The "chrysanthemum flower" is known as one of the most famous wild flowers in Palestine during the spring season, but it is also the name that was carried by the first clandestine feminist organization that was active in resisting the occupation and launched military attacks against Zionist gangs in Jaffa prior to the Nakba of Palestine in 1948.
Limited sources dealt with the organization’s activity with conflicting information about the names of the founders and the nature of their work, which was said to have been active in the field of nursing in 1947, while one source spoke about its armed activity, and another said that its leadership was a man.
The chrysanthemum flower is one of the most famous wild flowers in Palestine and also the name and slogan carried by the first secret feminist organization to resist the occupation before the Nakba of Palestine in 1948 (agencies)
The sisters, Mahahib and Nariman Khorshid
However, a documentary study that adopted the oral history curriculum, conducted by Palestinian writer and researcher Fayhaa Abd al-Hadi, for the Department for the Development of Women’s Participation in the Palestinian Ministry of Planning, confirmed that the two founders of the organization are the sisters, Mahahiba and Nariman Khorshid.
While the organization did indeed provide nursing services and assisting the poor and students, its work turned into armed struggle, and its members were able to launch several military operations.
The research showed that the "Chrysanthemum Flower" association was established in 1947 by the two sisters, Muhibba and Nariman Khorshid, and a number of Palestinian women, and some Arab and foreign men joined them.
The organization worked until the catastrophe and the displacement of most of the people of the areas of Palestine occupied in 1948.
In 1998, researcher Amal Al-Agha, accompanied by Fayhaa Abdel-Hadi, managed to reach the two sisters' residence in Cairo.
She gave an interview with Muhiba Khorshid (Muhiba Khorshid was born in 1925 in Jaffa and died in 1999 in Cairo).
Al-Agha also gave an interview to Nariman Khorshid in the same year.
The results of the research were published in a book entitled "The Roles of Palestinian Women in the 1940s: The Political Contribution of Palestinian Women" in 2006.
Majestic Khorshid with her brush 1955 (Al Jazeera)
The turning point
Mahiba Khorshid recalled in her interview that the turning point from her social and educational activities to the military was when “I saw with my own eyes how a six-year-old child received a fatal bullet in front of his mother at the door of their home in Jaffa .. On that day I went home and decided to take revenge.”
"Since then, I started correspondence with the commander Abdul Qadir al-Husseini (martyred in the battle of Qastal in April 1948)," Khorshid said.
During a majestic interview with Khorshid, the researchers obtained previously unpublished documents about the organization, the most important of which is the "secret oath" that the girls took upon joining the organization, and it dates back to February 20, 1947. The text reads: "I swear by my honor, my religion, and my religion to my principle loyalty, and to spend my dearest and precious things for the sake of Good and help to all the needy and weak. I have testified to the Lord of the worlds of what I mentioned, and I do not reveal it until death.
It was signed by Subhiya Awad, Khadija Kilani, Madiha Al-Batta, Najma Okasha, Maysar Daher, Sunni Irani, Faiza Shloun and Mabara Khaled.
Faiha Abd al-Hadi says that most of the members of the organization mentioned in the department document refused to speak or denied their membership, as “the two organizations of the organization explained a lack of memory” when asked about them and about the details of their operations.
Abd al-Hadi estimated that they wanted to keep the department and the organization secret until his death.
Muhibba Khurshid was a mathematics teacher, active in the field of painting, sculpture and playing the violin, but she decided to go to military action and took the initiative with her sister Nariman, who are two daughters of a well-to-do Javanese family, to found the organization.
Nariman Khorshid, in a photo documented by Palestinian researchers from her family (Al-Jazeera)
Slogan "chrysanthemum"
Even 50 years after the Nakba of Palestine, Muhiba Khorshid used the slogan "Chrysanthemum" on her chest.
It was not a regular slogan of the organization, but rather a "brooch made of seashell in the form of a chrysanthemum," which he arrived as a gift from Mahatma Gandhi after hearing of the organization's struggle.
The association was named after its name, which indicates life, beauty and permanence, and its majestic foundation Khorshid was influenced by the scarlet flower, the symbol of the French Revolution, in addition to the association of the chrysanthemum with the districts of Palestine and the symbolism of the beauty of nature and freedom that the Palestinians seek, as Khurshid herself said.
In an article published in Akher Sa’a magazine decades ago, obtained by the two researchers, Mahiba Khorshid recounts some details of the organization’s operations.
Muhibba said that she was active with her sister Nariman in spreading the call to establish the organization among "the women of the enlightened class" in Jaffa, so 12 Arab girls joined them, and decided to attack the elements of the Zionist Haganah "in their sites and hideouts" after they had the opportunity to arm them with machine guns and rifles.
Fayhaa Abdel Hadi puts the chrysanthemum slogan on the chest of Majestic Khorshid in her home in Cairo in 1988 (Al-Jazeera)
Sudden attacks against the Zionist gangs
The organization relied on launching surprise attacks against the Zionist gangs, and Khurshid said that "the Arab mujahideen forces were protecting our backs and strengthening our arms."
Khorshid said, "It happened once that we decided to attack a Zionist den, in which a group of them lay in the Arab villages, causing great harm, and our Arab brothers tried to distract us from this work because it is dangerous, but we did not hesitate and we attacked the Zionist den in the darkness of the night .. Their president tried to attack us and I hastened it with a bullet I wanted. The rest raised their hands and surrendered, and we committed them to the Arab camp. "
In one of the attacks, Khorshid recounts that she almost fell into captivity after her ammunition ran out and she was hit by shrapnel, but a number of Arab mujahideen came to her rescue.
She says that she noticed after this incident that the ammunition of all Palestinian mujahideen began to run out, so she decided to travel to Amman and went to the royal palace to request support with weapons.
However, in her 1998 interview, she stated that she had sent her sister Nariman to seek support from outside Palestine.
In the context of their secret work, Faiha Abdel-Hadi says that the members of the organization wore men's clothes and put on the veil to disguise themselves as men.
The "pants" that Nariman Khorshid wore in the organization's operations are still with her family in Cairo, along with a military binoculars that the organization's members used for monitoring and follow-up.
The logo of a chrysanthemum flower on the chest of majestic Khorshid in her home in Cairo (Al-Jazeera)
A feminist military organization
As part of the training, Nariman Khorshid traveled months before the Nakba to Egypt to learn how to fly. Her dream was to use this in the resistance. Her family still keeps her photo as pilots next to a plane in an Egyptian military institute in Imbaba.
The research, which was recorded in the book “The Roles of Palestinian Women in the Thirties: The Political Contribution of Palestinian Women,” documented important feminist experiences before the Nakba, in particular, including the participation of women in military training such as the experience of Maimana, the daughter of the martyr Ezz Al-Din Al-Qassam, and others who were personally trained by him before his death in 1935.
However, the experience of forming a feminist military organization, such as the chrysanthemum, expresses in Abd al-Hadi's opinion, the development of women's activity in the resistance in particular and in national action in general. It also reflects the belief in their ability to plan and lead military missions and to recruit money and weapons for them, while the belief that this was restricted to men of Mujahideen.