Born in Jerusalem, as a boy Musa Kazim was sent to Istanbul and attended the Maktab Malkiya (State School) and graduated third amongst students from all over the Ottoman Empire.

[1] His career was spanned by the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II at a time when the empire was being challenged by expanding European powers and it ended when he retired on the eve of World War I.

He spoke English fluently and joined the Governor's pet project, Pro-Jerusalem Society, which was set up to raise the architectural standards of city buildings.

[11] The Executive Committee then met the new High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, who refused to give them any official recognition unless they accepted British policy for a Jewish National Home.

Prior to the Congress Musa Kazim had tried to present the views of the Executive Committee to the new British Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, first in Cairo and later in Jerusalem.

[17][18][19] In 1922 Musa Kazim led a delegation to Ankara and then Lausanne where, following Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's victories against the Greek army in Turkey the Treaty of Sèvres was about to be re-negotiated.

Other members of this delegation were Haj Amin Husseini, Ragib Nashashibi and Alfred Roch a Catholic businessman from Jaffa.

[25] During October 1933 there were anti-immigration demonstrations in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa and Nablus which left 30 people dead, including one policeman, and more than 200 injured.

[27][28] It is suggested that public outrage at Musa Kazim's death was the reason that Ragib Nashishibi was not re-elected Mayor of Jerusalem that year.

[30] Musa Kazim, as Mayor of Jerusalem, attended a reception organised by Storrs for the Zionist Commission led by Chaim Weizmann, 27 April 1918.

[31][32] In December 1918 he had a confrontation with Menachem Ussishkin head of the Zionist Executive over the use of Hebrew in the official invitation to the celebrations for the anniversary of the British conquest of Jerusalem.

He argued that most of the Jews in Jerusalem understood Arabic, most did not understand Hebrew and that this was just an attempt to force the municipality to give in to Zionist demands.

[34] This may refer to money that Frederick Kisch had agreed to give to several leading Arab figures in return for supporting British policies.

[36] In the 1920s, he appears to have sold land to the Jewish National Fund in particular at Dalab, near Abu Gosh on which kibbutz Kiryat Anavim was later built.