Husseini, Amin al- [key], 1896?–1974, Arab political and religious leader. He was inveterately opposed to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, and, suspected of complicity in anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem (1920), he fled to avoid punishment. He returned under an amnesty and was appointed grand mufti of Jerusalem by the British in 1921. He fled (1937) to Lebanon after being arrested for provoking violence between Arabs and Jews. Just before World War II, Husseini moved on to Iraq. After the abortive pro-Axis Iraqi revolt of 1941, he was flown to Rome. Then, in Berlin, Husseini broadcast Nazi propaganda and helped recruit Arab supporters for the Germans. In 1946 the mufti, escaping from house arrest near Paris, arrived in Egypt, where he lived until the early 1960s, when he moved again to Lebanon. Also called Haj Amin al-Husseini, he retired from public life after serving as president of the 1962 World Islamic Congress, which he had founded in 1931.
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