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Sheikh Abd al-Hamid al-Sayih was a leading figure in the Palestinian nationalist movement throughout most of his life, which spanned 94 years and virtually all of the 20th century. Today, al-Sayih is remembered for his expertise as a religious and legal scholar and for his refusal to stay silent following Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank in June 1967. In fact, it was his activism directly after the city fell in June that led to Israel exiling him to Jordan in September 1967. He was the first Palestinian whom Israel exiled from the newly occupied Palestinian lands,1 but by no means the last.
The Rise of a Religious Activist
Al-Sayih was born in 1907 in the Qaysariyya neighborhood of Nablus’s Old City to Abd al-Halim al-Sayih and Sabha Bakri. He was educated at schools in Nablus, first at al-Khan and then at al-Rashadiyya al-Sharqiyya, which later became known as the al-Salahiyya school.
Throughout his childhood, al-Sayih attended religious classes in mosques, and in 1920, at age 13, he was selected as part of a group of young scholars to study in Cairo’s famous al-Azhar Mosque. He studied jurisprudence and Islamic sciences at al-Azhar University, earning his higher degree, ahliyya, in 1923, followed by his ‘alimiyya degree in 1925, a specialization for students who wish to study Islamic sciences in depth.2 The former signified successful completion of 8 years of study; the latter, 12—a system of formal degree conferral that began in 1896.
During his time at al-Azhar, al-Sayih also enrolled in the Sharia Judiciary School attached to the Egyptian Ministry of Education. There, he earned a certificate of specialization in Islamic Sharia in 1927, after which he returned to Nablus to teach Arabic and Islam at al-Najah National University between 1928 and 1929. However, upon the eruption of the al-Buraq Uprising in Jerusalem in August 1929, al-Sayih began his anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist activism from Nablus.
The Emergence of a Young Organizer
In the tumultuous late 1920s and early 1930s, al-Sayih focused his political efforts on organizing in Nablus. He was part of a group in 1929 that formed a secret society in the city to “alter people to the dangers of Zionist ambitions in Palestine and to encourage them to fight British imperialism.”3 He subsequently took part in the “Nablus Conference for Arming the Arabs and Dealing with the Problem of the Jews’ Acquisition of Weapons” held on August 1, 1931, in Nablus, during which the city notables protested Britain’s collaboration with the Zionists. The conference also proclaimed the adherence of the Arab Executive Committee to a policy of peaceful protest.
Two years later, al-Sayih became a supporter of the Independence Party of Palestine, hizb al-istiqlal in Arabic, which formed on August 13, 1932, as an Arab nationalist party. While he did not officially join it, he gave speeches at its meetings. The short-lived party proclaimed that the principal enemy of the Palestinians was British imperialism; therefore, it called for a struggle not only against the Zionists, but the British as well.
Shortly thereafter, al-Sayih took part in founding the Society of Muslim Youth in Nablus.
Al-Sayih’s religious expertise earned him accolades, including from Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Supreme Muslim Council. In 1930, al-Sayih was chosen as the chief of the registrars of the sharia court in Nablus, and in 1935, he was appointed judge of the court.4 In April 1936, al-Sayih was selected to head the fundraising subcommittee of the Nablus branch of the countrywide committees formed to organize the general strike that paved the way for the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936–39. Due to his role in organizing the strike in Nablus, British forces arrested al-Sayih in September 1937 and held him for nine months in the city of Acre before exiling him for one year to the town of al-Bira.5
Al-Sayih’s religious expertise earned him accolades.
Following his release, al-Sayih was assigned to serve as the secretary-general of the Supreme Muslim Council, a position he held until late 1940, when he began his most illustrious and long-standing position as a judge in Jerusalem, first in the sharia courts until 1945, and then in the city’s sharia appeals court until 1948. In the aftermath of the Nakba, the partition of Jerusalem and the annexation of its eastern side by Jordan, al-Sayih was appointed head of the sharia appeals court and chief of the courts throughout the West Bank. When the east and west banks were formally united in April 1950, al-Sayih was also chosen as head of the sharia appeals court in Jordan and a member of the Council of Waqfs and Islamic Affairs, which oversaw Jerusalem waqfs, charitable endowments under Islamic law that are held in trust.6
Al-Sayih continued to serve in these important positions throughout the years of Jordanian rule over Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. Indeed, he was also a member of the historic Palestine National Council (PNC) meeting that convened in Jerusalem over several days starting on May 28, 1964. On June 2, at the end of the meeting, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established as the representative of the Palestinian people. Throughout his tenure as a leading member of the organization, al-Sayih maintained warm relations with its leadership, including Yasser Arafat.
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