Husayni, al-Hajj Amin al-, << hoo SAY nee, ahl hahj ah MEEN ahl >> (1895?-1974), was a Palestinian leader. From 1921 to 1948, he led efforts to establish a state for native Palestinians in the region of Palestine. This region now consists of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Al-Husayni was born in Jerusalem into a prominent Palestinian Muslim family. After the British occupied Palestine in 1917 and 1918, they appointed him mufti (religious leader) of Jerusalem. Al-Husayni opposed Zionism—the movement by Jews to immigrate to Palestine and establish their own state—because the Palestinians feared the Zionists would eventually dominate or expel them. From 1936 to 1939, al-Husayni led a failed revolt against Zionism and British rule. The British tried to arrest him in 1937 and assassinate him in 1941, but he escaped to Berlin, Germany. Between 1941 and 1945, he cooperated with the Nazis after they promised to free Palestine and Arab countries from British rule. In 1948, he and other Arab leaders failed to prevent the creation of the Jewish state of Israel, and 726,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Jewish forces. Al-Husayni died on July 4, 1974, in Beirut, Lebanon.
