The houses
العائلات
A society remembers itself through its houses. The documented histories of Palestine's notable families — their cities, their scholars, their poets, their mayors.
15 houses ·9 cities ·67 named individuals
Jerusalem's most famous notable dynasty — holders of the city's muftiate and mayoralty across generations, leaders of the Palestinian national movement under the Mandate, and chronic rivals of the Nashashibi clan.
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The feudal lords of Arraba who governed Nablus under Egyptian rule, were broken by the Ottomans in 1859, and re-emerged in the twentieth century as lawyers, party founders and — on both sides — combatants of the 1936–39 revolt.
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A Jaffa mercantile family scattered by 1948 — oil dealers and ice makers whose ten-year-old son Talal walked out of the city a refugee and built the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization in exile, spending a career insisting that the record show his birthplace as Jaffa.
Of this house
أبو خضير
Shu'fat, JerusalemDocumented in Shu'fat's own records; prominent since the 20th century
One of the principal hamayil of Shu'fat, the village on the ridge north of Jerusalem — named as such by the town's own services committee. In July 2014 two of its children, one from Shu'fat and one from Tampa, Florida, made the family's name known everywhere: Mohammed Abu Khdeir, sixteen, was seized near his home and burned alive; his cousin Tariq was beaten unconscious by Israeli police at a protest the next day.
Of this house
Jerusalem muftis, mayors and men of letters — a family of Moroccan origin that managed its endowments and governed the city in Ottoman times, and in the twentieth century gave Palestine Sa'd al-Din al-Alami, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem for forty years, and Musa al-Alami of the Arab Development Society.
Of this house
An old Jerusalem family of the Haram's custodians — the al-Danf Ansaris, who by family tradition descend from the Ansar of Medina and kept the waqf registers of their endowments; their sons include Sami al-Ansari, killed in the 1936 revolt and eulogized by Sakakini, and the historian Fahmi al-Ansari.
Of this house
The great clan of the Bani Zeid highlands northwest of Ramallah, centered on the village of Deir Ghassana — sheikhs of the region in Ottoman times, and in the twentieth century a family of lawyers, communists and, above all, poets: Omar al-Saleh al-Barghouti, Bashir Barghouti and Mourid Barghouti.
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Guardians of the Nabi Daoud shrine on Mount Zion and twice Jerusalem's mayors, the Dajanis were among the city's wealthiest houses before 1948 — with a Jaffa branch that carried the name into the PLO.
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A Jerusalem house of religious learning — muftis, qadis, madrasa teachers and al-Aqsa preachers documented from the Mamluk period onward, their line culminating in Hussam al-Din Jarallah, who won the most votes in the 1921 mufti election, stepped aside under British pressure, and finally held the Jerusalem muftiate from 1948 until his death.
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Jerusalem's scholarly dynasty — judges, mayors, parliamentarians and librarians, keepers of the Khalidi Library on Bab al-Silsila Road, and ancestors of some of the best-known historians of modern Palestine.
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A 'prominent land-owning Hebron and East Jerusalemite family' that gave East Jerusalem two Jordanian-era mayors: Anwar al-Khatib, who governed the Old City for seventeen years, and Ruhi al-Khatib, who never accepted his dismissal by Israel and carried the title of mayor in exile until his death.
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A prominent merchant family of Nablus whose modern members — industrialists, bankers and a Jordanian prime minister — became some of Palestine's wealthiest businessmen; the surname itself, though, is shared by many unrelated families.
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The other great house of Jerusalem — landowners and officials since the fifteenth century, and the Husaynis' rival and occasional partner for leadership of Palestinian politics under the Mandate.
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Gaza City's mayoral family — risen from the butchers' guild to the town hall within two generations, and holders of the city's municipal leadership across the Ottoman, Mandate and occupation eras.
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Nablus's old ruling house turned literary dynasty — governors of the city in Ottoman times, and in the twentieth century the family of the poets Ibrahim and Fadwa Touqan and the educator Qadri Touqan.
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No houses recorded for this city yet.