Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2019, p. 63
Obituaries
Compiled by Amin Gharad
Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang, 74, died on Nov. 12 following prolonged illness. A pioneer in the field of Muslim-American understanding, Dr. Nyang was one of America’s most influential Muslim academics.
His long, expansive career included a stint as deputy ambassador and head of chancery at the Gambian consulate in Saudi Arabia. He also served in advisory and consultant roles on boards of organizations, including the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, America’s Islamic Heritage Museum and the African Studies Association.
After receiving his Ph.D. in government from the University of Virginia, Dr. Nyang went on to pursue a prolific career in the academy credited for teaching and supervising hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students at Howard University and beyond. He was a celebrated professor and chair of Howard’s department of African Studies until his retirement in 2017.
Originally from The Gambia, Dr. Nyang devoted himself to spreading greater understanding of Islam and the Muslim world, writing and speaking extensively on issues relevant to the Middle East, Africa, Islam, and Muslims in the American public square. His bibliography boasts close to a dozen books including his seminal work, Islam in the United States of America. He also served as an advising scholar for the award-winning PBS documentaries, “Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet” (2002) and “Prince Among Slaves” (2007).
Beyond his scholarship, Nyang is remembered by colleagues and friends for his kindness and humility. He is survived by his wife, Eucharia Mbachu, and their children, Edna Nyang and Sulayman Nyang, Jr.
Raed Fares, 46, was gunned down in Idlib, Syria in an attack suspected to have been carried out by a formerly al-Qaeda-linked Syrian militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
A prominent figure in the Syrian uprising against Bashar al-Assad, Fares was no stranger to danger. Only four years earlier, ISIS militants had shot him close to death. In addition to several other attempts on his life, Raed had also been kidnapped and tortured—although eventually released—by militants who took issue with broadcasting music and using female hosts on his radio program.
Fares was the founder of Radio Fresh FM—an independent radio station broadcast from opposition-controlled territories. The station informed fellow Syrians and spotlighted the crimes of Assad and some of the militants fighting him, as well as providing key information concerning imminent Assad-led attacks and survival tips.
After ruthless Syrian bombing campaigns targeting civilians and even school children, Fares organized classes in basement and daycares where mothers could leave their children during the day. He also ran a program aimed at training aspiring journalists.
Jean Mohr, 93, died of cancer on Nov. 3 in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Swiss photographer was famous for capturing the effects of war and calamity, and for his contributions to the efforts of some of the world's most important humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the World Health Organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Born in Geneva in 1925, Mohr’s parents abandoned their native Germany with the rise of Hitler. After embarking on art studies in Paris several years after completing university studies in economics and the social sciences, Mohr began a career in photography at the age of 30.
His work—a great bulk of which focuses on the Middle East and especially Palestinians—includes 26 books of photography including collaborations with Edward Said and John Berger. His works have also found their way into film in the form of stills and cinematography.
Ara Güler, 90, died in Istanbul on Oct. 17 of a heart attack.
The photojournalist, nicknamed “the Eye of Istanbul,” was born to Christian Armenian parents in Istanbul in 1928. He pursued a career in cinema before eventually switching paths and entering journalism. Boasting an archive of some 800,000 photographic slides, Güler traveled on assignment across the globe, with his works widely exhibited from New York to Paris to Cologne. He also photographed famous personalities ranging from Winston Churchill to Pablo Picasso.
On his 90th birthday, weeks before his death, his life’s work was honored with the grand opening of the Ara Güler Museum in Istanbul.
Gamil Ratib, 91, died on Sept. 19 in a Cairo hospital after suffering a long illness, according to his agent. His passing evoked an outpouring of tribute and condolence from stars from across the Arab world.
The award-winning Franco-Egyptian actor enjoyed a rich career spanning over six decades, performing in numerous stage shows, TV productions, and films. Perhaps his most famous role was that of Majid in the historical drama, “Lawrence of Arabia.”
Born and raised in Cairo in the 1920s, Ratib traveled to France to study law and economics at the University of France where he was introduced to the performing arts. He would later be awarded France’s Legion of Honor.
Tara Fares, 22, was shot dead while driving through the central Baghdad neighborhood of Camp Sarah on Sept. 27. Just days before Fares' assassination, human rights activist Suaad al-Ali was gunned down in an outdoor Basra market. In August, Rafeef al-Yaseri, a female plastic surgeon known as the “Barbie of Iraq” was killed in her Baghdad home. And a week after al-Yaseri’s murder, Rasha al-Hassan, the owner of a beauty center in Baghdad, was found dead in her home. Fares, the former “Miss Baghdad” was Christian and of mixed Iraqi and Lebanese heritage, and resided in Kurdish-administered Erbil for the last few years. She had recently been recognized as one of Iraq’s most followed social media figures.
