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==Remaining Direct Descendents== | ==Remaining Direct Descendents== | ||
The remaining direct descendents of the House of Shennib, delineate from the progeny of Sir Omar Faiek Shennib, through the marriage of his nephew, |
The remaining direct descendents of the House of Shennib, delineate from the progeny of Sir Omar Faiek Shennib, through the marriage of his nephew, Ahmed Fouad Shennib, and Omar Faiek's daighter, Lady Ibtisam Shennib. The marriage of the first cousins produced five children: Huda Shennib, Hani Shennib, Ola Shennib, Adnan Shennib and Faten Shennib. | ||
In the turmoil which followed the overthrow of the monarchy by Gaddafi's forces, the two male descendents, |
In the turmoil which followed the overthrow of the monarchy by Gaddafi's forces, the two male descendents, Hani Shennib and Adnan Shennib were forced to flee Libya. The three female descendents, Huda, Ola and Faten remained in Libya. | ||
Eldest son, Hani Ahmed Fouad Shennib fled through the Libyan desert in 1974, initially to Cairo, Egypt, where he completed his undergraduate degree in medicine at Cairo University, eventually leaving amidst encroachment of Gaddafi hit squads into Egypt. During his time in Cairo he met and married Dr. Awatef Shihabeldeen, a Kuwaiti national and sister of acting Secretary General of OPEC ]. | Eldest son, Hani Ahmed Fouad Shennib fled through the Libyan desert in 1974, initially to Cairo, Egypt, where he completed his undergraduate degree in medicine at Cairo University, eventually leaving amidst encroachment of Gaddafi hit squads into Egypt. During his time in Cairo he met and married Dr. Awatef Shihabeldeen, a Kuwaiti national and sister of acting Secretary General of OPEC ]. |
Revision as of 16:36, 14 May 2013
Shennib | |
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Flag of Cyrenaica, Libyan Royal Court | |
Current region | Cyrenaica, Libya |
Place of origin | Andalusia, Spain |
Founded | 1492,(following Alhambra Decree) |
Founder | Omar Faiek Shennib(d. 1951) |
Current head | Hani Ahmed Fouad Shennib, (b. 1952) |
Members | Omar Faiek Shennib Ahmed Fouad Shennib Wanis al-Qaddafi Abdul-Aziz Shennib |
Estate(s) | Bayt Shennib, Cyrenaica, |
The House of Shennib (Template:Lang-ar Bayt Shennib) is one of Libya's principal noble families (see List of Libyans - Nobility). The House of Shennib includes notable public figures who have played a significant part in 20th century Libyan history: heads of state, ministers, authors and diplomats. The family's history is intrinsically tied with the creation of the State of Libya with members of Bayt Shennib playing prominent roles in the defeat of colonial Italian Libya, the creation of the unified Libyan state after WWII.
The most notable members of the family include Omar Faiek Shennib, Ahmed Fouad Shennib, Wanis al-Qaddafi (no relation to Muamar Gaddafi) and Abdul-Aziz Shennib. The historical seat of Bayt Shennib is Derna, Cyrenaica, although the family held numerous properties and tracts of land in the Benghazi area.
The Shennib family was deprived of its titles and land in 1969 following the military coup led by Gaddafi's Libyan Revolutionary Command Council.
On April 3, 2013 the family's significant contributions to the Libyan people were publicly recognized by the Libyan Government and their honors restored, if in name only.
The area of Bi'r `Ayt Shinnib west of Derna is named after the family.
Sir Omar Faiek Shennib
Omar Faiek Shennib | |
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Omar Faiek Shennib, to the right of King Idris al Senussi in 1951 | |
Born | Derna, Ottoman Empire |
Died | 28 July,1953 (aged 69–70) |
Title | Minister of Defence of Libya, Chief of Royal Diwans, Vice President of National Assembly |
Sir Omar Faiek Shennib (Template:Lang-ar Sayyid Omar Fayek Shennib) was Libyan Minister of Defence, Head of the Royal Court (Diwan), Vice President of the Libyan National Assembly under the reign of King Idris Al Senussi. Sayyid Omar Shennib was the patriarch of the current House of Shennib. Shennib served as President of the Cyrenaican delegation to the United Nations in the post-war period and was instrumental in the creation of a unified Libyan state in the years immediately following WWII following the withdrawal of Axis forces from the North African coast. Together with Idris, Shennib was part of the 1941 delegation to the UN which put forth the case for the unification of the three traditional free standing regions, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan into the single nation state of Libya. Following independence on 24 December 1951, he was appointed Head of the Royal Court (the Royal Diwan)
Sayyid Omar Shennib served as Vice President of the Libyan National Assembly until his death and was a signatory to the first Libyan Constitution.
