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Lately, I've been reading Paul Berman's The Flight of the Intellectuals. Admittedly, beyond a basic education, my knowledge of the Near East in the years following the Second World War is rather lacking. So, I was surprised to read that the Allies nearly tried the Grand Mufti Mohammad Amin al-Husayni for war crimes in 1945 (though he tried to downplay his involvement in later years, al-Husayni led a Muslim S.S. division in Yugoslavia and worked as a Nazi propagandist during the war). Long story short, he was captured and held under arrest by the French, who planned on extraditing him to Yugoslavia for trial. In the end, the Allies, particularly the British, thought it might not be good for their interests in the Near East. So, al-Husayni was released and returned, popular as ever, to Cairo.

So, what would be the affects of having the Grand Mufti tried and executed as a Nazi war criminal, both short term and long term? Most especially, how would this have affected the growing Islamist movement, with the publicizing a great deal of the atrocities committed by Arabs with Nazi links, as well as leaving the religious contradictions inherit in the propaganda to wider scrutiny (instead of having everything languish forgotten in national archives)? After all, wasn't there a push for reform in the Catholic Church after the trial of several war criminals with strong ties to the Church's far right faction?

Just curious. Again, my knowledge of this era is very scant in comparison to other members of this board, and mostly inspired by late night reading. Still, I'd love to hear thoughts on this.
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