Izzat Darwaza | |
|---|---|
محمد عزة دروزة | |
 Portrait of Darwaza | |
| Secretary-General ofIstiqlal | |
| In office 1932–1947 | |
| General Administrator of the Waqf | |
| In office 1930–1937 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1888[1] Nablus,Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 1984 (aged 95–96) Damascus,Syria |
| Nationality | Palestinian |
| Political party | Istiqlal |
| Other political affiliations | al-Fatat |
| Occupation | Arab nationalist political activist |
| Profession | Historian, Editor, Educator, Muslim scholar |
| Committees | Supreme Muslim Council andArab Higher Committee |
Muhammad 'Izzat Darwaza (Arabic:محمد عزة دروزة; 1888–1984[1]) was aPalestinian politician, historian, and educator fromNablus. Early in his career, he worked as anOttoman bureaucrat inPalestine andLebanon. Darwaza had long been a sympathizer ofArab nationalism and became an activist of that cause following theArab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916, joining the nationalistal-Fatat society. As such, he campaigned for the union ofGreater Syria (modern-dayLevant) and vehemently opposedZionism and foreign mandates in Arab lands. From 1922 to 1927, he served as an educator and as the principal at thean-Najah National School where he implemented a pro-Arab nationalist educational system, promoting the ideas of Arab independence and unity. Darwaza's particular brand of Arab nationalism was influenced byIslam and his beliefs in Arab unity and the oneness ofArabic culture.
Later, Darwaza co-founded the nationalistIstiqlal party in Palestine and was a principal organizer of anti-British demonstrations. In 1937, he was exiled toDamascus as a result of his activities and from there he helped support theArab revolt in theMandatory Palestine. He was incarcerated in Damascus byFrench authorities for his involvement in the revolt, and while in prison he began to study theQur'an and its interpretations. In 1945, after he was released, Darwaza eventually compiled his owninterpretation entitledal-Tafsir al-Hadith.
In 1946, he joined theArab Higher Committee led byHaj Amin al-Husseini, but resigned the next year after being disenfranchised by al-Husayni's methods. He left for Syria afterward and briefly aided in the unity talks between Syria andEgypt in the mid-1950s. By the time of his death in 1984, Darwaza had written over thirty books and published numerous articles on thePalestinian question, Arab history, and Islam.[2]
Darwaza was born to a middle-classSunni Muslim mercantile family inNablus.[2] The Darwaza family had long been involved in textiles and had extensive trade relationships with merchants inBeirut andDamascus. In his memoirs, Izzat writes "The import of [textile] goods from the outside was, for the most part, through Beirut and Damascus."[3] Izzat's father, 'Abd al-Hadi Darwaza and his paternal grandfather Darwish Darwaza, owned a store in theKhan al-Tujjar of Nablus.[2] Izzat recalled, "From what I remember from my father and through my grandfather, the title merchant or merchants in Nablus mostly referred to owners of commercial textile and cloth shops. In Nablus, these shops were confined, or mostly confined, to a caravansary called Khan al-Tujjar, in the middle of Nablus."[4]
Izzat received elementary and preparatory education in Ottoman government-run schools in the city.[2] In addition toArabic, he learnedTurkish andEnglish, as well as a basic knowledge ofFrench which he strengthened in by the end of his formal education.[5] Darwaza left school without going toIstanbul or Beirut to finish his education as was the custom of his generation.[6] Instead, he educated himself, and according toRashid Khalidi, became "a self-taught intellectual."[7]
Originally, Darwaza supported theOttoman Empire based on his feelings of identification withIslam and of belonging to the larger Ottoman Muslimummah ("nation"). In 1906, he served in the local Ottoman administration as a clerk in the Department of Telegraphic and Postal Services (DTPS) in Nablus.[8] His first assignment in that department was for the District of Beisan and northern Palestine (theGalilee and northernSamaria).[2] He was also anArabist and was enthusiastic about theYoung Turk Revolution in 1908, expecting that the new Ottoman government would institute reforms and grant the Arabs autonomy within the framework of the empire.[9]
