narratives that continue to circulate via the Internet and the
press in Arab popular discourse.
As a principle character in the early Palestinian nationalist movement,
al-Qassám appears rather superficially in contemporary English-lan-
guage histories of the Mandate and the Arab Revolt. Many of these
works give a brief account of his life with particular emphasis on the
weeks leading up to his death, and point out that his martyrdom was a
key moment in the prologue to open conflict between Palestine's Arabs
and the Mandatory Government in 1936.'
Beyond these general histories of the period, the three short biogra-
phies of al-Qassäm in English are Abdullah Schleifer's 1979 "The Life
and Thought of'Izz-Idin al-Qassâm"; Shai Lachman's 1982 "Arab Rebel-
lion and Terrorism in Palestine: 1929-1939: The Gase of Sheikh 'Izz
al-Din al-Qassâm and his Movement"; and Basheer Nafi's 1997 "Shaykh
'Izz al-Dîn al-Qassâm: A Reformist and Rebel Leader".'° Taken together
as dedicated studies of a man described as "the father of (Palestinian)
nationalism", this set of work is surprisingly short.
Schleifer's and Nafi's articles are two significant contributions to the
scholarship of al-Qassâm." Schleifer concentrates on al-Qassäm's Sufism
" See inter alia. Neis Johnson, Islam and The Politics ofMeaning in Palestinian Nationalism
(London: Kegan Paul, 1982); Abdul-Wahhab Said Kayyali, Palestine: A Modem History
(London: Croom Helm, 1968); Beverley Milton-Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine (New
York: I.B. Tauris, 1999); and similarly in French, see Ghassan el-Khazen, La Grande Révolte
arabe de 1936en Palestine (Éditions Dar an-Nahar, 2005); Henry Laurens, La Question de
Palestine, t. 2: Une Mission Sacrée de Civilisation (Paris: Fayard, 1999).
"" S. Abdullah Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", IQ 5/23
(1979); Lachman, "Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39"; Basheer M. Nafi,
"Shaykh 'Izz al-Din al-Qassàm: A Reformist and a Rebel Leader", Journal of
Islamic Studies, 812 (1997).
' ' ' Schleifer uses an abundance of oral interviews—fescinating in their own right—but most
of the interviews were conducted decades after the events discussed.
and commitment to an Islamic ethic of social justice. For Schleifer, al-

Qassâm's birth into an environment heavily influenced by Sufism is
evidence of a connection between his upbringing and his pre-rebellion
social work in Palestine. He presents an activist uniquely pre-occupied
with the moral improvement of his community.
By contrast, Nafi argues that it was the ideas of the modernist Is-
lamic reform movement centered in Cairo and Damascus known as
Salafism {al-salafiyya), and not Sufism that characterized al-Qassâm's
religious outlook.'' However, Nafi pays more attention to the political
realities al-Qassäm faced at the time and the difficulty in thinking about
al-Qassâm in terms of competing notions oíjihad and Palestinian no-
table politics. He also suggests that al-Qassâm's armed struggle in Pales-
tine was inevitable, and links it to both insurgencies in Morocco and
Syria that were defined by anti-Imperial Islamic discourse. For Nafi,
anti-colonial rebellion was al-Qassâm's primary animating force, and the
focus of his entire adult life.
Lastly, Shai Lachman's study of al-Qassâm and his movement relies
mostly on British and Israeli archives and Subhi Yâsîn's 1967 study Harb
al-'Isäbätfi Filastin ("Guerilla Warfare in Palestine").'-^ While these are
important sources, the limited diversity renders al-Qassâm one-dimen-
sional: everything he does is in service to his religious principles. While
not without its merits, Lachman presents the least believable rendition
of al-Qassâm, simply because the frame through which al-Qassâm is
understood is so narrow.
For a more comprehensive biography we must turn to Arabic sourc-
es. The most significant boom in Arabic al-Qassâm biographies came
nearly fifty years after his death. In the mid-1980s Samlh Hammùda,
'Abd al-Sattâr Qâsim and Bayân Nuwayhid al-Hùt all published notable
'-' The term "salafism" is imprecise since it is commonly used in reference to multiple re-
form movements. Here it refers to the al-salaflyya movement associated with Gairo's al-
Azhar and a group of scholars there: Jamal al-Din al-Afghâni, Muhammad 'Abduh and
Rashid Rida.
'" Subhi Yasin, Harh al-'Ißbätfl Filastîn (Gairo: Dar al-Kâtib al-'Arab¡, 1967) There is
some disagreement about Subhi Yâsin's connection with al-Qassam and his followers.
Schleifer notes that prominent Qassamites Abu Ibrahim al-Kabîr and Abu Is'af deny Yasin
was a member of the group. See Schleifer, Ilie Life and Thought of'lzz-Id-Din Al-Qassam,
p. 81, note 52.
biographies. Hammüda and Qâsim's works were published in the Israe-

li-occupied Palestinian Territories while al-Hùt, the historian and wife
of PLO leader Shâfiq al-Hùt, published hers in Beirut.''*
Ted Swedenburg has surveyed some of the ways Palestinians under
Israeli Occupation have come to narrate al-Qassâm's role in the early
nationalist movement. He argues that they have ascribed certain politi-
cal ideologies—conscious or unconscious—to al-Qassam. He identifies
these characterizations as "al-Qassâm as a Palestinian Nationalist"; "as
Che Guevara"; "as a proto-socialist"; "as a pan-Arab Nationalist" and
"al-Qassâm as a Muslim mujähid"}'' Swedenburg focuses on two of the
dozen or so Arabic biographies of al-Qassâm, limiting his study to works
produced in the mid-1980s in the Palestinian Territories. Samîh
Hammûda's, we learn, is scholarly, but focuses on al-Qassâm's reputed
Islamism: that he was engaged in jihad zgaxnst "The West" and it's ongo-
ing "Crusades" {sallbiyya) against Muslims."' He bemoans the absence
of religious men like al-Qassâm from the national leadership where
"Westernized secularists" have become entrenched.
'Abd al-Sattâr Qâsim's biography, on the other hand, focuses on al-
Qassâm's nationalist credentials. He does this largely by undermining
the idea that al-Qassâm was even a Salafî.'^ Instead he suggests that al-
Qassâm had a different religious outlook than the Palestinian religious
leaders of the 1980s, who at that point were beginning to challenge the
established dominance of Fatah.'^
Lastly, Bayân Nuwayhid al-Hùt's study of al-Qassâm relies, like
Hammùda and Qâsim, on a mix of primary sources and oral interviews.
Al-Hùt is particularly interested in al-Qassâm's relationship (and lack of
one) with other members of the Palestinian elite, and how his death af-
''" Samîh Hammuda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra: Dirâsafl l-Hayät wa-JihädShaykh 'Izz al-Din
al-Qassam (Jerusalem: Jam'îat al-Dirâsât al-'Arabiyya, 1985); 'Abd al-Sattâr Qâsim, Al-
Shaykh al-Mujdhid 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam (Beirut: Dâr al-Umma al-Nashr, 1984); Bayân
Nuwayhid al-Hut, Al-Shaykh al-Mujdhid 'Izz al-Din al-QassamflTärikh Filastln (Beirut:
Dâr al-Istiqlâl li-1-Dirâsât wa-1-Nashr, 1987).
"* Ted Swedenburg, "Al-Qassâm Remembered", Alif Journal of Comparative Poetics, 7
(1987), p. 10.
"^' Ibid., p. 13; Hammuda, ^/-Wa> wa-l-Thawra, p. 13.
'^' Qâsim, Al-Shaykh al-Mujdhid 'Izz al-Dln al-Qassam, p. 24.
"" Swedenburg, "Al-Qassâm Remembered", p. 14.
fected the factionalism of the Palestinian leadership.''^ This factionalism

remains a theme not just of the Mandate years, but up to the present as
well. While they may be part scholarly histories, these al-Qassäm biog-
raphies often take the form of hagiography that appeal to specific po-
litical ideologies largely because the battle for ideological dominance in
Palestinian anti-colonial nationalism remains unresolved.
Beyond these scholarly or quasi-scholarly accounts of al-Qassäm's life,
there exists a robust market for al-Qassäm stories in the Arab public
sphere. One recent example of this is an article that appeared in 2010
on al-Jazeera's website written by Muhsin Sälih titled "Al-Qassäm wa-1-
Tajriba al-Qassämiyya" ("al-Qassäm and the Qassamite Experience").^"
In it Sälih describes al-Qassäm's character, his deeds and his legacy with
assertive detail:
He had a strong faith, a comprehensive understanding of Islam, intelligence

and the ability to organize, courage and a grasp of facts, a sociable and popular
personality beyond his jihädi and advocacy woric [...J He was modest in the
way he ate, dressed and lived.-'
Sälih goes on to describe an al-Qassäm not wholly unlike that presented

by Shai Lachman: as a man whose entire way of life was dedicated to
the practice and spread of jihad. He was an ascetic who would sell his
only possessions in pursuit of his religious and political goals, and who
encouraged his followers to do the same. Sälih proceeds to connect quite
literally a Qassamite doctrine through his followers who fight in the
1936 Revolt, through Jalsh al-Jihäd al-Muqaddas in 1948, all the way
to the "Islamic trend, alive and active today". The same historical trajec-
tory is marked out by Hamas in their covenant.
Widely distributed accounts of al-Qassäm like this have proliferated
in the Palestinian Territories since the 1980s. Following the Second
Intifada, Islamists have largely claimed al-Qassäm. For the most part,
Schleifer's account of al-Qassäm's Sufism has lost the battle for narrating
''" Al-Hût, Al-Shaykh al-Mujähid 'Izz al-Dln al-QassämfiTdrikh Filastin, p. 68.

