The Dajani family

Bayt al-Dajani — the House of Dajani — anchored itself where Jerusalem meets Mount Zion. Family tradition holds that Sheikh Ahmad al-Dajani, a religious scholar of Arabian origin, was appointed by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent as custodian of the Nabi Daoud complex — the shrine of David’s Tomb — and died in 969 AH (1561–62 CE); that appointment is the family’s own account, recorded on its website rather than in the documents of the period. What outside sources confirm is the family’s long standing around the shrine: the Dajanis were the site’s hereditary guardians and proprietors of much of Mount Zion, with a Dajani quarter — Nabi Daoud — and three family cemeteries on the hill, and Jerusalem Story describes them as one of the city’s wealthiest and largest families before 1948, their members prominent in politics, law, medicine, education and commerce.

The family twice gave Jerusalem its mayor. When the city’s modern municipality was created in 1863, its first mayor was a Dajani — recorded in the municipal lists as Abd al-Rahman al-Dajani, who served two terms in the 1860s. A generation later came the most famous of the line: Aref Pasha al-Dajani (c. 1860–1930), an Ottoman governor of Deir ez-Zor, Yemen and Anatolia, one of only four Palestinians on whom the Sublime Porte bestowed the title of Pasha in their lifetime. He held the Jerusalem mayoralty at the close of Ottoman rule and into the British military administration (1917–18), then went into opposition: president of the Muslim-Christian Association in Jerusalem from 1919, he told the King-Crane Commission that Palestine must be part of an independent Arab Syria, and ended up alongside Raghib al-Nashashibi in the anti-Husayni camp. He was buried in the family cemetery on Jabal Nabi Daoud in April 1930. His relative Hassan Sidqi al-Dajani (1900–1938) founded al-Muntada al-Adabi, the Literary Gathering, in 1918 and later served as secretary of the Nashashibi National Defence Party — before being shot in 1938, one of the revolt years’ many political killings.

A branch of the family flourished in Jaffa. Abdullah al-Dajani represented the Jaffa district on the first elected Supreme Muslim Council of 1922, and it was in Jaffa that Ahmad Sidqi al-Dajani was born in 1936; displaced with his family in 1948, he became a historian, taught at Cairo University, and sat on the PLO Executive Committee from 1977 to 1985, chairing its education and culture department. After 1948 the Dajani quarter and cemeteries on Mount Zion suffered vandalism and encroachment — the family’s houses on the hill a remnant of a Jerusalem they once helped govern.

Notable members

• Sheikh Ahmad al-Dajani (d. 1561/62) — the family’s founding ancestor in Jerusalem by its own tradition; first Dajani custodian of the Nabi Daoud shrine.
• Abd al-Rahman al-Dajani (19th century) — first mayor of Jerusalem’s modern municipality, from 1863, serving two terms in the 1860s.
• Aref Pasha al-Dajani (c. 1860–1930) — Ottoman governor and pasha; mayor of Jerusalem (1917–18) and president of the Muslim-Christian Association in the city.
• Hassan Sidqi al-Dajani (1900–1938) — founder of the al-Muntada al-Adabi literary society (1918) and secretary of the National Defence Party; shot in 1938.
• Abdullah al-Dajani (20th century) — of the Jaffa branch; elected to the Supreme Muslim Council for the Jaffa district in 1922.
• Ahmad Sidqi al-Dajani (1936–2003) — born in Jaffa; historian and member of the PLO Executive Committee (1977–85).

Sources

• Hassan Sidqi al-Dajani — Jerusalem Story biography
• Aref al-Dajani — PalQuest biography
• Ahmad Sidqi Mohammed al-Dajani — PASSIA
• Bayt al-Dajani Daoudi — This Week in Palestine
• The Dajani Family — the family’s own website