His loyalty to the Ottomans eroded, however, due to the impact of the new governments'sTurkification policies which he viewed as repressive against his ideals. Because of his dissatisfaction with the Young Turks, Darwaza was driven to support Arab independence from the empire.[9] In 1908, he joined theCommittee of Union and Progress (CUP), but withdrew soon after because of itsTurkish nationalist political agenda.[2] He played an active role in establishing a branch for the Party of Harmony and Freedom in Nablus in 1911. The party was founded in Istanbul and joined by Arab members to counter the policies of the CUP. In 1913, he joined ananti-Zionist group based in Nablus that sought to prevent the sale of Arab-owned land toJews by submitting petitions to the Ottoman sultan, or by buying land for sale to preempt its purchase by Jews. In June 1913, he helped to prepare and became secretary of the First Palestinian Congress (also known as theArab Congress of 1913) inParis. In congress, he was also the delegate for theJamma'in subdistrict of theDistrict of Nablus. Meanwhile, Darwaza was still working in the DTPS.[2]
In 1914, he established the Arab Scientific Society whose purpose was to spreadArabic culture in the region through the establishment of Arabic schools. The society did not succeed, however, due to the outbreak ofWorld War I.[2] Within the DTPS, Darwaza was appointed commissioner and deputy for the Nablus Post Office. He was promoted again—this time as director of postal stamp sales in Beirut.[2]
During World War I, Darwaza served as Postal Directorate-General of Beirut and retained this post until 1918.[2] In 1916, while serving with the Ottoman army in theSinai Peninsula,[5] he joined the undergroundal-Fatat organization through Ahmad Qadri, a high-ranking member from Damascus. The aim of al-Fatat was to liberate and unite the Arab lands under Ottoman rule.[10] In the wake of theArab Revolt of 1916, Darwaza left the Ottoman civil service to serve inKing Faisal's provisional government in Damascus. Ideologically, Darwaza became anArab nationalist endorsing the concept of aGreater Syrian Arab state.[9]
Following theWorld War I Armistice, Darwaza held several political posts including Secretary-General of al-Fatat from May 1919 to March 1920, Secretary of theMuslim-Christian Association's Nablus branch, and Secretary of the FirstPalestine Arab Congress inJerusalem in 1919.[2] During the spring and summer of 1919, a vigorous political campaign was waged by the Arab politicians in Palestine who were divided into "Younger Politicians" and "Older Politicians". The campaign was centered on the political future of Palestine, and Darwaza, a Younger Politician, played a central role. The Younger Politicians consisted of Arab nationalists who sought to unite Palestine with King Faisal's Syria while the Older Politicians consisted ofPalestinian nationalists who preferred that Palestine be an independent entity.[11]
Darwaza and Hafiz Kanaan—another leading al-Fatat member from Nablus—lobbied Arab groups in Jerusalem to advocate Syro-Palestinian unity before the arrival of theKing-Crane Commission on 10 June 1919. They first met withHaj Amin al-Husseini andKamil al-Husayni of al-Nadi al-Arabi party and they immediately expressed their support. They also suggested that Darwaza meetRaghib al-Nashashibi,Hussam ad-Din Jarallah, andAref al-Dajani, supporters of independence. Darwaza convinced Nashashibi to gather some of the Older Politicians of Jerusalem to a meeting at his house. When it was made clear thatMusa al-Husayni, a leader of the Older Politicians, was now in favor of unity, all of the other Older Politicians followed suit.[11] When the commission arrived inJaffa, it concluded on 27 June that it was in favor of Syro-Palestinian unity under aBritish Mandate.[12]
In the first week of July 1919, theGeneral Syrian Congress (GSC) held its first meeting in Damascus and Darwaza was its secretary. The GSC called for the immediate independence of Syria as a sovereign state under a constitutional monarchy and underlined its opposition to the establishment of Zionism in southern Syria (Palestine).[13] Along with Haj Amin al-Husseini andAref al-Aref, Darwaza founded and became an officer of the Palestinian Society in Damascus. The organization urged all societies and clubs in Palestine to cooperate and condemn theSan Remo Conference's decision to grantGreat Britain a mandate over Palestine andTransjordan.[14]
The hope of Darwaza and the Younger Politicians for unity with Syria were curtailed when it became known that King Faisal was aligning himself with the leaders of the Zionist movement because "they [the Zionists] were helping us [the Arabs] in the [Paris Peace]conference." Afterward, Darwaza believed King Faisal did not devote to the Palestine issue its deserved attention. Faisal was deposed by the French in July 1920. An event that further deteriorated Darwaza's ambitions of Arab unity was the confirmation of the British Mandate over Palestine at the San Remo Conference on 24 April 1920.[15] His experience in Damascus revealed to him that the universalism of Arab nationalism was not as concrete as its advocates had thought, and the military might of the European powers—France and Great Britain—were an overwhelming force to contend with.[9]
