Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
Information
Sheikh Ramez "Muhammad Saeed" Mismar was born in Nablus and studied in its schools. He obtained the Al-Azhar Al-Sharif certificate and joined the Sharia Judiciary School at Al-Azhar to specialize in Sharia judiciary and graduated from it in 1927. He began his career in the field of Sharia judiciary as a clerk in the Tulkarm court, then as head clerk in the courts of Tulkarm, Haifa, Acre and Nazareth. He became a Sharia judge for Acre in 1934, Gaza in 1936, then Haifa, Jaffa and Hebron.
He became involved in resisting the Zionist project, leading to his arrest by the British twice, in 1932 and 1938, during which time his first son was born while he was imprisoned. He used his position in the Sharia judiciary to thwart land sales to the Jewish Agency. He contributed to leading demonstrations protesting the British policy biased towards the Zionist project. He forged deep relationships with the revolutionaries who engaged in armed resistance against the Zionist project. He was a member of the National Committee in Hebron, which was formed there and in all Palestinian cities and most villages after the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine on November 29, 1947.
He openly condemned the events of 1948 and accompanied the Egyptian army as it withdrew from Hebron. He was appointed Sharia judge for Khan Yunis. When Israeli forces occupied the Gaza Strip and Sinai in October 1956 during the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt, he was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces for resisting their intimidation and enticements, as he was the head of the Supreme Islamic Council and the Waqf (religious endowment) in the Gaza Strip. People remember his courage in speaking truth to power during a speech he delivered at Palestine High School in the presence of the Israeli military governor and his entourage, where he condemned the occupation and affirmed the right to return the land and its people. Sheikh Arabi and his nationalist principles were not infected by the artificial schism between Arabism and Islam.
He remained a firm believer in the importance of reuniting the nation and the homeland to confront the Zionist project and its plans for expansion, domination, and control over the nation and its resources. He wrote articles for Palestinian and Arab newspapers and gave talks on Near East Radio. He died in Gaza.
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