Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Ishaq Musa Saleh al-Husseini was born in the Sa'diya neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem in 1904. He is married and has two sons and a daughter. He studied primary school in Jerusalem at the Rasasiyya, Rashidiya, Sultan Salim, Salahiyya College, and the Frere School. He studied secondary school at the Youth College or The English College in Jerusalem, graduating in 1922.
He obtained a diploma in journalism from the American University of Beirut in 1926, a bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Arts at the Egyptian University in 1929, a diploma in Semitic languages from the University of London, and a doctorate in literature from the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the same university in 1934. He worked as a teacher at the Rashidiya School in Jerusalem, then at the Arab College in Jerusalem between 1934 and 1946.
He worked as an inspector of the Arabic language in government schools until 1948, then as a lecturer at the American University of Beirut between 1949 and 1957, a lecturer at the American University in Cairo between 1957 and 1963, and a lecturer at the Institute of Higher Arab Studies of the Arab League, where he held the position of Head of the Department of Palestinian Research, he also worked as a lecturer at McGill University in Canada until 1969, and became head of the Hind Al-Husseini College of Arts for Girls.
He was active in the cultural field; he participated in the establishment of the Arab Cultural Committee in Palestine in 1945, and served as its Secretary-General. The committee held the first Palestinian Arab Book Fair at the Arab Orthodox Union Club in Jerusalem in 1946. He became a member of the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo in 1961, a member of the Islamic Research Complex affiliated with Al-Azhar University since 1963, a member of the Iraqi Scientific Forum since 1971, a member of the Al-Bayt Foundation for Islamic Civilization Research in Amman, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the College of Science and Technology in Abu Dis in 1982. He established a Center for Islamic Research in the home of his teacher, Muhammad Is'af al-Nashashibi, in Jerusalem.
He wrote a number of studies, research papers, and books. Among his published works are: An Opinion on Teaching the Arabic Language (1937), Oriental Scholars in England (1940), Memoirs of a Chicken (1943), The Return of the Ship (1945), a series of children’s jokes (joint, 1947), and Are Writers Human? (1950), The Muslim Brotherhood, the Major Modern Islamic Movement (1952), Islam in the Eyes of the West by Philip Hitti (translated from English, 1953), The Crisis of Contemporary Arab Thought (1954), Introduction to Contemporary Arabic Literature (1963), Arabized Words (1964), Literature and Arab Nationalism (1965), Research into the Past and Present of Muslims (1966), Contemporary Literary Criticism in the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century (1967), The Names of Jerusalem (1968), The Arabism of Jerusalem (1969), Jerusalem in Islam (1969), The Names of Palestine (1971), Orientalism: Its Origins, Development and Objectives (1976), Contemporary Arab Issues (1978), The Arabic Writer Muhammad Is’af al-Nashashibi (1987), and Khalil al-Sakakini, the Modern Writer (1989).
The PLO awarded him the Revolution Shield at a ceremony held in Beirut in 1982, and he received the First Class Order of Science and Arts from Egypt in 1983.
He died in Jerusalem on December 17, 1990.
Sources and references
Hamada, Muhammad Umar, Encyclopedia of Palestinian Figures, Part One, Damascus, Dar Qutaiba, 1985.
Ziadeh, Nicola, “In Memory of Ishaq Musa al-Husayni 1904-1990.” Journal of Palestine Studies , Issue 9, Winter 1992.
Salwadi, Hassan Abdel Rahman, Dr. Ishaq Musa Al-Husseini, Dean of Palestinian Arabic Literature, Between Loyalty and Remembrance, Taybeh, Center for the Revival of Arab Heritage, 1991.
Al-Awdat, Yaqoub , One of the Figures of Thought and Literature in Palestine , Amman, n.d., 1976.
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