Omar Faiek Shennib Avenue in Derna and Benghazi were named after Shennib posthumously.
Omar Faiek Shennib is credited for the design of the independence Flag of Libya: this flag represented Libya from its independence until 1951 to 1969, and which was adopted by the pro-democracy movement during the 2011 uprising.
Sir Omar Faiek Shennib died in 1951, allegedly of a sudden heart attack. Some controversy surrounds his death as he passed in the days immediately preceding his scheduled trip to the capital, Tripoli, to vote on the continued usage of the American Wheelus Air Base by the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). It was widely known that Shennib, who carried considerable sway as Vice-President of the Parliament, was on his way to vote against foreign usage of the base. Upon his death, many individuals maintained that he had been assassinated to ensure the continued use of the air force base. Others insisted that he died of natural causes. No public inquiry was held into his death to prove or disprove the merits of the former claims, although they persist to this day. Following his death, USAFE recommenced usage of Wheelus and its nearby El Uotia Gunnery Range for gunnery and bombing training. A further agreement between the United States and Libya, signed in 1954, granted the U.S. the use of Wheelus and its gunnery range until December 1971.
Sir Ahmed Fouad Shennib
] (Template:Lang-ar Ahmed Fouad Shennib) was a Libyan poet, politician and ambassador. Born in Hama, Syria in 1923, Ahmed Fouad Shennib was adopted by his paternal uncle, Omar Faiek Shennib, following the death of his parents and was raised with Omar Faiek's children.
Shennib was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris. Upon his return to Libya in the late forties he married the daughter of Omar Faiek Shennib, Ibtisam Shennib (Template:Lang-ar Ibtisam Shennib). Together they had five children: Huda Shennib (Template:Lang-ar Huda Shennib), Hani Shennib (Template:Lang-ar Hani Shennib), Ola Shennib (Template:Lang-ar O'la Shennib), Adnan Shennib Template:Lang-ar A'dnaan Shennib) and Faten Shennib (Template:Lang-ar Faatin Shennib).
Ahmed Fouad Shennib served as cultural attache to UNESCO until 1959. then as cultural attache in Washington DC and Paris, returning to Libya in 1963 to serve as Minister of Education and Culture.
It was, however, for his poetic works that Ahmed Fouad Shennib was most famed. Prolific in the later fifties and sixties, Ahmed Fouad Shennib's poetry gained pan-Arab attention for addressing the subjects of Libyan nationalism and cultural identity in the post-independence era. Alongside Ali Sidqi Abd al-Kadir, Ali al-Ruqii and Shennib garnered literary acclaim as poets of the period "who rejected the classical forms of Arabic versification and showed an interest in social problems, particularly the life of the common people". Common themes of prose during this period were the struggle for independence, social equality and condemned prejudice. The poems 'Libya', 'After Dusk' and 'Al Ashiqah' are key works of modern Arabian literature.
Sir Wanis al-Qaddafi and Lady Amal Shennib
Wanis al-Qaddafi ونيس القذافي | |
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Prime Minister of Libya | |
In office 4 September 1968 – 31 August 1969 | |
Foreign Minister of Libya | |
In office 1962–1963 | |
Personal details | |
Died | December 1986 (aged 62) |
Wanis Al-Qaddafi (Template:Lang-ar Sayyid Wanis Al-Qaddafi) born in 1920, married Omar Faiek Shennib's younger daughter, Lady Amal (Template:Lang-ar Sayyida Amal Shennib) in 1956.
Sir Al-Qaddafi (no relation to Muammar Gaddafi served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1962 until 1963, becoming the last prime minister of of the Kingdom of Libya, serving from 1968 until the government was overthrown in the coup d'état orchestrated by Muammar Gaddafi in 1969.
Born in 1922 in Benghazi, Sir Al-Qaddafi came to the attention of an Italian lawyer during the Italian colonial period who trained him for a career in law. Following the commencement of WWII and the British occupation in 1942, and the young Al-Qaaddafi caught the attention of the Allied Forced who had come to oversee the administration of Benghazi city. Following the war, he declined a position at Oxford as he was the first Libyan to be recruited by the British to assist in the political administration of Cyrenaica. Followng the independence of Libya in 1951, Wanis served as a provincial minister in Cyrenaica, successively of health, justice and transportation, eventually becoming chairman of Cyrenaica’s Executive Council. In 1962, he was appointed Libyan foreign minister for a two year term and, again, in 1967, was appointed foreign minister.
In September of 1968, Sir Al-Qaddafi was appointed prime minister, a post he held until Gaddafi overthrew the monarchy and seized power on 1 September 1969.
Following the coup, Al-Qaddafi was imprisoned by the Gadaffi regime. He was released four months later only to be rearrested in 1970 on charges of permitting King Idris to leave Libya and was imprisoned for a further two years. His time in prison affected his health considerably. In 1974 Al-Qaddafi suffered a heart attack but was refused permission to leave the country for treatment.
In 1977, Sir Al-Qaddafi's eldest son Majid, fled to United States following his involvement in the April 1976 demonstrations against the Gaddafi regime at Benghazi’s Gar Younis university which saw hundreds of student demonstrators killed or imprisoned. Identified as a key protestor Majid Al A-Qaddafi found safe passage to the US and eventually settling in Portland, Oregon where he kept a low profile.
Sir Al-Qaddafi's younger son, Mohsen Al-Qaddafi fared less well. In 1981, at age 13, he became involved in a plot against Qaddafi. The plot was discovered and its leaders executed. Others were sentenced to life imprisonment. Mohsen was imprisoned at the age of fourteen and passed the next seven years in jail, as Qaddafi’s youngest political prisoner. Upon his release, he joined his elder brother in the United States.
Sir Al-Qadaffi died in 1986 at the age of 62, Lady Amal Shennib and their two sons Majid Al -Qaddafi and Mohsen Al-Qaddafi.
Sir Abdul Aziz Shennib
Commander Abdul Aziz Shennib | |
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Commander, Army of the Kingdom of Libya | |
Born | Derna, Libya |
Died | Benghazi, Libya |
Service | Royal Army |
Years of service | 15 |
Other work | Ambassador of Libya to Jordan (1974) |
Sir Abdul Aziz Shennib (Template:Lang-ar Sayyid Abdul Aziz Shennib) son of Sir Omar Faiek Shennib and brother to Lady Amal Shennib and Lady Ibtisam Shennib was a commander in the pre-1969 Libyan army.
Sir Abdul Aziz was a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst entering as a cadet in 1955. Upon his return to Libya, he entered the Royal Army in which he served for fifteen years until the Coup of 1969. As Commander of the Royal Army he was arrested in the first days after Qaddafi seizing power and imprisoned for four and a half years.
Foiled Assassination of King Hussein of Jordan and Political Asylum
Upon the release of Sir Abdul Aziz Shennib in 1974 he was appointed by Gaddafi as ambassador to Jordan. The surprising appointment was "no gesture of reconciliation with the old regime". As Sir Abdul-Aziz had been at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst with King Hussein of Jordan, he was strategically appointed by Gaddafi with express orders to assassinate his former classmate and close friend shortly after his arrival in Jordan. Sir Abdul Aziz accepted the appointment.
However, upon Sir Shennib's arrival in Amman, he immediately informed King Hussein of Jordan of the plot against his life, defected from the Libyan regime, announcing his refusal to carry out the assassination. Sir Abdul Aziz Shennib and his immediate family were thereafter placed under the protection of the Jordanian monarchy as recompense for his loyalty and friendship.
Under the protection of King Hussein, Sir Abdul Aziz joined the expatriate Libyan opposition to Gaddafi. Later, at a press conference in Cairo, Sir Abdul Aziz Shennib revealed that Gaddafi had ordered the murder of Lebanese cleric Musa al-Sadr, whose disappearance in August 1978 had, until his revelation, been the subject of speculation.
Remaining Direct Descendents
The remaining direct descendents of the House of Shennib, delineate from the progeny of Sir Omar Faiek Shennib, through the marriage of his nephew, Ahmed Fouad Shennib, and Omar Faiek's daighter, Lady Ibtisam Shennib. The marriage of the first cousins produced five children: Huda Shennib, Hani Shennib, Ola Shennib, Adnan Shennib and Faten Shennib.
In the turmoil which followed the overthrow of the monarchy by Gaddafi's forces, the two male descendents, Hani Shennib and Adnan Shennib were forced to flee Libya. The three female descendents, Huda, Ola and Faten remained in Libya.
Eldest son, Hani Ahmed Fouad Shennib fled through the Libyan desert in 1974, initially to Cairo, Egypt, where he completed his undergraduate degree in medicine at Cairo University, eventually leaving amidst encroachment of Gaddafi hit squads into Egypt. During his time in Cairo he met and married Dr. Awatef Shihabeldeen, a Kuwaiti national and sister of acting Secretary General of OPEC Adnan Shihab-Eldin.
Following their marriage, Sir Hani Shennib left to London to complete his studies at King's College School of Medicine. In 1978, the couple traveled to San Francisco, California where their eldest child, Sarah Besan Shennib, was born. A return to London was short lived. Following increased activity of Gaddafi's agents in London, the couple once again relocated, settling in the French speaking Canadian province of Quebec where both took up medical positions at McGill University. A son, Faisal Shennib, and a daughter, Selma Shennib, were born in Montreal in 1983 and 1988, respectively. For security reasons, the family has kept a low profile .
In the late seventies, Ahmed Fouad Shennib's youngest son, Adnan Shennib, left Libya for the United States to study in California then Texas, later settling in Silicon Valley, Northern California. A biomedical engineer, Adnan Shennib became a prolific inventor and an entrepreneur founding several medical device firms including Insound Medical, Inc. .
References
- Omar Al Mukhtar Historical Society, Historical Archive,
- Omar Al Mukhtar Historical Society, Official Publication, 4 April 2013
- Developments of the Quarter: Comment and Chronology Middle East Journal, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Summer, 1951), pp. 337-352
- Developments of the Quarter: Comment and Chronology, Middle East JournalVol. 7, No. 4 (Autumn, 1953), pp. 504-519.
- Fadhel Jamali, Mohommed. ‘Arab Struggle; Experiences of Mohammed Fadhel Jamali.’ Widener Library, Harvard University. WID-LC DS 7953.J34 1974x http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/Fadhel.html
- Simons, Geoffrey Leslie. Libya: the struggle for Survival pp.155
- Chronology of International Events and Documents, Royal Institute of International Affairs. Vol. 7, No. 8 (5–18 April 1951), pp. 213-244
- http://24dec1951.com/libya/national-flag-of-libya.html
- 'Directeurs de Services Nationaux de relations Culturelles' Fevrier 1959, UNESCOunesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001274/127488FB.pdf
- http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Libya
- Krymskii, A. Istoriia novoi arabskoi literatury, XlX-nach XX, Moscow, 1971
- Muhammad Sadiq Afifi “Poety i poeziia Livii” In Sovremennaia arabskaia literatura Moscow, Muhammad Sadiq Afifi 1960
- 'Libya: Ahmed Fouad Shennib', Libyanet.com http://www.libyanet.com/shennib1.htm
- 'Poems by Libyan poet Ahmed Fouad Shennib', Libyanet.com http://www.libyanet.com/afs00003.htm
- Cite news |last=الزيلعي |first=محمد ضاهر |title=عين على ليبيا: لقذافي وعقدة التغيير |language=Arabic |publisher=Alshahid.net |date=February 27, 2011 |url=http://arabic.alshahid.net/columnists/36776 |accessdate=2011-04-05
- 'For Amal Life Begins at 75' by Michel Cousins|publisher=Arabnews.com |date=October 18, 2011 |url=http://www.arabnews.com
- 'Libya: What Happened and When'|publisher=Libya-Watanona.com|url=http://www.libya-watanona.com/libya/libyans.htm
- 'Libya: What Happened and When'|publisher=Libya-Watanona.com|url=http://www.libya-watanona.com/libya/libyans.htm
- 'For Amal Life Begins at 75' by Michel Cousins|publisher=Arabnews.com |date=October 18, 2011 |url=http://www.arabnews.com
- 'Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Intake 1955'|publisher=RMA Sandhurst|date=September 1955|url=http://archive.sandhurstcollection.co.uk/view/449/4850/RMAS_3_INTAKE_15-24_1954-1959/Shennib_Aziz+/
- 'For Amal Life Begins at 75' by Michel Cousins|publisher=Arabnews.com |date=October 18, 2011 |url=http://www.arabnews.com
- 'For Amal Life Begins at 75' by Michel Cousins|publisher=Arabnews.com |date=October 18, 2011 |url=http://www.arabnews.com
- 'Hani Shennib: Profile'|publisher=Canadian Who's Who|date=1990|url=http://canadianwhoswho.ca
- 'Insound Medical Inc.'|publisher=Bloomberg Businessweek|url=http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=735079