Khalil al-Sakakini was a Palestinian Christian

Palestinian Christian

Palestinian Christians are Arabic-speaking Christians descended from the people of the geographical area of Palestine. Within Palestine, there are churches and believers from many Christian denominations, including Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholic , Protestant, and others...

, Arab Orthodox

Arab Orthodox

The Arab Orthodox are Arab Greek Orthodox Christian communities which have existed in Greater Syria since the early years of Christianity. During the Palestine Mandate they were prominent in many of the major cities including Jaffa, Nazareth, Haifa and Jerusalem and also formed the majority of...

, educator, scholar, poet, and Arab nationalist.

Early life

Khalil Sakakini was born into an Arab Christian

Arab Christians

Arab Christians are ethnic Arabs of Christian faith, sometimes also including those, who are identified with Arab panethnicity. They are the remnants of ancient Arab Christian clans or Arabized Christians. Many of the modern Arab Christians are descendants of pre-Islamic Christian Arabian tribes,...

 family in Jerusalem on January 23, 1878. He received his schooling in Jerusalem at the Greek Orthodox school, at the Anglican Christian Mission Society (CMS) College founded by Bishop Blyth, and at the Zion English College where he read Literature.

Later, Sakakini travelled to the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and from there to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to join his brother Yusif, a travelling salesman in Philadelphia. During his nine-month stay in America, he translated and wrote for Arabic literary magazines on the East Coast, and did translations for Professor Richard Gottheil at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He supported himself by teaching Arabic and working in a Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 factory. He also worked as a street vendor. Upon his return in 1908, he worked as a journalist for the Jerusalem newspaper al-Asmai', taught Arabic at the Salahiyya school and tutored expatriates at the American Colony.

Career

In 1909, he founded the Dusturiyyah school, which became known for its Arab nationalist approach. He pioneered a progressive education system: no grades, prizes or punishments for students, and an emphasis on music education and athletics. He also introduced new methods of teaching Arabic, and made it the primary language of instruction instead of Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

. Sakakini led a movement to reform and Arabize what he saw as a corrupt Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, and wrote a pamphlet in 1913 titled "The Orthodox Renaissance in Palestine", which led to his excommunication. Ottoman authorities arrested him on the last day of their rule in 1917 after he sheltered a Polish-American Jew and fellow Jerusalemite, Alter Levine. They were sent to prison in Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

. Levine was declared an enemy when the United States joined the Allies of World War I

Allies of World War I

The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...

. The two became close friends during their incarceration. After his release, Sakakini boarded for a brief time with Musa Alami

Musa Alami

Musa Alami was a prominent Palestinian nationalist and politician.Alami was born in the Musrara district of Jerusalem, Palestine into a prominent family...

, a former pupil, and then joined the Arab Revolt

Arab Revolt

The Arab Revolt was initiated by the Sherif Hussein bin Ali with the aim of securing independence from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.- Background :...

, whose anthem he composed.

In 1919, Sakakini and his wife began to work for the Educational Authority of Palestine in Jerusalem, and Sakakinin was appointed head of the Jerusalem Teachers’ College. He later became Inspector for Education for Palestine, a post he held for 12 years, until his resignation in protest at the appointment of a Jew as High Commissioner

High Commissioner

High Commissioner is the title of various high-ranking, special executive positions held by a commission of appointment.The English term is also used to render various equivalent titles in other languages.-Bilateral diplomacy:...

 of the Palestine Mandate, Herbert Samuel

Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel

Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel GCB OM GBE PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Early years:...

. After working as a school principal in Cairo, he returned in 1926 and became an educational inspector. This allowed him to bring his educational philosophy to rural villages. At the same time, he wrote political commentaries for the newspapers al-Muqtataf, al-Hilal and al-Siyassa al-Usbu'iyya, composed patriotic poems and spoke at political rallies. In 1925, he founded the Wataniyya school, and in 1938 the Nahda College in Jerusalem. In May 1934, Sakakini invested much time and energy in building a new home in the Katamon neighbourhood, which took three years to complete.

Later life

Khalil Sakakini's wife, Sultana, died in October 1939 and was buried in the Greek Orthodox cemetery on Mount Zion

Mount Zion

Mount Zion is a place name for a site in Jerusalem, the location of which has shifted several times in history. According to the Hebrew Bible's Book of Samuel, it was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace in the City...

. He mourned her for the rest of his days, and wrote poems eulogizing her. His son, Sari, completed his Master's degree

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

 and returned to Jerusalem, to work at the American consulate.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...

, the Sakakinis were one of the last families to leave the Katamon neighbourhood. A few days before the city was divided, the Sakakini family fled to Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. Sakakini was nominated by the Egyptian writer Taha Hussein to join the Arabic Language Academy

Academy of the Arabic Language

There are several bodies that are called Academy of the Arabic Language:#Academy of the Arabic Language in Damascus : Oldest, founded in 1919#Jordan Academy of Arabic : Founded in 1924...

.

Sari Sakakini's sudden death of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in 1953 at the age of 39 was a devastating blow. Khalil Sakakini died three months later, on August 13, 1953. Sakakini's two daughters, Dumya and Hala, lived together in Ramallah

Ramallah

Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...

 until their deaths, in 2002 and 2003. The two sisters had long careers in education. Hala edited her father's journals, published in 1955, and wrote two memoirs in English, Jerusalem and I and Twosome.