-"' Muhsin Salih, "Al-Qassäm wa-l-Iajriba al-Qassamiyya", Al-Jazeera (16 December
2010). www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1819FAD9-BFF6-4CDE-9057-0A89FF0FF6003
(accessed 6 August 2011).
-" Ibid.
al-Qassâm's faith to the likes of Sâlih. Missing from this contest between
Sufism and Salafism is the historical context of al-Qassâm's period when
Sufism and Salafism were not necessarily exclusionary, binary concepts
of a person's Islam.-^^
Additionally, these popular accounts contain historical inaccuracies
that are in part due to the passing of al-Qassâm myths from one gen-
eration to the next. Swedenburg, for instance, encountered multiple
examples in his anthropological interviews with Qassamites {al-
Qassämiyün) who "reordered the chronology" of events that led to the
Revolt.^' In their memory, al-Qassâm becomes the vanguard of the Re-
volt: taking to the hills and instigating first a general strike, then the
armed Revolt itself. It is difficult to discern whether this supposed series
of events has impacted al-Qassâm's status as instigator of the Revolt, or
whether it is the other way around.
However, it should be noted that an accurate picture of al-Qassâm is
not necessarily an easy task yet to be completed. Serious scholarly biog-
raphies of Arabs in English are scarce, in part because most historians
of the Middle East publishing in the last thirty years have focussed their
efforts on critiquing colonial and nationalist discourses. This has not
allowed for the production of much positivist, narrative history.^'* In
addition, sourcing remains particularly difficult as both the colonial
archive and the heroic accounts in the political memoirs of Arab nation-
alists offer distorted and distant views of a character such as al-
^^' See for instance, Itzchak Weismann, "The Politics of Popular Religion: Sufis, Salafis,
and the Muslim Brothers in 2O'''-Century Hamah", IJMES 37 (2005), p. 39.
^'' Swedenburg, "Al-Qassâm Remembered", p. 18; See also Swedenburg, Memories of
Revolt, p. 105.
^''* Laila Parsons, "Micro-Narrative and the Historiography of the Modern Middle East",
History Compass^lX (2011), p. 85.
^" For more on the ways in which nationalists construct narratives of nationalist move-
ments, see Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical
Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 28. A number of memoirs
written by nationalists of the period contain references to al-Qassâm including: Ahmad
al-Shuqayri, Arba'ünfi l-Hayät al-'Arabiyya wa-l-Dawliyya (Beirut: Dar al-Nahâr, 1969);
Bahjat Abu Gharbiyya, FiKhidamm al-Nidâlal-'Arabial-Filastini: Mudhakkirätal-Munädil
(Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1993); 'Izzat Darwaza, Mudhakkirät Muhammad
Tzzat Darwaza, 1305-1404 H/1887-1984 M: Sijil Haß bi-Masira al-Haraka al-'Arabiyya
wa-1-Qadîyya al-Filastiniyya Khilála Qarn min al-Zaman, Vol. I (Beirut: Dâr al-Gharb al-
With this in mind, the following is less a biography than an overview

of al-Qassâm's life in a "dialectical relationship to the multiple social,
political and cultural worlds [he] inhabited".^"^ Part of the problem with
writing a biography of al-Qassâm is the lack of documents.^'' There are
very few surviving primary sources written by his hand and none of
them are particularly revelatory about his character.^^ The absence of a
personal archive—diaries, correspondence, even memoir—makes the
examination of al-Qassâm in any intimate manner largely impossible.
Instead, a narrative of al-Qassâm's life that employs a relational approach
and which examines the sources available on their merits gets only as
close as we can to the actual 'Izz al-Dîn al-Qassâm and not the one of
nationalist and Islamist mythology.
Al-Qassäm's Biography
Muhammad 'Izz al-Dîn b. 'Abd al-Qâdir al-Qassâm was born in 1883
in the town of Jabla, nestled on the rocky coast of the Ottoman sanjäq
(administrative district) of Latakia (al-Lâdhiqiyya) in modern-day
Islàmi, 1993) and Hawla l-Haraka al-'Arabiyya, Vol. Ill (Al-Mafba"a al-'Asniyya, 1950);
Akram Zu'aytir, Min MudhakkirâtAkram Zu'aytir, Vol. I (Beirut: al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya,
1994) and al-Haraka al-Wataniyya al-Filastiniyya, 1935-1939: Yawmiyät (Beirut: Institute
for Palestine Studies, 1980); Ibrahim Najm, Amin 'Aql and 'Umar Abu l-Nasv, JihadFilastin
al-'Arabiyya (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2009); Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-
Qfldiyyat Filasttn.
-'•• David Nasaw, "Introduction to the American Historical Review Roundtable: Historians
and Biography", The American Historical Review 114/3 (2009), p. 574.
-'' This is the opposite of the opinion expressed by Elias Sanbar in his essay on al-Qassâm
and his movement in which he writes "Pourtant si les bonnes analyses manquent, on ne
peut pas dire qu'il en soit de même des sources [...]". I would contend that the list of sources
Sanbar provides (memoirs of nationalists and Qassamites, the press, the colonial archive)
allows for precisely the biography as the one presented in this paper. Elias Sanbar, "'Izz al-
Dîn al-Qassâm: Remarques Préliminaires a une Recherche sur le Mouvement de Shaykh
'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm", Studia Palestina: Studies in Honour ofConstantineK Zurayk (Beirut:
Institute for Palestine Studies, 1988).
-*' One exception is his thoughts on the exclamation oftahlil3nd takbir (Anhic expressions
of Islamic faith) at funerals. On this subject he wrote quite publically, including surviving
letters to newspapers and a co-written book. More on this topic below. Muhammad Kâmil
ai-Qassâb, and Muhammad 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm, Al-Naqd wa-1-BayänflDafat Awhäm
Khuziyrän (Damascus: Matba'at al-Taraqqi, 1925).
First setded by the Phoenicians, Jabla was a provincial backwa-

ter about 120 miles southwest of the Ottoman commercial hub of
Aleppo, and 15 miles south of the more substantial port city of Latakia.
Al-Qassâm's father, grandfather and great-uncle all held important posi-
tions in the local Sufi order, the Qâdiriyya tariqa. His father 'Abd al-
Qâdir also held a minor post in the sharî'a court and taught at the local
madhhab. One source, citing al-Qassâm's nephew, states that 'Abd al-
Qâdir was also active in the Naqshbandiyya tariqa?'^
The activist, reformist Naqshbandiyya tariqa was the most politically
influential Sufi order in the last century of the Empire.^' Naqshbandi
Shaykhs in Anatolia had a long history of support for the Sultan, and
to a large degree rejected the increasingly centralizing, secularizing re-
forms put forth by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that
took power in 1908, and against the Turkish Republic following the War
of Independence (1919-1923). Notably, in February 1925 Naqshbandi
rebels under the Kurd Shaykh Sa'ld recruited Kurdish peasants using a
mix of nationalist and religious rhetoric and declared a "jihad" when the
Caliphate was abolished.^^
The Naqshbandiyya were particularly interested in making Sufi prac-
tices conform more vigorously to Islamic legal orthodoxies. In Syria, the
Qâdirï and Naqshbandi tarîqat played an influential role in the intel-
lectual shaping of the Damascene Salafi 'ulamä' at the turn of the cen-
tury.'^ The salafiyya movement in Syria emerged in the last decade of
the 19^'^ century and like the movement's namesake in Egypt, argued
that Islam had deviated from the correct path as outlined by the first
generation of Muslims, the "pious forefathers" {al-salafal-sälih), and had
subsequently become vulnerable to foreign corruption. Blame was di-
rected towards the 'ulamä' of the traditional institutions of law and
education for perpetuating the blind adherence {taqlid) to the rulings
of earlier religious authorities. For these Salafis, taqlid was the anti-in-
^" See Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 62; Nafi, "Shaykh
Izz al-Din al-Qassäm", p. 186; Hammüda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 21.
*"' Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of "Izz-Id-Din AJ-Qassam", p. 62.
^" Feroz Ahmad "Politics and Islam in Modern Turkey", MES 27/1 (1991), p. 5.
«' Ibid., 7.
' " See David Dean Gommlns, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman
Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
3 26 M. Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352
tellectual preservation of an Islam that denied the "true" Islam as envi-

