May Arslan
Born1928
Lausanne, Switzerland
Died9 September 2013 (aged 84–85)
Resting placeMoukhtara, Lebanon
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1948)​
ChildrenWalid Jumblatt
Parents

May Arslan (1928–2013) was a Lebanese Druze woman who was a member of the Arslan family, and her father was Shakib Arslan. She was the mother of Walid Jumblatt and the spouse of Kamal Jumblatt, founder and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party.

Biography

Arslan was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1928 into a well-established Druze family.[1][2] She was the daughter of Shakib Arslan who was in exile in Switzerland when she was born.[3] Her mother was a Circassian woman, Salima El Khass, who was twenty years younger than Shakib Arslan.[3][4] She was born in Russia and her family fled to Jordan due to violent persecution of Muslims by the Russian authorities.[3] Then they settled in Istanbul where she met with Shakib Arslan who was serving as a deputy in the Ottoman Parliament for his native province of Hauran.[3] They married in Beirut in 1916.[3] May Arslan had a brother, Ghaleb, and a sister, Nazimah.[3][4]

May Arslan was first educated in Lebanon and attended French Lycée in Beirut.[2] She received higher education in France.[1] She married Kamal Jumblatt in Geneva on 1 May 1948.[5] Their families were both Druze, but rival groups.[6] They had a son, Walid Jumblatt.[7][8] Although their marriage was for love, Kamal Jumblatt and May Arslan divorced.[9] She resided in Paris between 1954 and 1963 and settled there again in 1965.[2]

Arslan's former husband Kamal Jumblatt was assassinated in 1977.[10] May Arslan died on 9 September 2013 at age 85.[1] A funeral ceremony was held in Moukhtara on 11 September.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Jumblatt receives condolences on death of his mother, May". The Daily Star. Beirut. 11 September 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Who's Who in Lebanon (19th ed.). Beirut: Publitec Publications. 2007. p. 181. doi:10.1515/9783110945904.175. ISBN 978-3-598-07734-0.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 William L. Cleveland (1985). Islam against the West. Shakib Arslan and the Campaign for Islamic Nationalism. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 38, 166. doi:10.7560/775947-012. ISBN 9780292771536. S2CID 240112446.
  4. 1 2 "Appendix 2. Emir Shakib Arslan". eltaher.org. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  5. ↑ "Timeline. Marriage". Kamal Jumblatt Digital Library. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  6. ↑ Eyal Zisser (2017). "Under the Glass Ceiling and in the Family 'Cage': The Role of Women in Lebanese Politics". Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies. 1: 15.
  7. ↑ Syed Tanvir Wasti (2008). "Amir Shakib Arslan and the CUP Triumvirate". Middle Eastern Studies. 44 (6): 933. doi:10.1080/00263200802426161. S2CID 145349307.
  8. ↑ Nathaniel George (2022). ""Our 1789": The Transitional Program of the Lebanese National Movement and the Abolition of Sectarianism, 1975–77". Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 42 (2): 486. doi:10.1215/1089201X-9987957. S2CID 252183200.
  9. ↑ Nicole Khoury (2020). "Writing Lebanese Feminist History". In Rita Stephan; Mounira M. Charrad (eds.). Women Rising: In and Beyond the Arab Spring. New York: NYU Press. p. 211. ISBN 978-1-4798-0104-6.
  10. ↑ Suad Joseph (July 2011). "Political Familism in Lebanon". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 636 (1): 156. doi:10.1177/0002716211398434. JSTOR 41328556. S2CID 145269097.
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