Ragheb Nashashibi

(1881 - 1951)

Born in 1881; public figure under the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate and the Jordanian administration; graduated from engineering Istanbul University and became Jerusalem's District Engineer; lifetime opposition leader against the Husseini family; in 1914, elected to the Ottoman parliament and Jerusalem representative in the Ottoman parliament during World War I; head of the Ottoman department of Public Works; member of the All-Syrian Congress in 1919; returned and replaced Musa Qassem (Pasha) al-Husseini as mayor of Jerusalem (1920-34); leading figure of the Palestine Arab National party, founded in 1923; member of the Palestinian Delegation to the U.K., March 1930; founder (2 Dec. 1934) and leader of the National Defense party; its representative in the Arab Higher Committee (1936); resigned from the Arab Higher Committee in preparation to accept partition. Politically inactive in the 1940s; in August 1949 appointed head of the new Jordanian ministry for refugees and rehabilitation; in Sept. 1949 appointed first Governor-General for Arab Palestine; in 1950 Jordanian Minister of Agriculture and later of Transport; appointed as custodian of the Holy Places of Jerusalem with cabinet rank; died in January 1951.

Sources: PASSIA