Friends remember Lebanese historian for his generosity and storytelling

BEIRUT: Kamal Salibi, considered by many to be Lebanon’s pre-eminent historian died from a stroke Thursday at the age of 82.

He rose to prominence with the publication of “The Modern History of Lebanon” (1965). Two of his later history books “Crossroads to Civil War, Lebanon 1958-1976” (1976) and “A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered” (1988) cemented his status as an authority on Lebanon’s modern history and a secular and inclusive voice in a divided and sectarian Lebanon.

His books are standard reading and provided for many a means of navigating this small country’s complex political landscape.

“I think Kamal Salibi raised the history and historiography of Lebanon to new levels,” said Lebanese writer, historian and AUB professor of history Fawwaz Traboulsi. “He managed to marry erudition, research in composing three histories of modern Lebanon, each time moving to embrace new materials and new constituents. He revisited not only the history and historiography of Lebanon but his own treatment of those subjects, especially in the critical vein.

“He exploded many of the myths and misconceptions of the history, especially that the identities are not fixed,” continued Traboulsi, whose “A History of Modern Lebanon” was released in 2007. “He created a space in which Lebanon’s singularity is underlined by placing Lebanon in its Arab context rather than abstracting it from it.”

He added, “I am personally indebted to him for laying the foundations of modern Lebanese historiography, both in the professionalism of his scholarship and in the pleasure he took in recounting that history.”

Kamal Suleiman Salibi was born in Beirut on May 2, 1929 to a Protestant family and raised in Bhamdoun. He did his BA in history and political science at the American University of Beirut in the early 1950s, and then earned his PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, under the supervision of renowned Middle East historian Bernard Lewis. He then returned to Beirut, where he taught history until the mid-1990s. In 1994, he co-founded the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan, where he served as director from 1997 until 2004. Since then, Salibi has continued his research from his apartment in Hamra.

But he will be most remembered by his friends and colleagues for his generosity and intellect that cannot be replaced.

“He had a complex mind and a simple heart,” said AUB history professor Tarif Khalidi, a childhood friend of Salibi, who knew him through his older brother 10 years his senior. “He adored his students and maintained their friendships for life.”

Khalidi recalled, “He always said history was a narrative, a story to tell. With the rise of post-modernism, that fell out of fashion. But then it came back again, and now it’s come full circle.”

Salibi’s dedication in his field inspired generations of historians.

“It’s a loss for Lebanon,” said AUB Ottoman historian Abdul-Rahim Abu-Husayn, who studied under Salibi in the early 1980s. “He had a non-sectarian, forward-looking, humanitarian and objective vision of Lebanon that encompassed all kinds of people.”

As his professor, Abu-Hussayn said, “He was captivating. He had a way of simplifying the most complicated issues and relating them to students on all intellectual levels from all over the world.”

In spite of his high stature and wide respect he enjoyed, Salibi managed to stay humble, with some help from those around him.

He once told Abu-Husayn that when he first started his teaching career he was so excited to publish his first academic article, he proudly told his girlfriend at the time, “I rescued these people from obscurity.”

“No,” she responded. “You brought them from one obscurity to another.”

For Abu-Husayn, Salibi — who never married and had no children — was like a father.

For Abu-Husayn’s student Makram Rabah, Salibi was like a grandfather.

“He referred to us as his ‘grand-students,” Rabah said. “He considered anyone who came into his home as his family. His Christmas parties were renowned.”

“He created a bond between several generations of his students and people who worked with him. It is like belonging to a family, he communicated a certain mood which tied people together,” said Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese academic who worked with Salibi in the UK and Jordan.

In fact, Salibi, who never actually lectured Rabah, mentored him, encouraging him to publish a history book he was writing about pre-war Lebanese student politics as an MA student at AUB. “A campus at War: Student Politics at the AUB 1967-1975” was published in 2009.

Rabah, continued to stay in touch with Salibi through daily sessions on Skype when he went to Washington to pursue his Ph.D.

Earlier this week, when he was visiting Salibi in the hospital, he noticed a man in the waiting room reading “The Modern History of Lebanon” in Arabic. He walked up to him and told him the author of the book was in the hospital, which the man appreciated.

“Dr. Salibi,” Rabah said, “is still everywhere.”