The geopolitics of interment: An inquiry into the burial of Muhammad Ali in Jerusalem, 1931

On Friday, 23 January 1931, the prominent Muslim Indian leader Muhammad Ali Jouhar, who died in London on 4 January, was interred in the perimeter of the Jerusalem Haram al-Sharif compound. The article offers a detailed historical analysis of the geopolitics underlying and surrounding the interment of Muhammad Ali in Jerusalem. The underlying premise of the investigation is that a large-scale political production, the interment of Muhammad Ali in Jerusalem, involved a variety of political actors with particular interests and stakes. In addition to Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti and the Head of the Muslim Supreme Council in British mandate Palestine who initiated and promoted the burial of Muhammad Ali in Jerusalem, other major actors included the British Government(s) in London and in Jerusalem. Among the local political actors, the role of the Zionist leadership, most prominently Colonel Fredrick Kisch, head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, was especially awkward. Like the political rivals of the Grand Mufti within Arab-Palestinian society, the Zionist leadership was ostensibly consigned to the role of spectator in an unfolding political play whose script was written by the Grand Mufti and approved by the British Government.