Forced out

Abdel Mohsin Al-Qattan was born in 1929 in the port town of Jaffa, in what was then British-ruled Palestine, to parents of humble means. Hassan Al-Qattan, who made his living by selling oranges, and Asma, whose family had earlier emigrated from Egypt, fleeing the forced-labor camps set up for construction of the Suez Canal, were themselves barely literate, but they recognised the importance of educating their children and ensured they went to school.

Al-Qattan first attended the Ayyubid School in Jaffa before joining An-Nahda College in Jerusalem under the tutelage of the renowned educator, poet, and Arab nationalist, Khalil Sakakini.

Sakakini pioneered a progressive approach to education that was rare in the region – and the world - at that time. He eschewed grades, prizes, and punishments in favour of music, education, and athletics. He also introduced new methods of teaching Arabic, which became his primary language of instruction (instead of Turkish as it was then).

Al-Qattan flourished under Sakakini and missed no opportunity in his adult life to remember his old teacher and the influence he had on the young boy, regularly citing the educator’s famous saying: "They planted and we harvested, we plant and they shall harvest."

“He was deeply influenced by Sakakini, about that there is no doubt,” says Ziad Khalaf, the founding CEO of the AM Qattan Foundation, which Al-Qattan would go on to set up later in life.

“He would often tell a story about how his teacher had asked him his name in class, and when he replied ‘Abdel Mohsin’, Sakakini had responded by saying ‘from now on, your name will be Mohsin, you should not be anybody’s servant’. “This was a moment that truly stuck with him,” notes Khalaf.

In 1947, after completing high school, Al-Qattan set out into adulthood and began studying political science at the American University of Beirut, full of hope for his future in a post-WW2 world.

But for the people of Palestine there was little peace and in 1948, just months after Al-Qattan had moved to the Lebanese capital, began the Nabka (“catastrophe” in Arabic), the violent expulsion of approximately three quarters of all Palestinians were forced from their homes during the state of Israel’s establishment.

Al-Qattan’s parents and wider family were among hundreds of thousands of Arab Palestinians uprooted with little more than the clothes on their back, forced to find refuge in neighbouring countries, suddenly stateless. Around half settled in Jordan, including the Al-Qattans.

This was a pivotal moment for the young Al-Qattan. “When I was a first-year student at the American University of Beirut, my family was forced to flee from our hometowns of Lod and Jaffa,” he recalled in an interview published by Alliance magazine in 2011. “We lost our land, our home and our money. I realized then that the only asset that cannot be taken away is education, and I am thankful to my family that they gave me a good education.”

Determined to support his family, Al-Qattan changed his major to business studies, and when he graduated in 1951, took a job as a teacher, first in Amman and then later Kuwait.

“The years that followed the Nakba witnessed a series of moral and material defeats for the Arabs, which relegated us to an age of darkness and ignorance,” Al-Qattan later noted, when he looked back on his early years of adulthood.

“Our people had only one option left: redemption through knowledge and education. My wife Leila and I both started our professional careers as teachers, and it soon became apparent to both of us that if there were to be no quick solutions for improving our current social situation, then the only way to encourage change would be to work for a better future.”