sioned by al-salafal-sälih.
Al-Qassäm at al-Azhar
In terms of his early education at the kuttâb in Jabla, al-Qassâm is
thought to have studied under a "well known" 'älim from Beirut, Shaykh
Salîm Tabbâra, but little else is known about al-Qassâm's early years
until 1902, when he travelled to Cairo with a group of Syrians to begin
his studies at al-Azhar.^"^ i
In the 1890s Egypt was experiencing a period of relative stability.
Khedive 'Abbas II kept his anti-colonial, nationalist sentiment a veiled
secret, while the well-known 'älim Muhammad 'Abduh returned from
the exile imposed on him for his alleged nationalist activities. In 1895
'Abduh, the scholar most closely associated with the Salafî movement,
took on the task of reforming the curriculum and examination criteria
at al-Azhar, where he had been teaching theology, rhetoric and Quranic I
exegesis (tafstr).^^ Over the next decade his reforms were implemented
piece-meal and met with significant resistance from the institutional
'ulamä'. These tensions percolated as 'Abduh's Salafî arguments were
aimed at the ossified religious institutions personified by al-Azhar's tra-
ditional leadership.-^'' Along with his disciple Rashîd Rida, 'Abduh
pushed the reformist line, and Salafî ideologies became increasingly
popular. It was into this climate that al-Qassâm arrived in Cairo in 1902.
Sources have been eager to link al-Qassâm with both 'Abduh and I
Rida, though the veracity of these claims is suspect.''^ But al-Qassâm's
time at al-Azhar did roughly overlap with both periods of 'Abduh and ,
Ridä's involvement in the school's intellectual life. While there are no
documents and conflicting oral accounts attesting to al-Qassâm's tute-
^''' Schleifer, " lbe Life and Thought of Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 62.
'^' For the classic texts on 'Abduh see Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age,
1798-1939 {^ew York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 130-160; and Malcolm H.
Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad 'Abduh and Rashid Rida
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).
"'' Rashîd Rida, Tärikh al-Ustädh al-Imäm al-Shaykh Muhammad 'Abduh, Vol. I (Cairo:
Matba'ât al-Manâr, 1925), p. 503.
•'^' See both Qâsim, Al-Shaykh al-Mujâhid 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm, p. 15; and al-Hût, Al-
Shaykh al-Mujâhid 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâmfl Tärikh Filastin, p. 25.
M. Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352
läge under either, it is safe to say that 'Abduh's mentor Jamal al-Dîn
al-Afghanî (who died in 1897 in exile), 'Abduh and Ridä's contributions
to Salafî discourse and challenges to Islamic institutional orthodoxies,
would have been difficult to avoid in that environment.^^
Upon his return to Jabla (probably in 1904), al-Qassäm began preach-
ing at the Sultan Ibrahim al-Adhän mosque and took a job teaching in
the school associated with the Qadirî tariqa. There, sources say, he add-
ed a number of classes including those on tafiîr and Islamic jurispru-
dence ifiqh).^'^ We also begin to see al-Qassäm's conception of an
activist Islam engaged with the moral issues of the day. Schleifer reports
that his Friday sermons had a significant impact on the habits of the
townspeople: encouraging attendance at the mosque, a prohibition on
alcohol, the keeping of the Ramadan fast, and the enforcement of
"shari'a standards in the town"."*" Nafi writes that this campaign was
evidence that "the young reformist 'älim was upholding the tenets of
'high' Islam against popular religion".'^'
When the Italians invaded Ottoman North Africa in September
1911, al-Qassäm's message in his sermons began to include the vocabu-
lary oí jihad against foreign threats.''^ His sense of an interconnected
umma in both a global and Ottoman imperial sense, and thus his con-
cern for what was happening in North Africa, had likely been fortified
by his years in Gairo.
Gonsequently, al-Qassäm had expanded his advocacy and was open-
ly recruiting military-aged men in Jabla for an expedition to the Maghreb
to join the mujâhidîn fighting the European invaders."*' He also raised
ftinds to pay for the insurgency, and to support the families of his men
'*' Albert Hourani described the ideas of'Abduh as being "in the air" in the last decades of
the 19* century. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939, p. 222.
^" Nafi, "Shaykh 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm", p. 187.
'"" Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 64.
"" Nafi, "Shaykh 'Izz al-Dîn al-Qassâm", p. 188.
'^^ Schleifer quotes an unsourced "chant" (nashid) that al-Qassâm reportedly composed at
the time: "Ka Rahim, Ya Rahman ... Unsur Maulana as-Sultan ... Wa'ksur a'ada'na al-
Italiyan ...[sic]". ("Oh Most Merciful, Oh Most Compassionate ... Make our Lord the
Sultan victorious ... And defeat our enemy the Italian ..."). Schleifer, "The Life and Thought
of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 64.
""' Hammûda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 25.
while they were away.'*'* Hammùda reports that al-Qassâm had recruit-
ed 250 men from Latakia to fight with him, though that number is
probably overstated.'*^ He and his men made their way in the late sum-
mer of 1912 to the Ottoman port city of Alexandretta (Iskanderun in
modern day Turkey) about two hundred kilometers to the north of
Jabla. There, like other Ottoman subjects who had volunteered for the
same cause earlier, they awaited permission and aid from Istanbul to
travel to the Maghreb to join in the fight.
However, by the summer of 1912 the Italian-Ottoman War had come
to a standstill with the Europeans firmly in control of the coast and the
Ottoman military and its irregulars inland. At the same time, national-
ist uprisings in Albania were incurring significant losses of Ottoman
territory and man-power, and threatened to spill over to other Balkan
states. Seizing the opportunity presented by the stalemate in North Af-
rica, the CUP reached an agreement with the Italians and conceded
some territory and autonomy in the Maghreb.
Over a month passed and it was conveyed to al-Qassâm that he would
be receiving neither permission nor state aid in his mission. With the
changing fortunes of the Empire, the Ottoman authorities ordered him
back to Jabla.
The Italian episode further exposed cracks between Istanbul and the
Arab provinces. The Ottoman abandonment of the campaign in the
Maghreb was a cold calculation to cut losses in the imperial periphery
so as to concentrate increasingly scarce resources on threats closer to the
métropole. But to many in the Mashriq the Sultan had abandoned not
a campaign, but Libyans—fellow Arab Muslims—to Italian coloniza-
tion. Less than a century after the Sultan had introduced Ottomanism
to stave off the advances of ethnic nationalism, in conceding North
Africa, Istanbul was exposing itself to rhetorical attacks from Arab na-
tionalists.
The First World War and the French Mandate for Syria
According to the traditional historiography of Arab nationalism, the
schism between Arab nationalists and Ottoman Turks, exacerbated by
Ibid.
Ibid.; Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 65.
the centralizing reforms of the 19''^ century, comes to a head in the First
World War. After receiving promises from the British, the Sharîf of
Mecca, Husayn b. 'Alî rallied tribes loyal to him from the Peninsula and
with the help of an enterprising Arab Bureau Intelligence Officer, pushed
the Ottoman forces out of the Mashriq and up towards Anatolia.
Of course this is a simplistic rendition of what, like almost any war,
was a messy and complicated affair. Instead, the majority of military-
aged Arab men in the Mashriq fought on the Ottoman side. The vast
majority of Arab Ottoman subjects were conscripted into the Ottoman
military through a massive conscription campaign known as the sefer-
belik. Most of these men were loyal to the Empire and to the Sultan and
it is unlikely that joining the Arab Revolt would have occurred to them.'"'
The few Arab officers from the Mashriq who did defect to the Revolt
did so only after they had been taken prisoner by the British.^''
Al-Qassâm volunteered for the Ottoman Army. Rejecting the admin-
istrative posts typically filled by members of the 'ulamä', he actively
sought military training and was posted as a chaplain at the garrison
south of Damascus.'^^
At the end of the war al-Qassäm left Damascus and returned to Jab-
la. At first, French and British forces occupied parts of the Mashriq as
the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. In compliance with the
principles of the Sykes-Picot agreement signed between the British and
French in 1916, in which the French claimed Syria and Lebanon, the
British withdrew, leaving the French and Britain's Arab Revolt ally Amîr
Faysal each in control of parts of Greater Syria.
Most sources say al-Qassâm and a group of men from Jabla—prob-
ably confederates from his attempted voyage to Libya who had survived
the war—took to the mountains of Jabal Sahyûn, northwest of Latakia,
to conduct an insurgency against the French.'*'' Other sources say that
'** See Michel Provence, "Ottoman Modernity, Colonialism, and Insurgency in the Inter-
War Arab East", IJMES 43 (2011).
'*''' Most notably Nuri al-Sa'Id and Ja'far Pasha al-'Askarl. Alternatively, Yâsïn al-Hâshiml,
and Fawzî al-Qâwuqjî, the legendary Arab nationalist commander, stayed loyal to the Ot-
toman Army throughout the war. See Khayriyya Qâsimiyya, ed., Mudhakkirât Fawzi al-
Qäwuqji (Damascus: Dâr al-NamIr, 1995), pp. 51-71.
"« Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 65.
'"' Hammùda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 28.
al-Qassâm joined rebel outfits already formed in Latakia, including the

forces led by prominent rebel commanders 'Umar al-Bitâr, and Shaykh
Sâlih al-'Alî, or later joined forces with Ibrahim Hanânu.^" Another
narrative has al-Qassâm's militia engaged in a sectarian conflict with
Alawite bands "that had come down from the mountains and had begun
to occupy the orchards and farmland outside of Jebla [sic]".^' In this
account, the invading French forces co-opted sectarian tensions between
Alawis and their Sunni neighbours in a bid to undermine the fighting
capabilities of Sunni militias by deploying Alawi proxies. After the Ala-
wis were pushed from the area surrounding Jabla, the story goes, the
French moved in and al-Qassâm's militia retreated to the village of
Zanqùfa in Jabal Sahyùn to begin the insurgency.^^
What is known is that at some point al-Qassâm led, or had a hand in
leading, rebel operations in the hills of Latakia. Unlike his movements
in Palestine, this period of al-Qassâm's life is much more difficult to
ascertain. Most apocryphal accounts of his year-long fight against the
French come from people who were not in fact there. Though Schleifer
does interview a member of al-Qassâm's Syrian band, al-Hajj Hassan
al-Hafian, he is ninety-four years old at the time of the interview, more
than a half century after the events.''* The accounts that are given of
al-Qassâm in Jabal Sahyùn describe a climate of intense religious prac-
tice including the memorization of the Quran, discussions on the re-
quirements of jihad, and a host of rituals associated with local Qâdirï
customs.^"^
Another interesting element of this story is the tension within al-
Qassâm's group between fighters of modest background and the "sev-
eral large landowners" from Jabla who had been backing al-Qassâm's
insurgencyfinancially.^''As the French consolidated their positions in
"" Lachman, "Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39", p. 60, note 33.
^" Schleifer, "ITie Life and thought of izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", recounting Hanafi's testi-
mony, p. 80, note 28.
''' Ibid., p. 65; Jund? identifies Zanqùfa as the base village for al-Qassam's band. "Asim
Jundl, 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam (Beirut: al-Mu'asasa al-"Arabiyya li-1-Diräsät wa-1-Nashr,
1975), pp. 24f
'^* Schleifer, "Ihe Life and Thought of "Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 80, note 8.
^'^ Most notably the practice of ritual invocation dhikr.
' " Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of "Izz-ld-Din Al-Qassam", p. 66.
Latakia, these landowners were pressured to abandon their aid to the

rebels or face the confiscation of their property.^'' The bickering over
aims and strategies within the rebel community was, according to one
source, described by al-Qassâm zsfitnaP The class conflict within the
band between those who had a great deal to lose and those who were
thought to be more fully committed to the cause, clearly influenced al-
Qassâm's later opinion on the suitability of potential mujähidin.
Between 1919 and 1921 the French faced resistance from many fac-
ets of Syrian society.^^ Large landowners saw the doubling of taxation
rates, while middle class merchants were shut out of bureaucratic em-
ployment or forced to contend with new tariff schemes. Secular Arab
nationalism remained the provenance of middle class educated elites,
but increasingly other forms of nationalist expression gained traction
throughout the country.^'
The insurgencies, like the one of which al-Qassâm was a part, were
hardly confined to coastal mountains. In fact, the authority of Amir
Faysal's Arab Kingdom of Syria extended barely beyond the city limits
of some of the major Syrian cities.^" Throughout most of the countryside
little control was exercised by a central authority, following the defeat
and occupation of the Ottoman Empire in the fall of 1918. That rebel
groups fought independently against the colonial forces as they took up
their positions, does not, however, mean that Faysal did not command
some sort of allegiance.
In June or early July of 1920, al-Qassâm is said to have left his moun-
tain enclave and entered Damascus for a meeting with the Amîr. The
meeting was ostensibly about al-Qassâm receiving armed support from
Faysal, and had been facilitated by the Amîr's secretary, an old compan-
ion of al-Qassâm from his time at al-Azhar.^' It is very difficult to con-
•^'' Ibid.
5^' Ibid.
"" See James Gelvin, Divided Loyalties: Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close
of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
»' Ibid., pp. 87f
<"»> Ibid., p. 30.
''" Schleifer identifies 'Izz al-Din al-Tanûkhî, a companion of al-Qassâm's, from a notable
Damascene nationalist family as al-Qassâm's contact with Faysal. See Schleifer, "The Life
and Thought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 67.
332 M. Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352 •
firm that such a meeting ever happened. Either way, shortly before the
Battle of Maysalùn that would mark the defeat of Hashemite Syria, al-
Qassäm and a coterie of associates slipped out of the country via Leba-
non and into British-controlled northern Palestine.
There is little doubt that the experiences al-Qassäm had in fighting
the French would influence him greatly in his quest fifteen years later
to ignite a similar uprising against the British. His difficulty in control-
ling ^Í«A by securing class cohesion, his use of an isolated mountain
base, his framing of the insurgency in religious and nationalist terms
were all issues that would surface in his Palestine campaign. Yet British
Palestine was different from French Syria. Moreover, fifteen years was a
long time for colonial governments to better understand and exercise
control over their new territories. There is little to suggest that al-
Qassäm's forces had many successes against the French. But a French
military tribunal did condemn him to death in absentia, giving reason
to believe that his was an insurgency of at least some inconvenience.''^
Haifa
When al-Qassäm arrived in Haifa sometime in late 1920 or early 1921
he would have found a city in a state of rapid transformation, propelled
by two important processes. The first began in the mid-19''' century as
the Ottoman bureaucracy in Istanbul started to assert a coherent and
consistent administrative power over the Empire's periphery. Autono-
mous groups of merchants and peasants in northern Palestine respond-
ed to the growing pains of integration into new commercial networks
that re-centered mercantile life. New networks of patrimonialism
changed the fortunes of some families, and left others in dire economic
straits.''^ The second process came with the arrival of the British Mandate
''-' Palestine was a typical refuge for Syrians facing French death warrants. Al-Qassâm's
associate Kaniil al-Qassab, and noted fighter in the 1936-1939 Revolt Sa'id al-'As had both
been sentenced to death in absentia. 'Ihe British made little effort—likely for fear of politi-
cal backlash—to arrest and extradite these men back to Syria, as they had done with more
common criminals.
^''" See Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). For the concept of new, "horizontal"
power relationships see Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, p. 32.
that saw the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization that had