Beliefs

Throughout his life Sakakini embraced European culture. Having a Greek grandmother led to an interest in Greek music and Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire...

. He even nicknamed himself "Socrates

Socrates

Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...

".

Sakakini often expressed humanistic ideas, and had a business card

Business card

Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver's name, company affiliation and contact information such as street addresses, telephone...

 made out to read "Khalil Sakakini: human being, God willing". At the same time, he defined himself first and foremost as an Arab, and is hailed as one of the founding fathers of Arab nationalism in the region. He was an advocate of Pan-Arabism

Pan-Arabism

Pan-Arabism is an ideology espousing the unification--or, sometimes, close cooperation and solidarity against perceived enemies of the Arabs--of the countries of the Arab world, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea. It is closely connected to Arab nationalism, which asserts that the Arabs...

 and envisaged Palestine united with Syria. He saw Zionism as a great threat and believed that the Jewish right to the land had expired while the Arab right was "a living one".

Al-Sakakini, listing some of the punishments to be meted out: bomb and shoot the British and Jewish invaders, torch Jewish fields and orange groves, ambush routine traffic, block roads, derail trains, cut power lines. He continued: "The battle in Palestine is in full force... Victory is in the hands of God... If we live, we shall live with honour. If we die - we shall die with honour.

During the 1936-1939 Arab revolt, he applauded the Arab attacks on Jews; worried that the rebellion's violence looked bad in the public eye because 'the Jews controlled the newspapers and radio', he concluded that 'the sword was mightier than the book'. On the grenade attack of a Jewish civilian train, he praised the "heroes" responsible. After the attack on Jerusalem's Edison cinema that left three dead, he wrote:

"There is no other heroism like this, except the heroism of Sheikh al-Qassam

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

Sheikh Muhammad Izz ad-Din al-Qassam was a Tijani Sufi who led militant activities against British, French, and Zionist organizations in the Levant in the 1920's and 1930's.-Early life:...

".

Yet the terrorism still bothered him at times:

"I feel the pain of the troubles, whether they fall on Arabs or on the English or on the Jews. For that reason you will sometimes find me on the side of the Arabs, at others times on the side of the English, and still other times on the side of the Jews. And if there were animals who suffered from even a faint whiff of these troubles, I would sometimes be on the side of the animals.

Sakakini also came to believe that Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 might weaken the British and 'liberate Palestine from the Jew', so he supported the Nazis. He wrote that Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 had opened the World's eyes to the myth of Jewish power, and that Germany had stood up to the Jews and put them in their place as Mussolini had done to the British.

Sakakini vehemently opposed allowing Holocaust survivors into Palestine, arguing that a human problem needed to be solved by all humanity. While saddened by events like the sinking of the Jewish refugee ship Struma, he felt that the passengers were in fact invaders that an independent Palestinian Arab government could have used force to prevent from landing, and he felt that while elderly Jews could come to live out their last years as in generations past, a thriving community under British protection should be forbidden. He believed that the Holocaust was being exploited parasitically by Jews demanding a homeland in Palestine, who he said would throw the Arabs out as soon as they got it. Due to supposed Jewish influence in the United States, he believed that their right to vote should be revoked in that country.

Sakakini was a lifelong advocate of social reform. He tried to inculcate principles of students' liberation, sex education

Sex education

Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...

, socialist and other progressive ideas, and believed in free mingling of the sexes. He was pained by the thought of his children living in Palestine, even though he wrote of the country as a Garden of Eden

Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...

. He wanted his children to live in a nobler country, and dreamed of emigrating if he could. Palestinian Arab culture held values "of honour and family connections, of let us eat and drink and grow strong and attack" he asserted, rather than of "let us sacrifice and forgive and respect and have compassion".

Legacy

Khalil Sakakini's published work includes educational treatises, poetry collections, literary, philosophical and political essays, and a diary. A street and a school in Jerusalem are named after him, as well as the Jezzar Pasha Mosque

Jezzar Pasha Mosque

The Jezzar Pasha Mosque , also known as the white mosque, is located on al-Jezzar Street, inside the walls of the old city of Acre, overlooking the eastern Mediterranean Sea.-History:...

's library in Acre

Acre, Israel

Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....

 and a street in Cairo. His papers are now at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

. He is buried at the Mar Gerges Cemetery in Cairo.

In 2001, the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center

Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center

Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center is an organization established in 1996. It is located at 4 Raja Street, Ramallah in the West Bank. The traditional manor that houses the centre was the former family home of Khalil Salem Salah, the mayor of Ramallah between 1947/1951, is now owned by the Palestinian...

 successfully petitioned the municipality of Ramallah

Ramallah

Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...

 to rename the main thoroughfare nearest the centre after Khalil Sakakini. The same year, the centre began editing and publishing the diary of Khalil Sakakini, which he kept from 1907 to 1952. The first volume of the projected eight came out in 2003. The same year, Sakakini's heirs bequeathed the centre his valuable papers, books, and personal effects. They are currently displayed in the foyer.

External links

• Salim Tamari: A Miserable Year in Brooklyn; Khalil Sakakini in America, 1907 - 1908, in Jerusalem Quarterly,
• Salim Tamari: The Vagabond Café and Jerusalem's Prince of Idleness, in Jerusalem Quarterly,
• City of Ramallah Homepage
• Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre