Salim Ali Salam
Two years later, he married Kulthum Barbir, the granddaughter of Ahmad Al Agharr[1] who had held at one and the same time in Beirut the positions of mufti, qadi, and naqib al-ashraf (head of the order of the descendants of Muhammad).
[5]According to the foremost Lebanese historian, Kamal Salibi, "among the Moslem notables of Beirut at the turn of the century few communicated with their fellow men as easily and readily as Salim Ali Salam.
"[7] Salibi describes Salam as "a man of remarkably modern outlook, cautious and shrewd yet open-minded and completely lacking in prejudice, receptive of new ideas, aggressive and capable of making good use of opportunity, a born positivist, a believer in progress, and an expert breaker of Gordian knots.
"[9] Salibi also relates the following: "Abu Ali did not flee the social restrictions of al-Musaytiba, but he was personally uninhibited, full of self-confidence and daring, and, though conventionally religious, completely unfanatical.
More than that, a Greek Catholic priest came regularly to his house to teach his sons French, and a leading Maronite literary figure of the day, Abdallah al-Bustani, tutored his daughter Anbara in Arabic language and literature.
Throughout his life he was to maintain a piety attested by his daily observance of religious ritual and his reading of sacred texts, while at the same time displaying an openness of mind that tempered the conservatism of his social environment.
"[14] Kassir also explains that "Salim Salam's choice of friends was proof of his religious tolerance at a time when communal tensions were intensified by the misfortunes of the Ottoman Empire and the destabilization of the Muslim community by Western penetration.
Salam made it a point of establishing solid relationships with both the Orthodox archbishop of Beirut, Monsignor Misarra, and Habib Pasha al-Saad, the Maronite president of the administrative council of the Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon.
"[16][17] Kassir also recounts that Salim Salam's eldest daughter, Anbara, "in the 1920s was to be the first Muslim woman in Lebanon to go out in public unveiled" and that "in the meantime she had been sent to study in London, together with her younger sister; a photograph taken during her stay there shows Anbara wearing an elegant cloche hat and a mid-calf skirt in the company of her father, her brother Saeb, and King Faisal I of Iraq – proof that Salam readily accepted the idea of women doing away with the veil, in defiance of prevailing social conventions in Beirut.
[22] According to Salibi, "the new Maqasid board, under the presidency of Abu Ali, proceeded to draft new by-laws for the society, to secure for it full legal recognition, and to have its various properties officially registered in its name.
It was typical of Abu Ali to act against strong objections and appoint non-Moslems (a Druze and a Christian) to head the new Maqasid schools when he found no Moslems suited for the job.
Salam was also part of the delegation chosen by the Congress to convey its positions to Stéphen Pichon, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and to Sultan Mehmed Reshad, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire.
"[34] Salim Salam was staunchly opposed to the political repression exercised by Jamal Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman fourth army during World War I, who was responsible for a campaign of persecution, including the hanging of many Arab nationalists on 6 May 1916 in Damascus and Beirut.
In his memoirs, Salim Salam recalls the following: "Jamal Pasha resumed his campaign of vengeance; he began to imprison most Arab personalities, charging them with treason against the State.
With the end of World War I approaching, Salam went to see the Ottoman governor of Beirut, Ismail Hakki Bey, accompanied by Ahmad Mukhtar Bayhum and Alfred Sursock.
Samir Kassir observes that, while it was headed by Umar Da'uq, Salam remained the strong man who "presided over the ceremony at which the Arab colors were raised at the Sérail, on 6 October, before proceeding to the Shuwayfat Plain south of the city to welcome Shukri Ayubi, whom Faysal had named governor general of Beirut and Mount Lebanon.
Receiving Ayubi the next day at his home in Musaytbeh, Salam requested that his friend Habib Pasha al-Saad, president of the dissolved administrative council of the Mutasarrifate, be allowed to serve as the governor of Mount Lebanon.
[39] He organized two popular assemblies, "The Conferences of the Coast and the Four Districts" (Mu'tamarat Al-Sahel), in November 1933 and March 1936, denouncing French rule and calling for independence and Arab unity.