begun with the Tanzîmât reforms.^ Industrial development projects in
Haifa, such as the oil pipeline from Iraq and the development of the
port, turned the city into Palestine's industrial center.*^' These projects
were the most substantial capital investment and infrastructure develop-
ments made during the Mandate and transformed Haifa from a town
of 24,000 in 1922 to a small city of 50,000 in 1931.^^
A confluence of factors led to this swell in population. In 1919, near-
ly three quarters of the population of Palestine was rural.^'' Some mi-
grants were fallähtn who came from rural villages across northern
Palestine in search of employment in the public works. More still had
come as a result of economic forces beyond their control. Poor harvests
in the late 1920s and early 1930s, coupled with the global depression
caused commodity prices to collapse.''^ An already difficult existence as
a subsistence farmer was made worse by these capricious international
forces.
Yet still, most arrived in Haifa as a direct result of the Zionist project.
Britain's professed obligation to the "Jewish national home" policy out-
lined in the 1917 Balfour Declaration was the central, vexing political
issue for the Mandate authority. Haifa itself, with the completion of the
port, became the primary landing center for Jewish immigrants from
Europe. Jewish immigration, along with land sales, was the most visible
manifestation of the Zionist enterprise, and by 1929 the focus of Pales-
tinian Arab political efforts.
Over the decade-and-a-half of al-Qassâm's time in Palestine, the Jew-
ish population had increased from 57,000 in 1919 to 320,000 in 1935.
The annual rate of Jewish immigration also increased in the early years
of the 1930s as fascists in Europe took power. Not including illegal ar-
'•'" Issa Khalaf "The Effect of Socioeconomic Change on Arab Societal Collapse in the
Mandate Palestine", IJMES 23 (1997), p. 94; see also Seikaly, Haifa.
' " Seikaly, Haifa, p. 74.
'^' Ibid., p. 49. Population censuses were conducted only in these two years of the Mandate.
^''^ Ken Stein, "Palestine's Rural Economy: 1917-1939", Studies in Zionism: Politics, Society,
Culture 811 (1987).
''*' Khalaf, "The Effect of Socioeconomic Change on Arab Societal Collapse in the Mandate
Palestine"; Stein, "Palestine's Rural Economy".
rivals, 30,000 Jewish immigrants were admitted in 1933, 60,000 in
While immigration was a cause for concern among the Palestinian

leadership, by 1929 it was land sales and peasant dispossession that
proved particularly troublesome. Jewish land ownership had doubled
since 1919 from 645,000 dunams (roughly one kilometer squared) to
1,300,000 dunams in 1935.^" Worse still was the sale of land by large
landlords (absentee and not) to Arab speculators. Despite some outcry
in the Arabic press in the 1920s the issue of landlessness only became a
matter of public policy concern for the British Mandate following the
1929 Wailing Wall riots and subsequent Shaw Gommission report.''' By
the time al-Qassâm took to the hills a fifth of Palestinians, a tradition-
ally agrarian society, had been rendered landless.^^
On his arrival in 1920 or 1921, al-Qassâm settled in the vicinity of
the villages of Balad al-Shaykh and al-Yâjùr, just to the south east of
Haifa.''-' As he had done when he returned to Jabla from al-Azhar, he
took up a preaching post and worked as a teacher in an Islamic school.
Haifa was also home to the largest community of Syrian exiles in Pales-
tine and when al-Qassâm arrived he quickly found himself among peo-
ple he knew. He leveraged this familiarity into a quick ascent to the
higher echelon of 'ulamä' in the city and a close association with the
Islamic Society (Jama'a al-Islämiyya)7'^ Shortly after his arrival he is one
of a dozen or so signatories of the Haifa 'ulamä' on a petition to the
High Gommissioner in support of the selection of al-Hdjj Amîn al-
'''^' High Commissioner to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, December 1935, British
Colonial Office (CO) 733:278:13, British National Archives (BNA), London. Wauchope
finished his letter with "Jew and Arab much as they trouble one another—and often their
rulers—possessfinequalities, though some of these run in excess. Acquisitiveness in the one,
idiosyncrasy for nationalism in the other."
"" Ibid. A dunam is roughly equivalent to a dekare, i.e., one kilometer squared.
^" Martin Bunton, Colonial Latid Policies in Palestine, 1917-1936 (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2007), p. 80.
'-' High Commissioner to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 7 December, 1935. CO
733:294, (BNA).
^^' Abu Gharbiyya, Fi Khidamm al-Nidal al-'Arabi al-Filastlni, p. 45.
^"^ The Islamic Society supervised the schools and mosques in the district and was an "in-
evitable meeting ground for Islamic and Arab nationalist opposition to the Mandate".
Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 67.
Husaynl to the position of Mufti of Jerusalem.^^ His mosque, al-Jarîna,

was located close to the docks and was frequented by mostly young men
of rural origin who had become stevedores or casual labourers after
migrating to the city. The expansion of the port in the mid-1920s drew
more workers, which in turn drew more eyes and ears to al-Qassâm's
Friday sermons.
Al-Qassâm was a "thundering" (jahüwari) preacher and attracted a
following from the slums that crept up the side of nearby Mount
Karmil.''^ His reputation as a Syrian exile with a French death warrant
likely contributed to the esteem in which he was held by the young men
frustrated by difficult economic constraints. There is little doubt that
al-Qassâm looked to the people who came to al-Jarîna, their family, their
neighbours, as a community in need of help. The poverty, al-Qassâm's
disdain for the colonial authorities, and the sharpening divide between
Arab and Jewish workers in Haifa led al-Qassâm to become more in-
volved in the social welfare of this community. Already a hotbed of
contentious labour politics, Haifa was sharply divided between Arab
Palestinians pushing to form unions (first railway workers, then presum-
ably dock workers) on the one side, and the Mandate government and
Jewish Labour Federation (the Histadrut) on the other. When the Pal-
estine Arab Workers' Society (Jam'iyyat al-'Ummäl al-'Arabiyya al-
Filastiniyya) was formed in 1925, Nafi writes that al-Qassâm had
"encouraged, directed, and supported" the Society and even drafted
their first public communication.^^
Though al-Qassâm seems to have relished the opportunity to minis-
ter to a congregation, his tenure at the al-Burj Islamic School, on the
other hand, was short lived.''* The school was controlled by the Awqäf
authorities in Jerusalem but was administered locally. Sometime in
1924, a fellow Syrian Shaykh Kâmil al-Qassâb was hired as the school's
^" Reproduced in Hammùda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 133.

^''' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 152.
^^' Nafi, "Shaykh "Izz al-Din al-Qassäm", p. 195; For a discussion of labour dynamics be-
tween the Arab and Jewish communities in the Mandate see Zachary Lockman, Comrades
and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948 (Berkeley: University of
Galifornia Press, 1996); and Deborah Bernstein, Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab
Workers in Mandatory Palestine (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000).
^*' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 153.
director. Al-Qassâm's appointment to al-Burj School ended shortly after

al-Qassâb took over.^'^ Though the two had a great deal in common—
both were Syrians, nationalists, and al-Azhar trained 'ulamä' of Salafî
leanings—sources suggest al-Qassâb felt the time al-Qassâm committed
to his preaching and community work had impeded his work at the
school.
Leaving his teacher's salary could not have been helpful, as his friend
and Manager of the Arab Bank in Haifa, Rashîd al-Hâjj Ibrâhîm, sug-
gests that al-Qassâm had a difficult time making ends meet. As a result,
he applied for and was given the job oí ma'dhiin, the roving marriage
registrar for the Haifa shari'a court in 1928.^" In this role al-Qassâm
travelled from village to village, often attending important communal
festivities, and acquainting himself with a number of pious villagers
would later become followers. British Intelligence reported that in
these villages, al-Qassâm had been preaching "doctrines of Islam,
cleverly interpolating (usually away from context) such passages from
the Qoran [sic] as were calculated to stimulate a spirit of religious
fanaticism".**'
In 1924, the Islamic Society opened al-Istiqlâl Mosque not far from
al-Jarîna in part to accommodate the expanding population in the in-
dustrial zones around Haifa's lower city.**' The proximity and size of the
mosque meant an even greater reach for al-Qassâm's message and he was
'''' Nafi, "Shaykh 'Izz al-Dîn al-Qassâm", p. 190; Schleifer, "The Life and Thought of'Izz-
Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 69.
""' Ibrâhîm, Al-Dijâ' 'an Hayja wa-Qadiyyat Filastln, p. 1 53. Notably, most other biogra-
phers of al-Qassâm suggest that he sought the job of ma'dhUn because it would have pro-
vided him greater opportunity to travel to villages big and small and recruit the pious for
his jihad. Ihis is certainly plausible but Ibrahim's assertion, made in passing, that his job as
imam did not "meet his expenses" makes even more sense. It is also possible that al-Qassâm
told Ibrahim —a social and intellectual equal—the truth, while concealing the motive for
the job from his disciples, on whose testimony a number of other biographies are based.
Ihe fact that we have the exam and answer sheet submitted by al-Qassâm in evaluating his
qualifications for the position also undermines those who claim that his job as ma'dhún was
given to him by local notables to help build his organization. See reproduction in Hammùda,
Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 145.
"" "The Sheikh Izzedin Al-Qassam Gang", Tegart Papers, Box 1 File 3C. Middle East
Centre Archives (MEC), St. Antony's College, Oxford.
ji, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, pp. 134f.
assigned to al-Istiqläl as Imam in 1925.^^ Around the time of his assign-

