⁨⁨Al-Sirat (Originally: As-Sirat)⁩ - ⁨الصراط⁩⁩

Al-Sirat (The Path) was a daily political newspaper that had a religious orientation in the first decade of its publication. The owner and publisher, 'Abdallah al-Qalqili (Qalqilya 1899-1969), held a degree in Islamic religious studies from of Al-Azhar University in Cairo; he also studied Arabic language and literature at Cairo University. While living in Cairo he was active in underground political movements. He returned to Palestine in 1919 and became a schoolteacher in Jerusalem and Jaffa. In 1925 he founded the newspaper Al-Sirat that covered a mix of Muslim-religious issues and current events with an emphasis on government and politics and took a clear stance against the Mandate and the Zionist project. In 1929, the newspaper became a daily, but appeared irregularly due to a lack of resources, and only a few hundred copies of each edition were published at a time. The newspaper’s editor opposed the local political parties but supported Prince 'Abdallah of Jordan. In 1943, the newspaper was purchased by Al-Difa' newspaper. Al-Qalqili bought it back in 1946 and turned it into a propaganda platform for the King of Jordan. In 1948 al-Qalqili settled in Syria, where he continued his journalism and teaching. A few years later he moved to Jordan, and in 1955 was appointed mufti of the Kingdom of Jordan. While living in Jordan he published a religious journal called Huda al-Islam (The Guidance of Islam). In the 1940s, in contrast to the first years of its publication, al-Qalqili’s religiousness was not noticeably emphasized. In this period overall, the newspaper seemed to all intents a political newspaper with articles on both local and world politics. One thing that remained constant in the newspaper’s policy was its opposition to the Mandate government and the Zionist project.