There is, of course, an extensive ex-Mufti literature. On how al-Husayni
assumed and wielded power and influence in the prewar Arab world, I
recommend Laura Robson, Colonialism and Christianity in Mandate
Palestine (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2012). On his period in
German exile, see Klaus Gensicke, The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis:
The Berlin Years (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011); David Motadel,
Islam and Nazi Germany’s War (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2014); and Francis Nicosia, Nazi Germany and
the Arab World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 279, who
concludes that the ex-Mufti’s only tangible ‘accomplishment’ was the for-
mation of the Waffen-SS Handschar Division, which had nothing to do
with Arab affairs. In this connection, see also Rubin and Schwanitz,
‘Germany’s Muslim Army,’ in Nazis, 144–74; and Xavier Bougarel et al.,
‘Muslim SS Units in the Balkans and the Soviet Union,’ in The Waffen-SS:
A European History, ed. Jochen Böhler et al. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2016), 252–83. Despite the fact that he was not officially replaced as
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem until 1948, al-Husayni is always referred to in
official contemporary British documents as the ‘ex-Mufti,’ as I have there-
fore chosen to do throughout this book, though it will no doubt displease
his few apologists. It is undeniable that there is a perceptible whiff of dis-
grace in the prefix, which, frankly, I find appropriate for someone who
should have been brought to justice at Nuremberg.
Edmonds to Stark, 3 January 1972, Container 13.1 (C.J. Edmonds),
Series II Correspondence, 1893–1985, HRC.
Stark, Dust in the Lion’s Paw, 141.
By contrast, two recent, measured analyses of class and treachery in the
secret world thoroughly worth exploring are Tim Milne, Kim Philby: A
Story of Friendship and Betrayal (London: Biteback, 2014); and Andrew
Lownie, Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess (London: Hodder,
2015).
See, for example, Series II Correspondence, 1893–1985, Freya Stark
Collection, HRC.