ment to al-Istiqläl, al-Qassäm engaged in his most public confrontation
with the established Palestinian 'ulamä'.
Responding to a question on the acceptability of tahlll (saying "¿i
illäha illa Allah"—"there is no God but Allah") and takbtr (saying
"Allâhu akbar"—"God is great") during funerals, al-Qassäm issued a
fatwd denouncing the practice as bid'a (irreligious innovation). The re-
sult was a sprawling series of arguments made between traditionalist and
reformist 'ulamä' in Damascus, Gairo and Palestine over popular prac-
tices and Islamic orthodoxies. Al-Qassäm was attacked in the newspaper
al-Yarmük in May of 1925 for "clinging to the peel, while leaving the
pulp" of religion and "wasting debilitating time for the nation".^'* Al-
Karmil published al-Qassäm's withering reply three weeks later in which
he wrote that ^^bid'a both small and large are the greatest damage done
to the umma'}''
The debate culminated with al-Qassäm and Shaykh Kämil al-Qassäb
printing a pamphlet titled al-Naqd wa-1-Bayän fi Daf'at Awhäm
Khuziyrän (The Gritique and Declaration in Reftitation of Khuziyrän's
Illusions) marshalling_^/az¿'¿ from prominent 'ulamä' oíç2iSi and pres-
ent against the latest opposition, from Shaykh Subhi al-KhuzIyrän, ad-
ministrator of Acre's shari'a court.^*" Al-Naqd wa-1-Bayän deals not only
with tahlil and takbir, but also with other practices considered bid'a
including the visitation of shrines and the intermixing of sexes. These
were fault lines in the contests between modernist reformers of the Salafi
persuasion and traditional 'ulamä' who appeared more willing to accept
popular interpretations of religious practice. During these public
*-'• Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 153; Hammüda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-
Thawra, pp. 134f.
"'" Ibid., p. 136; Al-Yarmuk, 14 May 1925. The debate over tahlil and takbir is particu-
larly interesting when placed within the context of the cyclical, episodic bouts of national-
ist violence.
*'' Ibid., p. 158; Al-Karmil, 6 June 1925. Al-Qassâm is also critical of the a/-Kírww/í'edito-
rial for having been written by a non- 'älim who should "limit your writing to that for which
God has singled you out".
"'' Kàmil al-Qassâb and 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm, Al-Naqd wa-1-Bayän. The text is one of the
only insights we have into al-Qassâm s religious outlook and yet it is largely an edited col-
lection offatäwä. According to Palestine Police documents, al-Khuzïyrân would become a
significant fundraiser and propagandist for the "rebel movement" around Haifa after al-
Qassâm's death. See "Societies and People", c. 1938, Tegart Papers, Box 1 File 3B, (MEC).
exchanges the Mufti of Haifa was urged to fire al-Qassâm and al-Qassâb
from their posts, and they were routinely denounced as "Wahhabis"
{al-Wahhähiyya) by their opponents.^''
Palestine Politics and al-Qassäm's Organization
By the end of the 1920s it was increasingly apparent to the poor of

Haifa that the Jewish and Arab communities in the city were developing
at an unequal pace. In response, the growing frustration with the in-
ability of the traditional Palestinian political parties to move the nation-
alist agenda forward and their seeming lack of interest in the plight of
the underclass created space for nascent political dissent. While the ma-
jority of Palestine's^/^z/;/« were dependent on bonds of "patrimonialism
and elite parochialism" with notable families, these bonds weakened
with urbanization as the a'yân (the Palestinian notable class) abetted, or
were incapable of stopping, land sales and dispossessions.*^ In Haifa a
number of organizations were created to fill the void.
In 1932 a group of men in Haifa, including 'Awnî 'Abd al-Hâdî, 'Izzat
Darwaza, Rashîd al-Hâjj Ibrâhîm, Akram Zu'aytir and Subhî al-Khadrâ
formed the Hizb al-lstiqlâl (the Independence Party).*' Al-Istiqlâl was
created with three goals, as expressed on the official statement registering
it as a political organization on 13 August 1932: "1) The independence
of the Arab countries; 2) The Arab countries are one and inseparable; 3)
Palestine is an Arab country and an integral part of Syria".'^'^ The last
"^' Nafi, "Shaykh 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm", p. 193. See also Schleifer, "The Life and Thought
of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 67. The resort to the label "Wahhabi" (al-Wahhäbiyya) was
a common practice in these debates between salafist and traditional 'ulama'. The distinction
between the salafism of the al-Azhar/'Abduh/Ridâ and the salafism of Muhammad b. 'Abd
al-Wahhâb was, and continues to be, contentious. For another contemporaneous example
of the term "Wahhabi" used as an epithet see Itzchak Weismann, "The Invention of a
Populist Islamic Leader: Badr al-Din al-HasanI, the Religious Educational Movement and
the Great Syrian Revolt", Arabica, 521 \ (2005), p. 121.
""' Mark Tessler, A History of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 2009).
"'" For a history of al-lstiqlâl, see Weldon Matthews, Confronting Empire, Constructing a
Nation: Arab Nationalists and Popular Politics in Mandate Palestine (London: I.B. Tauris,
2006).
9Ü) "Deputy Commissioner's Offices, 13 August, 1932" reproduced in Darwaza,
kirätMuhammad 'Izzat Darwaza, Vol. I, pp. 796f
point was particularly contentious as the idea of a "Greater Syria" (Sûriyâ

al-Kabîra or Bilâd al-Shâm)—of which Palestine comprised the southern
section—was a political position increasingly on the wane in Palestine.
Palestinian nationalist politics had really begun to evolve after the
Wailing Wall Riots in 1929 when violent clashes between Arabs, Jews
and Palestine Police left hundreds dead." The Mufti of Jerusalem, al-
Häjj Amln al-Husaynî seized the mantle of leadership in the aftermath
and cultivated his close relationship with the Mandate authorities. He
also set out on a strategy of Palestinian exceptionalism that sought to
counter the claims made by the nationalists who would later form al-
Istiqlâl: that Palestine was a part of a Greater Syria. The Mufti went
about accomplishing this by highlighting the importance of al-Haram
al-Sharîf to Islam through appeals to the worldwide Muslim umma and
not inconsequently, his role as protector of the site. The Wailing Wall
riots served as a reminder that the British facilitation of Jewish designs
on Palestine was a problem for the global Muslim community. The
Mufti exploited this situation and his role to elevate his status and went
so far as to organize the Islamic Gongress in 1931 in which he tried to
get himself "elected" Galiph.'^
Al-HäjjAimn al-Husaynî was also at the center of the violent faction-
alism that came to characterize Palestinian nationalist politics during
the Mandate.^^ Prominent notable families like the Husaynîs, the
Nashâshîbîs, and the iChâlidîs had competed for power under the Ot-
toman administration, but the stakes were dramatically different during
' " The Shaw Commission found that the cause of the riot was an "Arab feeling of animos-
ity and hostility towards Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and
national aspirations and fear for their economic future". Report of the Commission on the
Palestine Disturbances ofAugust, 1929 (London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1930),
p. 150.
'^' The classic political history text on Palestinian nationalism in this period is the two
volumes of Yehoshua Porath, Ihe Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement
(London: Cass, 1974). For more on al-Häjj Arnin see Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem:
Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1992), and Ilan Pappe 7he Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The
Husaynis, 1700-1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).
' " For a comprehensive study of the issue of factionalism on Palestinian nationalist politics
during the Mandate see Issa Khalaf, Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Dis-
integration, 1939-1948 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1991).
340 M Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352
the Mandate. The acknowledgment explicit in the Mandate itself—that

the territory assigned to the British would eventually become indepen-
dent—made control over the nationalist platform critical.
In the early 1930s the Palestinian political class was increasingly des-
perate to stem the sale of land to Jews and Arab speculators and end the
dispossession oi fallähin. In February 1933 an appeal was made di-
rectly to the High Commissioner to stop land sales and Jewish immigra-
tion, but was met with a tepid response.'''* In January 1935, a different
approach was taken when a series offatäwä were issued at the Palestine
Islamic Congress denouncing land sellers as "renouncers of Islam" and
yet this too did very little to curb the temptation of even some among
the notable ranks from cashing in on land sales. Other boycotts
and general strikes did little to sway the Mandate authority and only
further harmed the national leadership's legitimacy. It is against this
backdrop of political factionalism that in the mid-1920s al-Qassâm
began openly criticizing both the British Mandate authority, and the
inability of the party leaders to adequately fight for the removal of the
colonial powers.'^'
In 1927, al-Qassâm, along with Rashid al-Hâjj Ibrahim founded the
Young Men's Muslim Association {Jam'iyyat al-Shabäb al-Muslimin).
Ibrahim, a technocrat who had been born and raised in Haifa, was a
close confidante of al-Qassâm and his closest ally among Haifa's mer-
chant middle class.'^'' The goals of the YMMA show it to be an organiza-
tion driven by a commitment to "the national movement" {al-haraka
al-wataniyya), and religion. Al-Hdjj Ibrahim recounts them as such:
1. Support the national movement and dispatch the national activity

