Fares al-Khoury

Fares al-Khoury was a Syrian statesman, minister, prime minister, speaker of parliament, and father of modern Syrian politics. He was born in Kfeir, a village in the Hasbaya District of modern-day Lebanon, to a Greek Orthodox Christian family that converted to Presbyterianism. He studied at the American University of Beirut, then called Syrian Protestant College, and became an instructor there. He also became involved in Al-Fatat, the leading anti-Ottoman movement, and joined the Arab resistance during World War I. He was elected as the Christian member of the Ottoman Parliament representing Damascus in 1914, but resigned in 1916. He later became a prominent figure in the Syrian National Bloc, the main nationalist party that opposed the French Mandate. He served as the speaker of the Syrian Parliament four times between 1938 and 1949, and as the prime minister of Syria twice, from October 14, 1944, to October 1, 1945, and from October 29, 1954, to February 13, 1955. He was also the first Syrian permanent representative to the United Nations from 1946 to 1948. He was known for his staunch secularist and nationalist policies, and his opposition to pan-Arabism and the union between Syria and Egypt. He was the grandfather of noted Syrian novelist Colette Khoury. He died in Damascus on January 2, 1962, at the age of 84.