The Road Not Taken: Isḥāq Mūsā al-Ḥusseini and His Chickens · 263associated the Memoirs as well with Dr. al-Ḥusseini’s known engagement
with his city and nation.
However, another aspect of the novella’s intellectual horizon is left out
by most Arab critics, probably because it clashes with their current politi-
cal and ideological inclinations: Isḥāq Mūsā al-Ḥusseini was also tremen-
dously respectful and open to Western influences, and merged them with
his inherited Arab and Islamic worldview. He was constantly engaged in
an ongoing interreligious dialogue. For instance, together with a Chris-
tian priest, the Franciscan Father Stephan Salihm, he translated from
French a composition by the Franciscan scholar Father Augustus about
Arabic poetry recitation. Additionally, as mentioned earlier he studied
for his PhD in the University of London under the supervision of Profes-
sor H.A.R. Gibb, and was greatly impressed by the Western orientalists.
Yāghī mentions that in al-Ḥusseini’s book about the orientalists in Lon-
don “he expressed his great admiration for the [research] methods used
by them.”^25 What I can add from my own interview with al-Ḥusseini is
that he was also engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the Zionist Jews
in Palestine and was influenced by some of their ideals, such as modern-
izing agriculture and a communal way of life. This was not a popular
orientation in the 1930s and 1940s, and would be even less so as time
passed. He even went as far as joining the Zionist agricultural school of
Miqve Yisrael^26 —few Arabs went that far in their contacts with the Jews
in Palestine—only to leave it quite early on. As he told me with a smile,
“Getting up at dawn to milk the cows was not my idea of an adequate life
style for me.” I remember leaving the interview with names like Miqve
Yisrael and Karl Netter reverberating in my mind, names that had just
been uttered in our conversation. Dr al-Ḥusseini spoke with such ease
about his Palestinian national heritage side by side with a familiarity and
acceptance of Zionist endeavors such as Miqve Yisrael. I left his house
with a growing appreciation that this was indeed a truly unique Pales-
tinian Arab intellectual, both loyal to his own people and broad-minded
enough to accept others.
The Road Taken
What is lacking in the debate about the novella is the consideration of its
horizon. Memoirs was written at a very peculiar time: a time of change, of