{al-nishäf) of resisting colonialism and Zionism.
2. Incite the return back to religion [...] commit to its duties and pro-
visions [...]
3. Resist [religious] taboos and evils.
4. Educate the honest, and encourage reading.
5. Encourage physical activities for the youth and the Scout Movement.
"'* High Gommissioner to Secretary of State for the Golonies, November 2, 1933. GO
733:239.
'"' Hammùda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 60.
'^''' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 153.
6. Work on disseminating the Young Men's Muslim Association in Arab

cities and villages.'''
The YMMA spread quickly to smaller regional centres in northern Pal-

estine. In 1930, in the wake of the Wailing Wall riots, YMMA branch-
es came together in Haifa for the YMMA Conference. Al-Qassâm was
elected to the Executive Committee and several resolutions were ad-
opted, most notably one calling for the YMMA to "secretly train Arab
youths (men) to take up arms" and another to "secretly call (others) to
arm".'^ Darwaza writes that out of the YMMA Congress, jihadist cells
{al-khaläyya al-jihädiyya) were organized.'^
Rashîd al-Hâjj Ibrâhîm recounts that after al-Qassâm had declared
his public hostility for the British, al-Qassâm was investigated crimi-
nally, fired from his position as ma'dhün, fined and imprisoned.'"" Yet
there is no mention of his imprisonment by the British in other biogra-
phies or in the posthumous British reports about his activities. What is
likely is that at this point al-Qassâm was firmly on the radar of British
Intelligence. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Pal-
estine Police had been looking into the YMMA for their alleged con-
nection with other inchoate paramilitary groups already active in
Palestine.'"'
Three organizations in partictilar are known to have been operating
between 1929 and 1933. One group, known as the Green Hand {al-Kaff
al-Khadrä) was active in the Acre-Safed-Nazareth area near the end of
1929. They "collected" monies from various villages in the north and
called themselves "mujâhidùn", but were ultimately dispersed in the
spring of 1930. British Intelligence reported that they had connections
'''' Ibid., p. 150; Al-Qassâm's imprimatur is clearly on this list. After the founding of the
YMMA he created a night school in YMMA facilities to encourage illiterate dock workers
to learn to read.
'* Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastln, p. 151.
' " Darwaza, Mudhakkirät Muhammad 'Izzat Darwaza, p. 692.
""" Ibrâhîm, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 153.
""' The "secret call to arms" was not as secretive as either Ibrâhîm or Darwaza thought. The
next day, the CID issued a report that stated: "the mission of buying arms for the Arabs is
what was decided on at this short secret meeting." "Criminal Investigation Department
Daily Intelligence Summary, No. 221, September 21, 1931." Foreign Office (FO)
371:15333, (BNA).
to the recently formed YMMA in Safed.'"^ A second group al-Jihäd al-

Muqaddas (referred to in English as "Holy War") was operating in the
Jerusalem area during the years 1931 -1934 and was under the command
of'Abd al-Qädir al-Husaynl.'"^ Porath, relying on a single source, like-
ly overstates the organizations' strength at 400 men by 1934 and 100
"guns and pistols".'"'*
While there are tenuous links between al-Qassäm and the Green
Hand, there are indications that by 1933 al-Qassäm was involved in the
recruitment and organization of rebel groups in the north.'"^ One
group, including members of the Saffuriyya YMMA branch became
known as the Black Hand {al-Kaffal-Aswad). The Black Hand carried
out a series of operations in the north of Palestine against Jewish and
British targets early in the decade. Subhi Yäsin reports that the members
of the Black Hand that carried out these attacks did so against the
wishes of al-Qassäm, but this is difficult to accept.""" Al-Qassäm had,
after all, been preaching and lecturing on the merits oijihad, and calling
for the secret arming and training of YMMA members.
On the evening of 22 December 1932, a farmhouse in the Jewish
colony of Nahalal, ten kilometers to the west of Nazareth, was fire-
bombed. Two of the home's inhabitants—^Joseph Yacoubi and his nine-
year-old son David, were killed.'"'' Over the next few weeks and months,
five suspects were arrested for the crime and charged with murder. One
'"-' "Terrorism 1936-1937", Tegart Papers, Box 1 File 3C, (MEC).

""' Husayni would later command ihcjaysh al-Jihad al-Muqqadas in the 1948 War.
'""" Porath, Ihe Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, p. 131. Addition-
ally, the "Rebel Youth" (al-Shabäb al-'lhâ'ir) operated in the T ulkarm-Qalqilya area in 1935
and was comprised mostly of members of the local Scout organization.
'"'' Many sources report that in 1930 al-Qassám sought and received d^fatwä from a Dam-
ascene 'älim Shaykh Badr al-Din Fuji al-Husaynî approving violent attacks against British
and Jewish targets and that •à\\%fatwa was read by al-Qassâm at gatherings of his followers.
This is reported by British Intelligence after the fact, and the provenance of this assertion is
difficult to ascertain and should be treated with some skepticism. See "The Sheikh Izzedin
Al-Qassâm Gang", T'egart Papers, Box 1 File 3C, (MEC).
""'' Yâsin, Harb al-'Isiibät fi Filastin, pp. 68ff. Qassamite 'Arabi Badawi insisted that al-
Qassâm's group was "democratic" and that al-Qassâm solicited input from members of his
group instead of making decisions unilaterally. See Ted Swedenburg, Memories of Revolt,
p. 117.
"'^' The Palestine Post, 25 December 1932. Bahjat Abu Gharbiyya suggests they were
"guards" of the settlement. See Bahjat Abu Gharbiyya, R Khidamm al-Nidäl al-'Arabl al-
of the suspects, Mustafa 'Alî Ahmad, was questioned intensely by police

that Spring and gave a confession that he signed on 29 March 1933 in
Haifa's Central Police Station. The confession describes the group receiv-
ing instructions in Saffuriyya from a number of prominent men, most
notably al-Qassâm, who came, Ahmad claims, to "teach us and lecture
us and deliver speeches".'"* Rashîd al-Hâjj Ibrâhîm called the Nahalal
bombing the "first revolutionary experience" {tajriba thawriyya) in Man-
date Palestine.'0''
After Nahalal, the YMMAs in Palestine were banned by the Mandate
authorities and al-Qassâm was placed under surveillance."" Neverthe-
less, al-Qassâm continued to organize small cells of followers around
Haifa, often meeting with them in the densely packed Arab neighbour-
hoods or in caves outside of the city.'" Al-Qassâm had specific require-
ments of his recruits:
1. The applicant should be committed to the provisions of Islam in both

word and deed.
2. Stand himself in the service of his religion and his country.
3. Implement the orders of his superiors without question or hesitation.
4. Acquire for himself a weapon and train with it."^
Filastinl, p. 46. This claim is repeated in Ghassan el-Khazen, La Grande Revoke arabe de
1936 en Palestine, p. 178.
'"*' Untitled handwritten note dated December 11, 1937. Tegart Box 2 File 3, (MEC).
One report claims that of the "speakers" chosen to give lectures at the YMMA, the "most
militant and fanatical" was al-Qassâm. See "Terrorism 1936-1937", Tegart Papers, Box 1
File 3C, (MEC).
""' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfd wa-Qadiyyat Filastin,p. 153. Ahmad claimed to have been
involved only to "steal a cow" and had been unaware that an accomplice was going to bomb
one of the homes in the settlement. Ahmad was the only one of the three accused to be
executed for the crime. Statement of Mustafa 'All Ahmad, 29 March, 1935. Tegart Box 2
File 3. (MEC); "The Sheikh Izzedin Al-Qassâm Gang", Tegart Papers, Box 1 File 3C,
(MEC).
""> "Terrorism 1936-1937", Tegart Papers, Box 1 File 3C, (MEC); Ibrâhîm, Al-Difä' 'an
Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 155.
" " Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 155.
' '^' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 153. The provision that the train-
ee acquire himself a weapon may harken back to tales about al-Qassâm's dedication to
self-sufficiency, or may simply indicate that the acquisition of weapons was difficult. Schleif-
er recounts one story from al-Qassâm's time at al-Azhar when an embarrassed friend (al-
Tanùkhî, al-Qassâm's contact with Amir Faysal), was found by hisfetherselling sweets, the
344 M Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352
Men associated with the YMMAs, men with whom al-Qassám had in-
teracted as imäm at al-Jarîna and al-Istiqlâl, and men al-Qassâm had met
while visiting villages as ma'dhûn, joined his organization. Griminals
whom al-Qassâm called back to Islam also joined the group. Hasan al-
Bâyir, a hashish smuggler recounted his early time with al-Qassâm in
the newspaper Filastin:
I am from the village of Balqîs. I used to steal and commit sins. Then came
the late Shaykh 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm, who led me and taught me to pray. He
forbade me From acting against Islamic law that is God almighty. Before a
time (which was before 1935) he took me to the Balqis mountain and he gave
me a gun and I asked "what is this"? He answered: "to train with it and fight
jihad {tujähid) with your brothers for God {fisabilAllah)}^^
We also know from Mustafa 'Alî Ahmad's interrogation that initiates

into al-Qassâm's organization were required to give an oath of secrecy."''
This makes identifying the exact number of fighters in al-Qassâm's or-
ganization difficult to confirm."^
The Fight
On 2 November 1935 al-Qassâm appeared on stage in Haifa alongside

the President of the Palestine Arab party (the Mufti's party) Jamal al-
Husaynî to denounce the Balfour Declaration on its eighteenth anni-
versary. The meeting approved a proclamation that warned Ghristians
and Muslims of the World about the danger that Britain's lack of move-
ment on the Jewish immigration question posed to the Ghristian and
Muslim holy sites. A proclamation not unlike any of the dozens that had
come before it, this instance did, however, include reference to the re-
cently discovered attempt (presumably by members of the Jewish un-
derground) to smuggle weapons into Palestine.'"" Three weeks earlier a
father responded with pleasure that al-Qassâm had taught his son self-sufficiency. See
Schleifer, "The Life and Ihought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 62.
" " Filastin, 23 November 1935. Quoted in Hammuda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 53.
"'" Statement of Mustafa 'All Ahmad, 29 March, 1935. Tegart Box 2 File 3. (MEC)
' " ' 30-50 is the best guess for numbers of members in the organization. Low hundreds of
followers/sympathizers is likely.
'"'' "Arabs denounce Britain and Jews on Balfour Day", 'Ihe Palestine Post, 3 November
1935.
cache of twenty-five Lewis guns and their bipods were discovered in a

