Birth: 1/1/1842 Death:1/1/1906
Born in Jerusalem in 1842; studied at Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, in Malta at the Protestant School, and later one year of Medicine in Istanbul; then change his major to Engineering and moved to Robert College, US, but had to return to Jerusalem after a year following his father’s death; established a school in 1867; became mayor of Jerusalem for six years, starting in 1867; worked as translator at the Sultan’s Office in Istanbul in 1874; held various administrative and consular posts in the Ottoman Empire, incl. Ottoman Vice-Consul at the Russian Black Sea port of Poti; was a lecturer in Arabic Language at the School of Oriental Languages in Vienna in 1875; returned to Jerusalem later that year and became mayor; was interested in the issue of non-Muslim minorities in Jerusalem and wrote about the situation of Jews in the city, published in the London-based The Jewish Chronicle; in 1877, was elected representative of Jerusalem to the Otto‑man parliament, where he was the only member representing Palestine and an active member of the opposition; was one of ten opposition members who were sent into exile by Sultan Abdul Hamid for their criticism in Feb. 1878; worked again as lecturer at the University of Vienna in 1879; returned to Palestine in 1881 and was appointed governor of Jaffa, then of Marj Iyun, Lebanon, and of the Kurdish province of Motki, Turkey; at the latter post he learned Kurdish and wrote the first Kurdish-Arabic Dictionary (published in Istanbul in 1893); addressed a letter to the Chief Rabbi of France, Zadok Kahn, in 1899 pointing out that Palestine could only be acquired by war; called on the Jews to leave Palestine alone (“In the name of God, let Palestine be left in peace”); during his time as mayor, many streets and sewage lines were established and/or repaired and a road to Jaffa was paved; was one of four Palestinians on whom the Ottoman State bestowed the title of ‘Pasha’ while being alive (in addition to Musa Kathem Husseini, Abdul Salam Al-Husseini and Aref Bakr Ahmad Suleiman Al-Dajani); died in Istanbul in 1906.
