(; 1881 or 19 December 1882 – 20 November 1935) was a Syrian Muslim preacher, activist, and leader in the struggles against the French in Syria and the British in Palestine, as well as an opponent of Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s.
Qassam was born in Jableh, Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire in 1882. He studied at Al-Azhar University in Egypt and afterward became an Islamic revivalist preacher in his hometown. Following his return, he became an active supporter of the Libyan resistance to the Italian occupation starting 1911, raising funds and fighters to aid the Libyans and penning an anthem for them. He would later lead his own group of rebels in alliance with Ibrahim Hananu to fight against the French Mandate in northern Syria ratified on 29 September 1923.
Following the rebels' defeat, he immigrated to Palestine, where he became a Muslim waqf (religious endowment) official and grew incensed at the plight of Palestinian Arab peasants. He advocated a moral, political and military jihad as the solution to end British rule and Zionist aspirations in Palestine. In the 1930s, he formed bands of local fighters, including the Black Hand, and launched attacks against British and Zionist targets. He was eventually killed in a manhunt by the British authorities in 1935, following his alleged role in the killing of a policeman. Israeli historian Tom Segev has called him "the Arab Joseph Trumpeldor". His campaign and death were factors that led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.
Early life and Islamic scholarship
thumb|right|Al-Qassam was born in [[Jableh ]]
thumbnail|[[Al-Azhar Mosque, where al-Qassam studied, in 1906]]
Al-Qassam was born in Jableh, near Latakia in northwestern Syria, to mother Ḥalīma Qaṣṣāb and father ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Qassām,
Sometime between 1902 and 1905, al-Qassam went to Cairo to study at al-Azhar University. At al-Azhar, al-Qassam developed the thinking that would guide his future activism. Critical of a stagnant Islam, he preached among the ranks of farmers and other locals about the necessity for a modern Islam, one capable of defending itself from Western colonialism through jihad (holy struggle). He returned to Jableh in 1909 as an Azharī ʿālim and worked as a teacher at a Qadiriyya madrasa (Islamic school) where he taught both the mystical practices of the Qadiriyya Sufi order and the jurisprudence and commentary of the Qur'an. In addition, he preached as the imam of the Ibrahim Ibn Adham Mosque.
Following his return to Jableh, al-Qassam commenced a program of Islamic revival based on moral reforms which included the encouragement of maintaining regular salaah (prayer) and the sawm (fasting) during Ramadan as well as advocating an end to gambling and alcohol consumption. Al-Qassam's campaign highly influenced Jableh's residents who increasingly adopted his reforms. He developed amiable relations with the local Ottoman police who he would call upon to enforce sharia on rare cases of major violations. In some occasions, he would send disciples as vigilantes to intercept caravans transporting alcohol which would then be disposed of. Despite the support for Arab nationalism from some of his fellow alumni at al-Azhar and among Syrian notables, al-Qassam's loyalties at the time most likely laid with the Ottoman Empire as his relationship with the authorities would indicate. He was well regarded among much of Jableh's population where he gained a reputation for piety, simple manners and good humor.
Anti-French resistance in Syria
thumbnail|The French Army occupying the Syrian coast in the lead up of the [[Battle of Maysalun 1920]]
He later enlisted in the Ottoman army when World War I broke out, where he received military training and was attached as a chaplain to a base near Damascus. Returning to Jableh before the war's end, al-Qassam used funds from his planned expedition to Libya to organize a local defense force to fight the French occupation. His principal role in the local resistance was financing the acquisition of weapons for Jableh's militia. By 1919, French forces moved into the coastal area of northern Syria while Faisal I established the Kingdom of Syria in Damascus as an independent Arab state. During this period, al-Qassam's Jableh militia fought against local French-backed Alawite militiamen who occupied areas around the city. The Alawites were eventually repelled, but French forces moved in soon after to consolidate their control. Consequently, al-Qassam and many of his disciples left Jableh for Mount Sahyun where he established a base near the village of Zanqufeh to launch guerrilla raids against the French Army.
Activism in Palestine
Establishment in Haifa
From Tartus, al-Qassam travelled to Beirut by boat and then to Haifa, As part of his Islamic revivalist teaching, he denounced and discouraged some local Palestinian traditions, including unorthodox funeral rituals, mothers' visitation to the al-Khidr shrine on nearby Mount Carmel to give thanks for their children's well-being or achievements and tribal dances around religious sites, as superstitious innovations to Islam.
Al-Qassam first preached in the Jurayneh Mosque. Al-Qassam grew increasingly popular with northern Palestine's poorer Muslims and was frequently sought out to preach at Mawlid celebrations.
In May 1928, he, Rashīd al-Hājj Ibrāhīm (1889–1953), and others established a branch in Haifa of the (the Young Men’s Muslim Association or YMMA, founded in Cairo in 1927 and modeled after the YMCA). a role that required him to travel throughout Palestine.</blockquote>
He also took advantage of his travels to deliver fiery political and religious sermons in which he encouraged villagers to organise resistance units to attack the British and Jews.