cement shipment in Jaffa harbour. The discovery triggered an outcry
from Palestinian Arabs who believed they had been given proof of some-
thing many had long assumed: that Jewish paramilitary units were arm-
ing for confrontation."''
Rashid al-Hâjj Ibrahim wrongly states in his memoirs that al-Qassâm
took to the hills on 11 October, nearly a month before he is reported
speaking at the Balfour Day protest."* More reliable sources suggest it
was 1 or 6 of November."' What is known is that although he was
under "general supervision" by the police, sometime following the con-
clusion of that meeting, al-Qassâm and a small group of his disciples
disappeared from Haifa.'^^
Death
The end began with the theft of some grapefruits. On the morning of
7 November, 28-year-old Sargent Moshe Rosenfeld, "the best Jewish
horseman in all of Palestine", was called to a village not far from his
police station in Shatta to investigate.'^' He was accompanied by two
Arab constables whose names have been lost to history. North of the
village at the foot of Jabal Faqü'a (Mount Cilboa), Rosenfeld dismount-
ed, moved into the citrus grove and sent his companion back down the
wadi with the horses. As he walked deeper into the grove three shots
rang out and he was struck in the head and side.
The initial period in the hills seems to have gone according to plan
and surely reminded al-Qassâm of 1920 and the Jabal Sahyün campaign.
' ' •'' Telegram from Officer Administering the Government of Palestine to Secretary of State
for the Golonies, October 22, 1935. GO 733:278:13, (BNA).
'"*' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 154.
" " Al-Ahräm, 22 November 1935 reports the departure from Haifa to have been 1 No-
vember. Porath says 6 November. See Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab Na-
tional Movement, p. 138.
'^°' Untitled handwritten note dated 11 December 1937, Tegart Box 2 File 3 (MEG).
Later, British Intelligence would claim that they "knew immediately" that al-Qassäm had
absconded to the hills, but the shambolic British response to his death would suggest oth-
erwise.
'^" E. Porter Home, A Job Well Done: (Being a History of the Palestine Police Force 1920-
1948) (Lewes, East Sussex: Book Guild, 2003), p. 183, note 11.
Here he had spent years recruiting a small band of probably between

thirty and fifty men he felt were committed wholly to the cause. He
carefully avoided making some of the mistakes he had made a decade-
and-a-half earlier. There were no landowning mujähidin among his
ranks; hence less cause for concern about the class hzscdfitna that had
plagued him in Syria.'^~ British Intelligence summarized his group as
being "from the poor, the ignorant, and the more violently disposed of
the pious".'^' Al-Qassäm described it differently:
Look, "my hair has turned white" and I have a lot of experience which made
me hope for something good from peasants and workers. They put their trust
in God, they believe in Heaven and the Day of Judgment, and whoever has
these qualities is more likely to sacrifice, and is more daring to go forward.
Besides they're able to endure difficulties and are stronger.''''
For however long they were in the hills, al-Qassâm's gang was reported
to have carried out some small scale sabotage, limited mostly to destroy-
ing phone lines and disrupting transportation.''^ The plan seems to have
been to remain under the radar of the police while raising recruits for
an impending revolt. The shooting of Sargent Rosenfeld upset this plan.
Accounts after the fact by surviving Qassamites give conflicting re-
ports as to whether the initial ambush on Rosenfeld was an intentional
attack, or careless error. Regardless, the Palestine Police gave westward
chase to the group. On 17 November, not far from Jenin, Muhammad
Abu I-Qâsim Khalaf, a beverage peddler from Hebron, was the first of
the Qassamites to be killed, at which point the group split in two.'^^
Farhän al-Sa'dî took one smaller group north while al-Qassâm and eight
of his men continued west until they reached the town of Ya'bad.'^^ Af-
ter spending a night or two with a local sympathizer the men slipped
out at dawn on 20 November and retreated from the advancing dragnet
' " ' Ghassen al-Kazem states that Qassam "categorically refused the joining of notables or
their children". Al-Kazem, p. 176.
'-'' "Ihe Sheikh Izzedin Al-Qassam Gang" Tegart Papers, Box 1 File 3C, (MEC).
'-"" Quoted in Hammùda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 52. ("my hair has turned white" is a
close approximation for an Arabic idiom expressing experience).
'-" Ibrâhîm, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 154
'-''' Filastin, 19 November 1935.
'-^' Schleifer, "Ihe Life and 'Ihought of'Izz-Id-Din Al-Qassam", p. 61.
to an olive grove just outside of town. There a protracted gun battle took
place between the Qassamites and the police force that had hunted them
for two weeks.
The events of that morning remain contested. Surviving Qassamites
describe a heroic stand made by their leader. Gompelling them to fight
on to the death and framing their deaths as martyrdom {istishhäd).^^^
The Palestine Post—the English-language newspaper of the Yishuv— on
the other hand, recounts a more tendentious claim that members of the
group surrendered with whiteflagsbefore opening fire on the advancing
police. Regardless of the narrative of the clash, in the end al-Qassäm,
al-Masrî and Sa'îd lay dead and Shayk Nimr al-Sa'dî badly wounded.
On the Government side a British Gonstable, R.G. Mott was killed and
Gonstable Frank Reeder lightly wounded.'^'
This confrontation was the most violent clash between an organized,
armed group and the authorities so far in the British Mandate. At first
it seems the Mandatory authorities were somewhat confiised about how
to classify the confrontation. The official communiqué from the British
in the aftermath claimed the dead were bandits or brigands.'^"
The response from the nationalist leadership was equally under-
whelming. The Istiqlalist Akram Zu'aytir is quoted in the press excoriat-
ing the mainstream leadership:
Why did the nation stand on one side regarding the death of al-Qassäm, and
you stood on the other? Why did you not attend the funeral? Where were the
goodwill messages from the Grand Mufti, from Râghib al-NashâshIbî [...]
and Husayn al-Khâlidl?'^'
'2« Ibid.
'^" Palestine Post, 21 and 22 November 1935.
•a« Palestine Post, 22 November 1935.
" " Jami'a al-'Arabiyya, 22 November 1935. They did attend the 40''' day anniversary
celebrations of al-Qassâm's death in January 1936, and made emphatic speeches celebrating
his martyrdom. Members of the Palestine Arab Party (the Husayni faction) claimed al-
Qassâm was a member and had collaborated with Husayni on a plan for atmed revolt. This
claim appears elsewhere, though it is always made by sources with a connection to the
Mufti. Other sources claim that al-Qassâm had gone to the Mufti and proposed a joint
campaign with al-Qassâm leading the revolt in the north while Husayni did the same in the
south, but that Husayni rejected the idea. Hammuda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 122, and
Yasin, al-Thawra al-'Arabiyya, pp. 21f.; Porath claims that Yishuv intelligence reported
Yet there is little doubt that this was anything but rhetorical posturing
on the part of Zu'aytir. The Palestinian leaders were frightened that al-
Qassâm's revolt was the beginning of a populist nationalist movement
that would no longer look to the traditional leadership who derived
power from membership in the notable class or an important family.
This was borne out a week later, when the five heads of the Arab parties
met with High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope. They made what reads
like a last ditch attempt to convince the Mandate authorities to concede
something concrete that might legitimise their leadership in the eyes of
a discontent population.'^-
In conveying his report on the meeting to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies in early December 1935, Wauchope notes the "general
feeling among Arabs has become definitely more hostile" and shows
concern that al-Qassâm and his group have been "acclaimed by many
Arab leaders and by the whole Arabic Press as martyrs and heroes, brave-
ly sacrificing themselves in the cause of national and religious indepen-
dence" despite "deliberately" shooting a Policeman.'-^^
strong connections between the two but as Nafi points out this too is not reliable as Zion-
ist Intelligence had good reason to connect the Mufti with organized violence. See Porath,
Tfje Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, p. 138, and Nafi, "Shaykh "Izz
al-Din al-Qassäm", p. 204. Lastly, al-Qassâm has most closely been connected with al-
lstiqlâl. Ihough he was close to a number of prominent members of al-lstiqlâl like Rashîd
al-Hâjj Ibrâhîm and Subhi al-Khadrâ, the director of the awqäf for the Northern district,
it is not certain that he was ever actually a full member. See Matthews, Confronting Empire,
Constructing a Nation; Darwaza, Mudhakkirät Muhammad 'Izzat Darwaza, p. 116;
Hammûda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Tliawra, p. 121 ; Yâsîn, p. 23.
"-' Râghib al-Nashâshîbî is quoted as saying that if the reply from the High Commis-
sioner to a detailed list of demands is not satisfactory in the eyes of the party leaders, they
would resign en masse. "Notes from an interview granted by His Excellency the High Com-
missioner to the leaders of the Arab parties at Government House [...] on November 25,
1935." Wauchope, in his letter to the Colonial Office, writes: "I think they are right in
saying that |with an unsatisfactory response to their demands from the Mandate][...] the
possibility of alleviating the present situation [...] will disappear." High Commissioner to
the Secretary of State for the Colonies, December 1935. CO 733:278:13, (BNA).
'^*' High Commissioner to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, December 1935. CO
733:278:13 (BNA). Concern over the praising of al-Qassâm as a martyr is repeated in CID
special report on Political situation, December 14, 1935 CO 733:290:7 (BNA), which also
references the Haifa poet "Nuh Ibrahim" visiting villages around Tulkarem praising the
dead and distributing their photograph.
There was good reason for the traditional nationalist leadership and
the Mandate authorities to be concerned. Al-Qassâm's unique blend of
a populist, syncretic Islam coupled with his charismatic activities made
his death a significant moment in the development of a Palestinian
Nationalism.
Jamal al-Husaynî—the Palestine Arab Party President who a few
weeks earlier had shared the stage with al-Qassâm in Haifa—in an act
of foresight uncharacteristic of the Palestinian leadership, is quoted in
the meeting with the High Gommissioner as saying: "One day it might
be that every Palestinian would become as one of those [Qassamites]
who were killed a few days ago near Jenin".'^'^
Conclusion: Rethinking al-Qassam

