Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi (1882-1963) is one of the most prominent figures in Palestine in the economic, commercial, banking, social and agricultural fields.
Albanian of Turkish origin, Arab in love and Palestinian in loyalty and faith, he assumed the presidency of the all-Palestinian government established by the Arab League during the 1948 war to organize the Egyptian-controlled enclave in the Gaza Strip.
Birth and upbringing
Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi was born in 1882 in the Lebanese city of Sidon to a father of Albanian origins. His father worked as an officer in the army of the Ottoman Empire at the time.
Ahmed Helmy has 3 daughters from his first wife: Wasfiyya, the wife of the Libyan politician Mansour Qaddara, Saniyah, the wife of Abdel Hamid Shoman, the founder of the Arab Bank in Palestine, and Naila, the wife of Abdel Majeed Abdel Hamid Shoman.
He also had one son, from his second wife, and his name was Muhammad. Muhammad married Souad, the daughter of the Palestinian politician Rashid Al-Haj Ibrahim.
Study and training
Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi received his primary education in Nablus, then continued his studies in Istanbul, and returned with his father to his city of Tulkarm, where he received his education in the Arabic language and literature at the hands of the scholar Saeed Al-Karmi, which made him excel in this field.
Jobs and responsibilities
Abdul Baqi participated in Al-Amarah in the movement of volunteers from Iraqi tribesmen to fight the invading British forces alongside the Ottoman army during World War I.
Abdel-Baqi, as a member of the secret nationalist “Arab Girl” association, was one of the pillars of the Arab Independence Party, which arose in Damascus in 1919 as a public political front for this association.
In 1919-1920, he was appointed Director General of the Ministry of Finance in the government of Prince Faisal bin Al Hussein in Damascus.
In 1922, Abd al-Baqi fled to eastern Jordan, where he was appointed mashawar (minister) of finance, and the King of Hejaz, Hussein bin Ali, chose him as superintendent of the Hejaz railway and gave him the title of Pasha.
After the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 1925 against the French occupation, he participated in the membership of the Central Committee for Relief to the Afflicted People of Syria.
The English authorities exiled him to Hijaz on charges of incitement to resist the French mandate in Syria, after which he left for Cairo, then in 1926 he went to Palestine at the invitation of the President of the Supreme Islamic Council, Haj Amin al-Husseini, where he was appointed General Controller of the Islamic Endowments.
Abdel Baqi resigned from his job in 1930 when he became general director of the Arab Bank, which he founded with Abdel Hamid Shoman. He then founded the Agricultural Bank to provide farmers with agricultural loans, the Arab Nation Bank, and the “Nation Fund” to save Arab lands threatened by their seizure by the Zionist movement.
He also established the Dunum Project, which aimed for every Palestinian to own a dunum (one thousand square metres) of land in locations whose lands were at risk of Zionist seizure, and he founded the Sons of the Arab Nation School (Ummah College in Jerusalem).
Political experience
Abdul Baqi participated among the Jerusalem delegates in the Islamic Conference to Defend the Buraq Wall and the Islamic Holy Places, which was held in the fall of 1928.
He was also a member of the Central Committee for Aid to the Afflicted, which was formed by the Supreme Islamic Council after the Buraq Revolution in August 1929.
Abdul Baqi participated in the General Islamic Conference held in Jerusalem in December 1931 as the conference’s treasurer and rapporteur of the Hejaz Railway Committee.
Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi was chosen as honorary president of the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce and of the Salihi Charity Association, which established the Sons of the Nation Institute to house the children of martyrs.
After his return to Palestine at the end of 1942, Abdel Baqi participated in the efforts aimed at re-forming a responsible political committee to lead the national movement, but these efforts failed.
In August 1943, Abdel Baqi, along with Awni Abdel Hadi and Rashid Al Haj Ibrahim, re-established the Arab Nation Fund to save Arab lands.
From November 1945 to May 1946, Abdel Baqi and other Palestinian leaders tried to re-establish the Arab Higher Committee, which the British had dissolved in 1937.
With the failure of this effort, the Arab League Council itself re-formed the Arab Higher Committee (under the name of the Arab Supreme Committee) in Bloudan in June 1946, and invited Abd al-Baqi to join.
In the subsequent period, Abdel Baqi stood alone among his other colleagues in the leadership of the defense of the city of Jerusalem in the face of Zionist attacks following the United Nations’ issuance of the resolution to partition Palestine in 1947.
On June 16, 1948, King Abdullah I of Jordan appointed him as military governor of Jerusalem. Then the Arab League Council appointed him head of the “All-Palestine Government,” the formation of which was announced in Gaza in late September 1948, and he began participating in this capacity in League of Nations meetings. Arabic in Cairo until his death.
His writings
Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi wrote a collection of poetry entitled “Diwani,” which was prepared and presented by the Jordanian writer, novelist, and poet of Palestinian origin, Ibrahim Nasrallah.
Establishment of the Arab Nation Bank
Helmy founded this bank in 1937 after he resigned from the Arab Bank, and aimed to provide loans to Arab farmers for terms of up to a year, at a time when commercial banks were granting their loans for a period not exceeding 3 months.
The Arab Nation Bank continued its activity until the end of the British Mandate, after which it resumed its new headquarters in Cairo under the chairmanship of Ahmed Hilmi Pasha, and it remained in large debts from Arab farmers who were unable to fulfill their obligations due to their expulsion from their property.
His death
Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi died on June 29, 1963 in Souk El Gharb, Lebanon, and was buried in the western corridor of Al-Aqsa Mosque next to Prince Muhammad Ali Al-Hindi, Commander Abdul Qadir Al-Husseini, and a group of Arab and Muslim leaders.
