Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March/April 2016, pp. 71
Obituaries
Compiled by Kevin A. Davis
Dr. Adel H. Yahya, 56, a Palestinian historian and archaeologist and the founder of the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE), died Dec. 14 in Al Bireh/Ramallah of cancer. A refugee from Jalazone camp, he was a former undergraduate student and faculty member of Birzeit University, having completed his Ph.D. at the Free University of Berlin. His life’s work was devoted to Palestinian rural history, folk art and traditional handicrafts, and, as the director of PACE, he worked to preserve, exhibit and market Palestinian traditional arts and empower village and refugee camp artisan coops.
Dr. Yahya was a major participant in the St. Antony’s College (Oxford University) Palestine Police Force (PPF) Oral History Project, recording oral histories with Palestinian villagers and refugees in the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan. He also taught a popular oral history class at Birzeit University. He researched histories of West Bank towns and villages’ archaeological sites and published them in well-illustrated and -photographed guidebooks. He led international and academic groups around West Bank towns and villages, giving them a grassroots understanding of the region. Finally, Dr. Yahya played a key role in the first intifada, before, during and after, for which his heroic actions will long be remembered.
—Written by Janice Hayden
Doris C. Halaby, 97, the mother of Queen Noor of Jordan, died Dec. 25 of pneumonia in Washington, DC. Born Doris Carlquist in Leavenworth, WA, she studied political science at the University of Washington in Seattle. She married Najeeb E. Halaby in 1945, and their daughter Lisa Halaby married King Hussein of Jordan in 1978. Doris Halaby served on the boards of American Near East Refugee Aid, Amideast, and the Foreign Policy Association. She lived in Washington, DC multiple times, including when her then-husband served as an FAA administrator.
Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, 96, the Princess of Iran, died Jan. 7 in Monte Carlo of old age. She was the twin sister of Mohammad Reza Shah, the former shah of Iran. She was heavily involved in the coup of 1953 that brought her brother to power. During his reign, she was known for her advocacy of women’s rights. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, she was forced into exile but continued to be outspoken about Iranian politics.
Abbas Bahri, 61, a Tunisian mathematician, died Jan. 10 in New Jersey after a long illness. Born in Tunis, he became the first Tunisian to attend the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. After completing his Ph.D., he was a visiting scientist at the University of Chicago before accepting a tenured position at Rutgers University in 1988. Bahri was known for his contributions to the calculus of variations and introduced the method of the critical points at infinity, now a fundamental aspect of calculus.
Leila Alaoui, 33, a French-Moroccan photographer, died Jan. 18 in the terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Born in Paris, she grew up mostly in Marrakesh, Morocco. She studied photography at the City University of New York before returning to Morocco in 2008. Her highly acclaimed photographs were featured in exhibitions throughout Europe and the Middle East. She was known for using photography for activism work, focusing on issues of refugees and human rights. In Burkina Faso on assignment for Amnesty International, she suffered gunshot wounds in the attack on the Cappuccino Cafe and later died in the hospital of a heart attack.
Fatema Mernissi, 75, a Moroccan feminist scholar, died Nov. 30 in Rabat of cancer. Known for her prolific writing on issues of women and religion in the Middle East, she taught at the Mohammed V University in Rabat. Her books include Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (both available from AET's Middle East Books and More), as well as the classic The Veil and the Male Elite. She was a firm believer that the subordination of women in the Muslim world was more a product of power and politics than of religion itself, and was known for speaking around the world on such issues. Mernissi was particularly interested in the idea of the harem and the subjugation of women through physical space. She was born in Fez into a harem, although in 1940 a harem simply meant separate living quarters for women. Mernissi’s detailed examinations of the means by which women are held hostage by the interests of powerful males applied not only to her own region but to the rest of the world as well.
Concepcion Picciotto, 80, a peace activist, died Jan. 25 in Washington, DC of unknown causes. She was known for holding a peace vigil outside the White House for more than 30 years, the longest political protest in U.S. history. Her protest centered on nuclear non-proliferation and carried a general message of peace. She became something of a cult figure in the nation’s capital, from a stop on tourist circuits to being the subject of news articles and even a documentary. ◙
