Saba Habachy (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

: سابا حبشى; 1897–1996) was an Egyptian official, oil industry consultant and international lawyer.

Biography

Born in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...

, Egypt, Habachy received a doctorate at the

University of Paris The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), Metonymy, metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revo ...

. He taught criminal law at the

University of Cairo Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...

and served as a judge and as Egypt's Minister of Commerce and Industry. In 1952, he moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he supported the Allied Forces, providing supplies to Field Marshal

Bernard Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and ...

. He may have been on German general Erwin Rommel's hit list. After the war, as a government minister to

King Farouk Farouk I (; ar, فاروق الأول ''Fārūq al-Awwal''; 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965) was the tenth ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1936 ...

, Habachy wanted to bring in the West and help industrialize Egypt. When the king was deposed in 1952, Habachy was remembered as being pro-West. Habachy was survived by his wife, Beatrice Gabrawy; two daughters, Susan and Nimet, and a son, Nazeeh, all of Manhattan; two stepsons, Seti Boctor of Toronto and Saba Boctor of Los Angeles; a stepdaughter, Beatrice Antoun of Cambridge, and two granddaughters. His first wife, Gamila Gindy, died in 1977. Habachy died 1996 in Evelyn Hospital in Cambridge, England, aged 99.

External links

The New York TimesSaba Habachy (1897-1996) - Find A Grave MemorialColumbia University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Habachy, Saba Egyptian Copts 1897 births 1996 deaths Egyptian pashas 20th-century Egyptian judges Trade and Industry ministers of Egypt Recipients of Honorary British Knighthoods