Nashashibi

Nashashibi (Arabic: النشاشيبي‎‎; transliteration, an-Nashāshībī) is the name of a prominent Palestinian family based in Jerusalem. Many of its members held senior positions in the government or rule of the Mamluks, Ottoman, British mandate, Jordan and quasi semi self-rule (PA) of Palestine.

After the First World War, during the British period, Raghib al-Nashashibi was Mayor of Jerusalem (1920–1934).

A branch of the family, Al Hassani, are reputed to have moved to Damascus in Syria; another minor branch, the Akattan, is presumed to have been established in Turkey of the offspring of a major Nashashibi Ottoman officer who withdrew to Turkey after the First World War and the fall of Palestine from Ottoman rule. Little is known about the whereabouts in Egypt of the presumed source of the family.

The Nashashibis are reportedly of Kurdish, Turkmen or Arab origin (as their name being the equivalent of fletcher in English may indicate). They first became notable and prominent in Jerusalem with the advent of Prince (of the army) Naser al-Din al-Nashashibi who migrated (or led a military contingent ?) to Jerusalem from Egypt in 1469 CE. He was chosen to guard and be the custodian of al-Haram ash-Sharif (the two Sacred Shrines): the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Cave of the Patriarchs (the Al Ibrahimi Mosque) in Hebron. Nasser al-Din is also credited with being the first official to bring "piped" and channelled water to Jerusalem from the Bethlehem (Al Khader) area. A gate to the esplanade of the Jerusalem Haram is named after him.

The family became one of the prominent Muslim families of Jerusalem as landowners, merchants, public/government officials and later as professionals. As a family of "notables" in Jerusalem a prominent elder of the family, Rashid Nashashibi, was one of two people chosen to represent Jerusalem in the Ottoman Majlis in c.1910.

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