Jamal al-Husaynî's expression that every Palestinian might one day be-
come an al-Qassâm can be read as both a personal concern over the
continued relevance of the a'yän as nationalist leaders, and as a threat to
the High Gommissioner. Al-Qassâm was immediately turned into a
symbol of the aspirations of thousands in Palestine for some sort of
independence from colonial rule. The British were concerned in the
aftermath of the clash at Ya'bad that members of the Palestinian leader-
ship were praising his death as "martyrdom". As the arba'tn festivities
commemorating forty days since al-Qassám's death approached in Jan-
uary of 1936, High Gommissioner Arthur Wauchope expressed concern
over incitement from the Arab Press, letting them know they should
moderate their stance as the day approached.'^'
The Palestinian press seized on the symbolism of al-Qassâm's death.
On 12 July 1936 the Jaffa based newspaper Filastin published a cartoon
featuring the Mufti and Râghib al-Nashâshîbî of the National Defense
Party.'^^ The two are depicted shaking hands and agreeing to cooperate
"'" Report, "Notes from an interview granted by His Excellency the High Commissioner
to the leaders of the Arab parties at Government House... on November 25, 1935",
December, 1935. CO 733:278:13, (BNA)
'^" The police also restricted public meetings in anticipation of the arba'in. The Palestine
Police Force, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Special Report on Political Situa-
tion, December 14, 1935. CO 733:290:7, (BNA)
'<^' Filastin, 12 July 1936. Reproduced in Sandy Sufian, "Anatomy of the 1936-1939
350 M. Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013)315-352
and "fight to the end" in the revolt that had just recently entered its
second, insurgent phase. Overlooking the handshake is Chaim Weiz-
mann, head of the World Zionist Organization. Weizmann is seen mut-
tering his incredulous surprise at the improbable alliance between
al-Husaynl and al-Nashâshibi.
But floating overhead—in the form of a radiating angel—is al-
Qassâm. Sandy Sufian, in an analysis of the cartoon, describes al-
Qassâm's appearance as follows: "both Qassam and Nashashibi have
aquiline noses, full cheeks and long foreheads, indicating honesty and
high development. Qassam's fingers are long and his palms face down,
symbolizing his intelligence and protective care."'^'' This heroic repre-
sentation of al-Qassâm has survived in countless forms and continues
to have currency among people who self-identify with a specific image
of him and his politics.
In surveying forms of Arabic texts on al-Qassâm—the book length
biographies and the popular accounts—produced in the Palestinian
Territories or within the diaspora, it is striking how al-Qassâm can act
as metonym for the Palestinian experience. The evolution of al-Qassâm
historiography from the schema presented by Swedenburg in 1987,
when al-Qassâm could have been viewed as a proto-socialist or a Che
Cuevara, to the competing narratives of al-Qassâm as mujähid and/or
Palestinian nationalist, mirrors almost perfectly the evolution of popular
Palestinian political ideology. The imperative of aligning al-Qassâm to
a particular political ideology neatens the historical narrative. The al-
Qassâm of hagiographies and of popular discourse has been excised from
his context in part because that context is now difficult to conceptualize.
Was he a Palestinian nationalist? A Pan-Islamist? An Arab nationalist?'^^
Revolt: Images of the Body in Political Gartoons of Mandatory Vilesúne", Journal of Pal-
estine Studies 37/2 (2008), p. 33.
"^> Ibid., p. 32.
'•"" As an illustration of the problems in tracing identity, take this quotation from al-
Qassam's grandson: "His |"Izz al-Din al-Qassâm] objective was to liberate Palestinian lands
from foreign hands. Any Palestinian organization seeking a national symbol for resistance
chooses this figure. He has mythical status among Palestinians. He is the father of Jihad, a
symbol of resistance not just for Palestinians but for all Arabs. I preferred Fatah [the center-
left mainstream Palestinian political faction of Yasser Arafatj because of its ideology, but we
are ail fighting for the same aim... I have a double identity, Syrian and Palestinian, but at
M. Sanagan / Welt des Islams 53 (2013) 315-352 3 51
These categories are likely anachronistic when applied to al-Qassâm and

many of his contemporaries since the very political structures they refer
to were still in flux.'^'
For instance, most biographies of al-Qassâm have downplayed the
formative influence his time in the Ottoman military had on his politics.
Yet there is an increased acceptance that how we have understood inter-
war nationalist rebellions has been disconnected from the First World
War and from the Ottoman Empire. While there were tens of thousands
of anti-colonial rebels in the British and French Mandates, Ottomanism
and seferbelik were potent forces in personal identity that have been
excluded from a historiography of a Mashriq that jumps from an op-
pressive ethnic other to a repressive colonial other.'^° As Michael
Provence notes, "French and British colonial forces continued to fight
remnants of the Ottoman army for more than two decades."'^' Many
of the leaders in the 1936-1939 Revolt were Ottoman veterans of the
First World War.'^^ It was in the Ottoman military academies, and in
the garrisons like the one al-Qassâm was stationed in outside of Damas-
cus, and not necessarily the madhhabs and secret societies, that anti-
colonial rebels developed a sense of political selfhood. If we accept that
identity is contingent and relational, Ottoman institutions and Otto-
manism itself should not be excluded from the narratives of these na-
tionalisms.
the end of the day I'm Arab. As an Arab nationalist following in his grandfather's footsteps,
I support the idea of creating one large Arab state. Palestine was once part of Syria, so it's
the same thing." From "Izz al-Din al-Qassam's grandson: I support the 2-state solution",
YNetNews (17 November 20lO;, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3985615.00.
html (accessed 29 May 2012).
139) j j j g contours of nation-states were still being formed during the early years of the 2 0 *
century. For instance, Awad Halabi describes t h e interwar period as a "liminal" o n e w h e n
different ideas of h o w society related to the state were still being worked out. Awad Halabi
"Liminal Loyalties: O t t o m a n i s m a n d Palestinian Responses to t h e Turkish W a r of Inde-
pendence, \9\9-\922", Journal of Palestine Studies, 4\I3 (2012).
140) -jjjjj ¡5 w h a t Fredrick C o o p e r calls " t h e fallacy of leapfrogging legacies". Frederick
Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2005), p. 18.
''"' Provence, "Ottoman Modernity, Colonialism and Insurgency", p. 206.
'''^' For a detailed list, including some biographical notes, of leaders during the Revolt, see
"Appendix B: Officers of the Revolt" in Porath, The Emergence ofthe Palestinian-Arab Na-
tional Movement, pp. 388-403.
The question of al-Qassäm's Islam is also particularly vexing. Attempts

to make al-Qassäm a link in a chain of an Islamist, nationalist fighter
animated by al-salafiyya and jihad hWs to take into account the changing
way people conceive of their relations with "the state". Hamas wants to
claim al-Qassäm because he preached jihad for the nation, which ac-
cording to the sources seems to be true.''*'' But which nation? What
jihäiu Al-Qassäm's Palestinianness is certainly questionable. Nafi writes
that once al-Qassäm arrived in Palestine it "became his home; his sight
was now focussed on its people and future".''*'' Yet if one accepts Nafi's
other proposition that al-Qassäm was an anti-colonial activist since his
attempted expedition to the Maghreb, and that this activism was ani-
mated by "Arab-Islamism", he may not have had any sense of identity
with Palestine as a national construct at all.
Or take Muhsin Sälih's "Al-Qassäm wa-1-Tajriba al-Qassámiyya " in
which he attributes a Salafi interpretation of the modern state to al-
Qassäm, quoting him as saying that once the British had been expelled
"the law of our nation would be based on the Quran".''^^ Yet the concept
of an "Islamic state"—as Sälih conceives of it—requires al-Qassäm to
perform an epistemological leap forward: envisioning a secular nation-
state system to which the modern concept of an "Islamic state" would
stand in oppostion.
There should be some solace found in our inability to firmly contex-
tualize al-Qassäm's ideology: it has been a particularly resilient matter.
So much so that in the early morning of 22 November 1935, when the
grief-stricken friends of al-Qassäm gathered in Faysal Square for his
funeral, they began chanting "Allähu Akbar!" in contravention of one
of his most publically professed beliefs.''"'
143)
In discussing al-Qassâm and al-Qassâb, James Gelvin has argued that they should be
considered "local intellectuals", who "assumed the role of ideological mediators, articulating
nationalist goals and synthesizing popular nationalist discourse that ostensibly reaffirmed
'traditional values' yet did so within the institutional and discursive framework of a modern
national movement." See Gelvin, "Modernity and its Discontents: On the Durability of
Nationalism in the Arab Middle East", Nations and Nationalisms 5/1 (1999), p. 80.
""» Nafi, "Shaykh 'Izz al-Din al-Qassâm", p. 190.
'"*'* Salih, "Al-Qassâm wa-1-I ajriba al-Qassamiyya".
""'' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 155.
Copyright of Welt des Islams is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.

SANAGAN 2013 Rethinking Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

SANAGAN 2013 Rethinking Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

'vf"..

Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Martyr:

©KoninklijkeBrillNV. Leiden, 2013 DOL 10.1163/15685152-5334P0002

The funeral procession itself began an hour late: delayed as waves of

*' Ibrahim, Al-Difä' 'an Hayfä wa-Qadiyyat Filastin, p. 155.

self-consciously "Islamic". When it comes to contemporary claims on

"' Mithäq Hamas (al-Harakat al-Muqäwama al-lslämiyya), 1988, p. 9. Whiggish historical

There are, broadly speaking, three categories of literature on al-Qassâm.

and commitment to an Islamic ethic of social justice. For Schleifer, al-

biographies. Hammüda and Qâsim's works were published in the Israe-

fected the factionalism of the Palestinian leadership.''^ This factionalism

He had a strong faith, a comprehensive understanding of Islam, intelligence

Sälih goes on to describe an al-Qassäm not wholly unlike that presented

''" Al-Hût, Al-Shaykh al-Mujähid 'Izz al-Dln al-QassämfiTdrikh Filastin, p. 68.

With this in mind, the following is less a biography than an overview

First setded by the Phoenicians, Jabla was a provincial backwa-

tellectual preservation of an Islam that denied the "true" Islam as envi-

al-Qassâm joined rebel outfits already formed in Latakia, including the

Latakia, these landowners were pressured to abandon their aid to the

that saw the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization that had

rivals, 30,000 Jewish immigrants were admitted in 1933, 60,000 in

While immigration was a cause for concern among the Palestinian

Husaynl to the position of Mufti of Jerusalem.^^ His mosque, al-Jarîna,

^" Reproduced in Hammùda, Al-Wa'y wa-l-Thawra, p. 133.

director. Al-Qassâm's appointment to al-Burj School ended shortly after

assigned to al-Istiqläl as Imam in 1925.^^ Around the time of his assign-

Palestine Politics and al-Qassäm's Organization

By the end of the 1920s it was increasingly apparent to the poor of

point was particularly contentious as the idea of a "Greater Syria" (Sûriyâ

the Mandate. The acknowledgment explicit in the Mandate itself—that

1. Support the national movement and dispatch the national activity

6. Work on disseminating the Young Men's Muslim Association in Arab

The YMMA spread quickly to smaller regional centres in northern Pal-

to the recently formed YMMA in Safed.'"^ A second group al-Jihäd al-

'"-' "Terrorism 1936-1937", Tegart Papers, Box 1 File 3C, (MEC).

of the suspects, Mustafa 'Alî Ahmad, was questioned intensely by police

1. The applicant should be committed to the provisions of Islam in both

We also know from Mustafa 'Alî Ahmad's interrogation that initiates

On 2 November 1935 al-Qassâm appeared on stage in Haifa alongside

cache of twenty-five Lewis guns and their bipods were discovered in a

Here he had spent years recruiting a small band of probably between

Conclusion: Rethinking al-Qassam

These categories are likely anachronistic when applied to al-Qassâm and

The question of al-Qassäm's Islam is also particularly vexing. Attempts

You might also like