SABA FAMILY

prominent palestinian/lebanese business family.

The Sabas, Christians originally from Shafa Amr in Palestine, achieved prominence in the twentieth century through the extraordinary business and political career of Fuʾad Saba. In the 1920s, Fuʾad [1902–] founded the now-huge accounting firm of Saba & Co. In the 1930s, he helped establish the Palestinian National Fund and acted as secretary to the Arab Higher Committee. He was briefly exiled by the British in the late 1930s for his political activities.

Fuʾad relocated Saba & Co. to Beirut before the 1948 Arab-Israel War and started other enterprises there, including the al-Mashriq Financial Investment Company (1963), the Arabia Insurance Company, and the Middle East Society of Associated Accountants. His business boomed after signing contracts with the American oil firm of J. Paul Getty and a top American accounting firm, Arthur Andersen and Company. He lived in Beirut until his death in the late 1980s.

Fuʾad's son Fawzi, born in 1931 in Jerusalem, attended the American University of Beirut, as his father did. He became a partner in Saba & Co. and has been living in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. (The family is of no known relation to Elias Saba, the 1970s Lebanese finance minister from northern Lebanon.)

Bibliography

Khalaf, Issa. Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Dis-integration, 1939–1948. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

Smith, Pamela Ann. Palestine and the Palestinians, 1876–1983. New York: St. Martin's, 1984.

elizabeth thompson