Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam (
Arabic: عبد الرØمن Øسن عزام) ‎ (1893 - 1976) was an
Egyptian diplomat, with family origins in
Libya. He served as the first
secretary-general of the
Arab League between 1945 and 1952.
Azzam also had a long career as an
ambassador and
parliamentarian. He was an Egyptian nationalist and one of the foremost proponents of pan-Arab idealism â€" viewpoints he did not see as contradictory - and was passionately opposed to the partition of
Palestine.
One of Azzam's first acts as secretary-general was to condemn
anti-Jewish rioting in Egypt of
November 2-3, 1945 during which Jewish and other non-Muslim owned shops were destroyed and the
Ashkenazi synagogue in
Cairo's Muski quarter was set aflame.
On
March 2, 1946, in an address to The
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, Azzam explained the Arab League's attitude towards the Palestinian question and refuted the
Zionist claim to Palestine::Our brother has gone to Europe and to the West [and] come back a Russified Jew, a Polish Jew, a German Jew, an English Jew. He has come back with a totally different conception of things. Western and not Eastern… but Jew old cousin, coming back with imperialistic ideas, with reactionary or revolutionary ideas… he is not the old cousin and we do not extend to him a very good welcome.
On
May 11, 1948 Azzam warned the Egyptian government that owing to public pressure and strategic issues it would be difficult for Arab leaders to avoid intervention in the Palestine War, and that Egypt could find itself isolated if it did not act in concert with its neighbors. Azzam believed that
King Abdullah of Jordan had decided to move his forces into Palestine on
15 May regardless of what the other Arabs did and would occupy the Arab part of Palestine whilst blaming other Arab states for failure. King
Farouk of Egypt resolved to contain Abdullah and prevent him from gaining further influence and power in the Arab arena.
One day after the
State of Israel declared itself as an independent nation (
May 14, 1948),
Lebanese,
Syrian,
Iraqi,
Egyptian, and
Transjordanian troops, supported by
Saudi and
Yemenite troops, attacked the nascent Jewish state, triggering the
1948 Arab-Israeli War. On that day, Azzam Pasha announced: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".
On 27 August 1948, in response to charges by Azzam that Palestinians remaining in the (now) Israeli town of
Acre were being mistreated the
United Nations sent an observer from France, Lieutenant Petit to investigate. Petit found that around 80 Palestinians had been killed, mostly for no reason. One of Petit's witnesses also reported six cases of rape. Another, Mohammed Fayez Soufi, reported that he and four other Arabs had been stopped by a group of 15 Jewish soldiers and forced to drink poison (an acid of potassium). Soufi did not drink the poison but fell down to the ground with the other men. Three of the men died. Petit also reported allegations that Arab children were being kidnapped and killed, but these were unverified. He was able to verify allegations that soldiers were looting homes systematically and distributing the goods to Jewish immigrants.
Vincent Sheean points out in his introduction to the book
The Eternal Message of Muhammad, (published by Azzam in Arabic in 1938 under the title
The Hero of Heroes or the most Prominent Attribute of the Prophet Muhammad), "In Damascus as well as in
Djakarta,
Istanbul and
Baghdad, this man is known for valour of spirit and elevation of mind... he combines in the best
Islamic mode, the aspects of thought and action, like the
Muslim warriors of another time who are typified for us
Westerners by the figure of
Saladin." In the book Azzam extols the Prophet's virtues of bravery, love, the ability to forgive, and eloquence in pursuit of the diplomatic resolution of conflict and argues that Islam is incompatible with racism or fanatical attachment to "tribe, nation, color, language, or culture".
Malcolm X's reading of
The Eternal Message of Muhammad and his meeting with Azzam Pasha are vividly recounted in his autobiography. These events marked the point in his life at which Malcolm X turned towards orthodox traditional Islam.
# Nisan, 2002# Louis, 1986# Beinin, 1998, pp. 64-65# quoted in Louis, 1986, pp. 145-146# Gerges, 2001, pp. 154-155# Benny Morris,
Righteous Victims, p. 219, also Sachar, 1979, p. 333# Torstrick, 2000, pp. 55-56# Rippin, 2000, pp. 197-198
* Beinin, J. (1998).
The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry. University of California Press. ISBN 0520211758
* Gerges, F. A. (2001). Egypt and the 1948 War: Internal conflict and regional ambition. In E. L. Rogan, A. Shlaim, C. Tripp, J. A. Clancy-Smith, I. Gershoni, R. Owen, Y. Sayigh & J. E. Tucker (Eds.),
The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (pp. 151-177). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521794765
* Louis, W. R. (1986).
British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198229607
* Morris, B. (2003).
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521811201
* Nachmani, A. (1988).
Great Power Discord in Palestine: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, 1945-1946. London: Routledge. ISBN 0714632988
* Nisan, M. (2002).
Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786413751
* Rippin, A. (2000).
Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415217822
* Torstrick, R. L. (2000).
The Limits of Coexistence: Identity Politics in Israel. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472111248
* Morris, Benny (2001).
Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. Vintage. ISBN 0679744754
* Sachar, Howard M. (1979).
A History of Israel, New York: Knopf. ISBN 0679765638
*
The Islamic Texts Society*
The Eternal Message Of Muhammad by Abd-al-Rahman Azzam
