Alumni & Friends

Legends & Legacies – about the Kurani family

By MainGate Staff

Spring/Summer 2020

Five generations of the Kurani family have been involved with AUB. The connection dates back to the 1860s and Habib Amin Kurani (1825–89), who managed a family factory that sold soap, olives, and olive oil. No one is certain of the precise date when Habib met Daniel Bliss, but it’s clear that Bliss was one of Habib’s regular customers. Bliss and his wife Abby had arrived in Abaih in 1856. They moved to Beirut in 1862 when Bliss was selected to head the project that would lead to the establishment of the Syrian Protestant College (SPC) in 1866. The college was renamed the American University of Beirut in 1920.

The first thing Bliss had to do as president of the new college was raise money for an endowment fund. He knew that he would need someone—“an honest man”—to help him keep track of the money that was being donated to fund the college. Bliss asked around and was advised to work with Habib Amin Kurani. Habib gave up his responsibilities involving the family factory to work fulltime with Bliss as the college’s bursar and treasurer. His position often required him to travel by foot from Abaih to the port in Beirut, where he would collect the money that was being received to fund the college. 

Current AUB Professor David Kurani has heard some of the stories that have been passed down through generations of his family about those early days. “My great-grandfather used to strap the money around his waist to keep it safe,” says David. “There was one occasion—it was toward the end of the day and the sun was setting—that Habib approached a crossroads that was known to be a particularly dangerous place. Habib saw five men in the distance coming toward him, so he unbuckled his belt that had the money wrapped around it—never breaking stride—and threw it behind a thorn bush. He kept walking. The robbers pounced on him, but they found only change, so they let him go.” Habib continued on to his home village of Ain Ksour where he rounded up some friends. He convinced them to go back with him and retrieve the money, which he promptly delivered to Bliss. “This incident was one of several that convinced Bliss that Habib was a man he could trust,” says David.

Amin Habib Kurani, a purchaser for SPC, and his wife, Sharifeh Kanaan.

Habib also assisted Bliss–sometimes in quite imaginative ways—to secure the land in Ras Beirut where the college was eventually built. “One story that I’ve heard—and that others have written about—gives you a real sense of Habib,” says David. Here’s the story: There was a well-traveled path between the college campus and a piece of land that Bliss had recently purchased. “The law gave the neighbors the right to keep this foot path open for use, as long as there was no wall as high as a man’s shoulders to block it.”[1] So, Habib arranged for a wall to be built on a Friday when he knew that officials who might have stopped it would be at the mosque. By the time someone showed up to inspect the wall, it “was shoulder high and the campus was no longer divided.”[2] David laughs. “It’s clear that my great-grandfather knew how to get things done.”

Habib’s son, Amin Habib Kurani (1861–1914), who had helped his father for many years, knew many of his father’s customers well—including Daniel Bliss and his son, Howard Bliss. Over time, he took over the family business. He also began working more closely first with Daniel Bliss, then with Howard Bliss, and later, with Howard Bliss’s son-in-law, Bayard Dodge. (Daniel Bliss, Howard Bliss, and Bayard Dodge were the first three presidents of the Syrian Protestant College, serving from 1866 to 1948.) After Habib died in 1889, Amin was put in charge of handling money and purchasing supplies for the college. He was, according to Bayard Dodge, a “very efficient steward.”[3]

Amin Habib’s Kurani’s daughters: Ruda, Matilda, Labebeh, Mary, Alice, Rose, and Najla

AUB Professor in Fine Arts David Kurani and his son Amin John Kurani.

When Amin (in 1914), and then his wife, Sharifeh Kanaan (in 1917), died, Bayard Dodge assumed responsibility of their nine children: Labeebeh, Mateeld, Rose, Mary, Elias, Habib, Alice, Rida, and Najla. Dodge arranged for the two boys to attend IC and to work at AUB: Elias had a job in the cafeteria, while Habib ran errands for the president’s office. Dodge also arranged for the education of and/or found jobs for all of Amin and Sharifeh’s seven daughters.

Many of Amin’s descendants, including his daughters and granddaughters, would go on to have especially long careers at AUB, including Habib Amin Kurani (1904–83), who was AUB’s first registrar and rose to become chairman of the Education Department; his son, David Kurani, who has been a professor at AUB since 1968; and Nadim Farajalla, who is the director of the Climate Change and Environment Program at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. David Kurani’s son, Amin John Kurani, was a full-time instructor in the Department of English until his untimely death on August 20, 2018. David’s mother, Esther Kurani (seen in the photograph with her husband, Habib Amin Kurani) co-founded AUB’s Folk Dance Festival in 1950.

[1] Bayard Dodge, The American University of Beirut: A Brief History (Beirut: Khayat’s, 1958) 29.

[2] Ibid, 24-25.

[3] Ibid, 29.