Relationship with local leaders
thumb|right|Leading members of Hizb al-Istiqlal, 1932. Al-Qassam was closely associated with the party, particularly with [[Rashid al-Hajj Ibrahim, seated second from left]]
According to Israeli historian Shai Lachman, between 1921 and 1935 al-Qassam often cooperated with Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. They were initially on good terms, and al-Qassam's various official appointments required the mufti's prior consent. Lachman suggests that their cooperation increased after the 1929 riots, in which one source claims al-Qassam's men were active. The two fell out in the mid-1930s, perhaps due to al-Qassam's independent line of activism. In 1933, al-Qassam sent an emissary to al-Husseini, requesting the latter's participation in a revolt against the British. At the time, al-Husseini refused, preferring a political solution.
From 1928 until his death, al-Qassam served as the president of the Young Men's Muslim Association (YMMA) in Haifa. While he focused his activism with the lower classes, his position in the YMMA afforded him access with the middle and educated classes of the city who were attracted to Hizb al-Istiqlal (Independence Party), an Arab nationalist political party. In particular, he developed a strong relationship with leading local party member Rashid al-Hajj Ibrahim, the previous president of the Haifa YMMA. A wide ideological gap between the secularist al-Istiqlal and al-Qassam was bridged by a convergence in the view that the struggle against Zionist expansion in Palestine was inseparable from active opposition to British rule. This view separated al-Qassam and al-Istiqlal from the mainstream political forces in Palestine at the time. While men from al-Istiqlal and the YMMA generally refrained from joining al-Qassam's cause, his association with them helped protect him from political figures who opposed his activism. His activities were also financed by several well-off businessmen associated with al-Istiqlal due to his spreading reputation. al-Qassam had recruited numerous hand-picked followers and organised them into about a dozen different circles, each group of supporters unaware of the existence of the other groups. The majority of his men were peasants and urban labourers.
In training his men, al-Qassam stressed that maintaining good character was of paramount importance. As such, fighters should provide for the needy, aid people with illness, maintain good ties with their families and pray regularly to God. These virtues, he claimed, were prerequisites to being disciplined and fearless fighters. The moral component of al-Qassam's teachings were especially geared towards the young men of Haifa's labour slums who lived away from their families and who were exposed to activities considered immoral in Islam. Although many of his followers had been illiterate, he taught them how to read and write using the Qur'an as their basis for learning. The idea for such a group appeared to have crystallised after the 1929 riots. From the outset, a split occurred in the movement. One faction led by Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir argued for immediate attacks against British and Zionist targets, while the other faction, headed by al-Qassam, thought than an armed revolt was premature and risked exposing the group's preparations.
By 1935, al-Qassam had recruited several hundred men—the figures range from 200 to 800—organised in cells of five men, and arranged military training for peasants. The cells were equipped with bombs and firearms, which they used to raid Jewish settlements and sabotage British-built rail lines. Following the October 1935 discovery of a clandestine cache of arms in the port of Jaffa apparently originating from Belgium and destined for the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary force, Palestinian Arab indignation broke out in two general strikes. The arms shipment to the Haganah served as the final impetus for al-Qassam to launch a revolt against the authorities.
Death
thumb|right|Al-Qassam's grave in [[Balad al-Sheikh, 2010]]
On 8 November 1935 the body of a Palestine Police constable, Moshe Rosenfeld, was discovered near Ein Harod. Al-Qassam and his followers were believed to have been responsible and search parties set out to capture him. In this context, al-Qassam and twelve of his men decided to go underground and, leaving Haifa, took to the hills between Jenin and Nablus. In the long ensuing firefight, al-Qassam and three of his followers were killed, and five captured on 20 November. Al-Qassam is buried at the Muslim cemetery at the former Palestinian village of Balad al-Sheikh, now Nesher, a Jewish suburb of Haifa. An obituary for al-Qassam was published in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram on 22 November, eulogizing him as a "martyr" with the following statement: "I heard you preaching from up in the pulpit, summoning to the sword ... Through your death you are more eloquent than ever you were in life."
Legacy
Five months after al-Qassam's death, members of his movement, known as "Qassamiyun" also Ikhwan al-Qassam,
(the Brothers of al-Qassam) under the leadership of Farhan al-Sa'di, al-Qassam's spiritual heir, shot and killed two Jewish passengers on a bus and shot three Jewish drivers, killing two, in the 1936 Anabta shooting, acts that became major contributing factors in the start of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.</blockquote>
The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, compared the glory that al-Qassam's actions aroused in the 1930s to the fame won in Zionist discourse by Zionist activist Joseph Trumpeldor who died in a battle with Arab forces. Recalling this, Israeli historian Tom Segev has argued that "The terrorists that al-Qassam led and the intifada fighters, more recently, may also be likened to the terrorists that Menachem Begin led."
Although al-Qassam's revolt was unsuccessful in his lifetime, militant organizations gained inspiration from his example. His funeral drew thousands, which turned into a mass demonstration of national unity.
The military wing of the Palestinian Islamist armed movement Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, bears his name as does the Qassam rocket, a short-range rocket the group produces and uses.