Darwaza continued his political activity, representing Nablus in the Fourth Palestinian Congress in May 1921 and the Seventh Palestinian Congress in June 1928. From 1922 to 1927, he served as the principal of the an-Najah National School (later to becomean-Najah National University) where he initiated and nurtured an Arab nationalist political educational process. Darwaza wrote textbooks and was an educator himself. One of his students who later became a nationalist politician,Akram Zu'aiter, wrote that Darwaza "used to give us a weekly lesson on the principles of Nationalism and [modern] society, in a way which sharpened our thought and broadened our horizons."[16] Zuaiter also recalls that Darwaza wrote up nationalist and historical plays that his students would perform in.[16]
In 1927,Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim, the leader of the Young Men's Muslim Association ofHaifa, a prominent merchant, and future associate of Darwaza, invited him to his home to speak to a large group of students and notables about nationalist (qawmiyya) and patriotic (wataniyya) education. This was recognition that Darwaza's contribution to the spread of Arab nationalist sentiments gained influence not only in an-Najah School, but throughout Palestine.[17]
Darwaza became a member of the Arab Executive Committee and in 1930 was appointed by rival nationalist Haj Amin al-Husseini (then theGrand Mufti of Jerusalem) as the General Administrator of theWaqf (Islamic religious trust) under theSupreme Muslim Council.[8][18] In 1931, he convinced his city's MCA to change its name to the Patriotic Arab Association. Unlike other Arab politicians at the time, Darwaza supported a combination of pan-Arabism,Islamism, and dedication to the Palestinian nationalist ideal.[19]
He began to edit in theal-Ja'miyya al-Arabiyya newspaper in the early 1930s and in December 1931-January 1932, he wrote articles encouraging Arabs to protest against British policies in theMiddle East, to unite in the face of growing dangers, and to renew their drive towards freedom and independence.[20] In August 1932, he along withAwni Abd al-Hadi and others founded theIstiqlal (Independence) party in Palestine, an offshoot of al-Fatat. Originally, the Istiqlal operated in Syria, then Transjordan, but reassembled in Palestine after facing disappointing circumstances in both those territories. The party coaxed Palestinians towards defying British rule by staging demonstrations and political and social boycotts. Darwaza refused to allow the Istiqlal to participate in meetings between local Palestinian political parties and the British high-commissioner.[19] Darwaza wrote an article on 21 June 1933, vehemently attacking Palestinian "vested interests". He argued that the wealthy Arab notables of Palestine were subservient to the British and the Zionists and would willingly leave Palestine for other countries, while the poor and middle-class Arabs were forced by economic circumstances to remain in Palestine during their political struggles.[21] Darwaza helped instigate and organize the 1933 demonstrations in Jaffa which protested British policies in Palestine and continued allowances ofJewish immigration.[10]
Darwaza was one of the principal organizers of the1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine which first erupted in his hometown of Nablus with the launch of thePalestinian general strike.[10] Along with Abd al-Hadi, Darwaza was arrested by the British authorities in June and imprisoned in the military camp atSarafand al-Amar.[22] The Mufti sent a delegation consisting of Darwaza,Mu'in al-Madi, and Abd al-Hadi toBaghdad, then toRiyadh to discuss the situation and upon their return on 6 January 1937, they revealed that the advice given to them was to cease hostilities.[23] During the revolt, in 1937, Darwaza was exiled from Palestine by British authorities to Damascus.[24] Later in that year, Darwaza held several meetings withNuri al-Sa'id ofIraq to explore various solutions to help the Arabs avoid appearing intransigent.[25]
Despite attempts to calm the situation, in Damascus, Darwaza established and headed theCentral Committee for National Jihad in Palestine which echoedIzz al-Din al-Qassam's call for a "holy war" against the British and Zionism. Darwaza had many encounters with al-Qassam, describing him as "a man lacking in arrogance or self-love. He was open and available to all of the people and the people loved him. And he lived the life of amujahid."[26] Darwaza worked closely with the Mufti, who was now under house arrest in Beirut, to garner support and supplies for the revolt and supervise the Arab rebels in Palestine.[18]
