Birth: NULL/NULL/1889 Death:15/3/1970
Born in Nablus in 1889; landowner and lawyer; pan-Arabist; educated in Palestine, Beirut, Istanbul, and at the Sorbonne University in Paris; there he became a founding member of the Al-Fatat nationalist society in 1911, which was devoted to Arab independence and unity; member of the Decentralization Party; among the organizers of the first Arab Nationalist Congress that took place in Paris in 1913; became the private secretary of Emir Faisal I after WWI; legal advisor to the Hijazi delegation of Sharif Hussein at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919; then advisor to Emir Abdullah in 1921 in Transjordan; chief of the Hashemite Court in Jordan; returned to Palestine in 1924, where he practiced as lawyer and became one of the chief spokespersons of the Palestinian-Arab nationalist movement; elected representative to the 5th (Aug. 1922, Nablus) and 6th (June 1923, Jaffa) Congress of the Arab Executive Committee for Jenin and to the 7th (June 1928) for Beisan; Secretary of the Exec. Committee’s Congress in 1928; presented Palestinian viewpoints before the 1929 Shaw Commission; member of the Palestinian Delegation to the UK in 1930; lawyer for the Supreme Muslim Council; founder, Sec.-Gen. and first elected President of the Palestinian Istiqlal (Independence) Party, the first Palestinian political party regularly constituted on 2 Aug. 1932; member and Sec.-Gen. of the first Arab Higher Committee formed in April 1936; partially responsible for the Revolt of 1936-39; arrested in June 1936 and placed in the Sarafand Detention Camp; banned from re-entry to the country when the British decided to deport the Arab Higher Committee members in 1937; remained in exile until 1941; member of the Palestinian delegation to the London Conference, St. James’s Palace, in Feb. 1939; upon his return to Palestine in 1941, helped revive the Arab Higher Committee; member and appointed Minister for Social Affairs of the All-Palestine government, established in 1948; served as Jordan’s Minister (later Ambassador) to Cairo, 1951-55; Minister of Justice and Foreign Affairs in Jordan from 1955-58, and later Senator in the Jordanian Upper House; from 1958 Chairman of the Arab League’s Judicial Affairs Committee in Cairo; died on 15 March 1970 in Cairo.
