and sometimes taking gambles. The invasion
resulted in a devastating loss against a 30-state
coalition led by the United States. Over the fol-
lowing decade, Husayn fought for the survival
of his regime and to maintain Iraq’s territorial
unity and sovereignty. He ultimately lost the
battle to stay in power following the 2003 U.S.-
British invasion of Iraq. After his capture by the
U.S. military, he continued to deny that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction. In 2005, he and a
number of former Baathist associates were placed
on trial by a special Iraqi tribunal for genocide,
crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Saddam
Husayn was sentenced to death and hanged on
December 30, 2006.
See also gUlF states; gUlF Wars; secUlarism.
Gregory Mack
Further reading: Shiva Balaghi, Saddam Hussein: A
Biography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006);
Kanan Makiya, The Monument: Art and Vulgarity in Sad-
dam Hussein’s Iraq (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004); Judith
Miller and Laurie Mylroie, Saddam Hussein and the Cri-
sis in the Gulf (New York: Times Books, 1990).
Husayni, Muhammad Amin al- (Husseini)
(1895–1974) influential Mufti of Jerusalem and
Palestinian nationalist leader
Perhaps the most influential spiritual and politi-
cal leader of the Palestinians before the “calam-
ity” (nakba) of 1948, Hajj Amin al-Husayni used
his position to attempt to thwart Zionist plans to
establish a Jewish state in palestine. Born into
one of Jerusalem’s most notable Muslim families,
al-Husayni was educated at al-azhar in egypt
and istanbUl’s Ottoman War College. An officer
in the Ottoman Army in Anatolia during World
War I, he was appalled by the creation of the
British mandate over Palestine and especially the
1917 Balfour Declaration, which established the
British desire to create a national home for Jews
in Palestine.
By 1920, al-Husayni was very active in his
public opposition to Zionist settlement in Pal-
estine. Despite his activism, however, when the
British mandatory powers established the coun-
try’s Supreme Muslim Council in 1921, Herbert
Samuel, Britain’s high commissioner of Palestine,
declared al-Husayni its leader and grand mUFti
of JerUsalem. The Supreme Muslim Council was
made responsible for managing all of the waqfs
(religious endowments) of Palestine, as well as
the sharia courts and Islamic schools. With his
prominent new post, al-Husayni became the
most prominent religious authority for Palestine’s
Muslims.
As mufti, al-Husayni used his power to focus
on two crucial goals. The first was to organize
the Palestinian population against the creation
of a Jewish state, and the second was to promote
the centrality of Jerusalem as a sacred Muslim
city. Throughout the 1920s, the Supreme Muslim
Council raised money throughout Muslim lands
for the renovation of the Haram al-Sharif (Noble
Sanctuary/Temple Mount), promoting the promi-
nence of Jerusalem as an Islamicate city under
attack by the Zionists, who were not only Jews
but also largely secular. He also hosted two impor-
tant pan-Islamic conferences in 1928 and 1931 at
the aqsa mosqUe, spreading his fame far beyond
Palestine’s borders.
With his extensive family connections and the
power granted his position as mufti, al-Husayni
was able to transform his religious leadership
into political authority. When cooperation with
the British mandate failed and the Arab revolt
of 1936–39 broke out, al-Husayni declared his
support for the uprising. The British responded
by issuing a warrant for his arrest and dismissing
him from his position as the leader of the Supreme
Muslim Council in September 1937. Al-Husayni
spent the next decade working against the Brit-
ish, first in baghdad trying to foment uprising
against their authority, and then, during World
War II, working in Germany as an adviser to the
Nazi regime.Husayni, Muhammad Amin al- 317 J