In late 1939, he was accused by French military authorities of helping Palestinian rebels in the revolt, tried by a military court, and sentenced to five years imprisonment in theCitadel of Damascus.[27] While his exile by the British abruptly curtailed his political life, his imprisonment marked the beginning of a new life wherein theQuran becomes a major concern for the next several years.[28] He was released in November 1944.[27] After his release, Darwaza was unable to return to Nablus because British authorities had issued an order preventing him from entering Palestine. As a result, he left forTurkey, mostly staying inBursa until the end of 1945.[29]
The Mufti re-established theArab Higher Committee (AHC) in late 1946 and Darwaza joined the ten-member council upon a request from the Mufti.[30] Darwaza, along withEmil Ghuri and Mu'in al-Madi, served as the AHC's delegates to the September 1947 convention of theArab League's Political Committee in Lebanon. With support from the Transjordanian representative,Salih Jaber, thePrime Minister of Iraq, openly criticized the delegates and questioned the AHC's right to even send delegates to the convention.[31] Later that year, Darwaza resigned from the AHC due to the Mufti's unbending attitude towards wider representation.[32]
After resigning from the AHC, Darwaza spent the rest of his life in the modern state ofSyria where he left politics to concentrate on literature. Although he did much of his writing in the 1930s and 1940s, he did not have any of his works published until the 1960s.[33] As a pan-Arab intellectual, Darwaza aided in establishing the union between Syria andEgypt forming the short-livedUnited Arab Republic. After Egypt adopted its 1956constitution declaring that it was an Arab country and its people a part of the Arab nation, Darwaza concluded that Egypt and Syria were in a position to unite.[34] When unity negotiations underwent, he suggested several forms of federation, such as theAmerican,Soviet, andIndian models, but did not recommend any specific model for an Arab state. Darwaza did, however, suggest that the institution of a federation between Egypt and Syria would be the first step towards the realization of a comprehensive union.[35]
In 1983 Darwaza granted Palestinian historian Muhammad Y. Muslih an eight-day interview and allowed him to photo-copy his memoirs in entirety. Muslih noted that Darwaza was failing in health at the time.[36] He died in Damascus in 1984 at the age of 96.[33] Darwaza had three daughters, Najah, Salma, and Rudaina and a son, Zuhair.
One of the first modern histories of theArab nation in contrast to a history of an individual Arab country was composed by Darwaza in the late 1920s under the titleLessons of Arab History: From Antiquity to Present Times. In the book, Darwaza begins by describing the origins of theSemitic peoples, therise of Islam, the end of Arab rule in the Middle East byTurkic groups, and the foreign rule over the Arabs by Western powers. The book was intended to be used as a textbook in primary and secondary schools throughout the British Mandates of Palestine and laterIraq, hence its simplified and direct language. Nonetheless, it played a pioneering role in the development of pan-Arabism.[6]
In 1934, Darwaza published a widely read story,The Angel and the Land Broker, reflecting popular Arab sentiments against the growing "Zionist threat" and attacking brokers who tempted Palestinian land owners to sell their land to Jews. The story describes methods used by Zionists to entice Arab landowners to sell their land and the main characters in the story are an illiterate farmer and a Jewish girl fromTel Aviv who encourages the former to spend himself deep into debt, forcing him to sell his land at a price far below its value.[37]
Later in his lifetime after leaving politics, Darwaza published memoirs that discussed in detail the city of Nablus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to Youssef Choueiri, "he gives a graphic and almost exhaustive description of his hometown... its mosques, residential quarters, orchards, industries, and inhabitants. Moreover, he dwells at length of the social composition of the town endeavoring to reveal the open conflict between 'feudal families' and the new generation of middle traders, functionaries, civil servants, and teachers."[6]
While he was imprisoned in Damascus, Darwaza was provided with an opportunity to read and reflect upon theQuran. He states "I considered [this opportunity] an act of divine [favor] and started reading whatever books ofexegesis and qur'anic studies were accessible to me." During his incarceration, he compiled three books dealing with the Quran and conceived the idea of writing a moderntafsir ("interpretation").[28]
His time in Turkey exposed him to the libraries ofBursa and it was there where he wrote the rough draft of histafsir entitledal-Tafsir al-Hadith. Darwaza states in this exegesis he would "uncover the wisdom of revelation, the fundamental concepts of the Qur'an and the whole range of its subject matter and present it in a new style and new sequential order."Al-Tafsir al-Hadith was generally aimed at the Muslim youth who had been alienated by the traditional interpretations of the Quran.[33] Darwaza placed much emphasis on the close relationship between the text of the Quran and the environment in which it was revealed. He rejected thehadith which states the Qur'an was originally preserved on a tablet in theseventh heaven, sent down to lowest heaven and from there gradually toMuhammad.[33]
After the completion of the rough draft, he wrote a volume of four chapters,Qur'an al-Majid, which served as an introduction for thetafsir.[29] Darwaza stresses a close connection between the Quran and the biography of the Muhammad (sira) and states that the Quran fully reflects various stages between the Quran and the career of Muhammad.[38] He also emphasizes that both theangels and thejinn are spoken in the Quran not for their own sake, but to reinforce Muhammad's missions and goals.[39]
He contends that the presentation of the Quran and itssuras was dictated by Muhammad and that the task ofAbu Bakr was to collect the Quran between its two covers and transcribe it into one copy, whileUthman's task was to fix the transcription and unify it to prevent variant readings. He also expresses doubts thatAli, as it is alleged, had made a chronologically arranged collection. Darwaza was very critical of other modern interpreters who used certain verses of the Quran to deduce and support scientific theories. He argues that those people have done harm to Islam by trivializing the sacred character of the Quran.[38]
Darwaza was convinced that interpretations of the Quran were the only possible basis for any renewal and development of Islamic religious, political and social thought, and that the Quran was the only resource for Muslim reinterpretation of traditional norms in Islam and Islamic thinking.[38] Since it was quite uncommon to follow a chronological order for a wholetafsir—which Darwaza did—he had to justify his position by seeking afatwa from themuftis ofAleppo and Damascus.[40]
Throughout his life, Darwaza was an Arab nationalist and supported the unity of Syria and Palestine. His particular brand of Arab nationalism was influenced by Islam, his belief in Arab unity, and the oneness of Arabic culture. According to his perspective, the ideology's main points were the Arabic language, the Arab homeland, a shared Arab history and common Arab interests. Although Darwaza believed that Arab nationalism pre-dated Islam, he also maintained that Islam expanded Arab territory and "stamped them with the eternal mark of Arab nationalism." According to Muhammad Y. Muslih, this meant that Islam had provided Arabs with "spiritual, cultural, and legal unity and within the framework of that unity the Arab individual formed his moral and social beliefs, irrespective of where he lived and through it the Arabs were able to preserve national identity and maintain their culture in the face of foreign invaders, including the Ottomans".[2] Darwaza contends that Arab nationalism is not a new concept borrowed from the West and asserts the constituents of Arab nationalism are stronger than those which make up the modern forms ofnationalism in the world.[41]
His ideas helped the spread the word of secular pan-Arabism againstreligious nationalists and those who believed in separateSyrian,Lebanese, andPalestinian destinies.[42] In the mid-1950s, Darwaza asserted that the first stage of Arab union should be based on a merger between Egypt and Syria. In his opinion, a union between the northern Arabs (Syria) and the southern Arabs (Egypt) would facilitate the adherence of other Arab states.[43] He believed that Egypt's capabilities and human resources compelled it to fill the role of an Arab "Prussia".[34] Darwaza remarked onGamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian president and founder of the short-lived union, saying "Since the Arab revolt against the Turks, no Arab leader has been up to the level of events except for Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir. He emerged and vanished like a shooting star."[15]
Rashid Khalidi states about Darwaza, "Moved as he was by the civilization of Arabs, he evoked a distant Arab past. For obvious reasons Islam was central to that past. But in the case of Darwaza, Islam was important not as the binding substance of the nation, but as a culture and civilization. In other words, culture, language, and history notreligious solidarity were posited as the glue that was to hold the Arab nation together." According to Khalidi, Darwaza contributed to Arab nationalism in the practical and intellectual domains greatly.[42]
