Suleiman al-Halabi

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Suleiman al-Halabi, also Soleyman El-Halaby (Kurdish: Seleman Ous Qopar, Arabic: سليمان الحلبي ‎) (1777-1800) was a Syrian student that assassinated French general Jean Baptiste Kléber. He was executed by impalement.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and education

Suleiman al-Halabi was born in 1777 in Kukan village, Afrin to a Kurdish family called Ous Qopar. His religious father, Mohammad Amin, worked in the profession of selling margarine and olive oil.

In 1797, his father sent him overland to Cairo to study Islamic sciences at Al-Azhar University. After three years of study he returned to Kukan. There he was surprised to learn of his father’s poverty as a result of heavy fines and taxation demanded by Ottoman authorities. The authorities offered to lift his imprisoned father's financial burden if he would assassinate Kléber. He agreed and traveled to Cairo to carry it out.

[edit] Assassination and trial

On June 14, 1800, he approached Kléber's home in the guise of a beggar seeking an audience with Kléber. After they shook hands, he violently pulled the general toward him and stabbed him four time with a stiletto. Kléber's chief engineer tried to defend him and was stabbed but not mortally wounded.

He hid in a nearby park where he was found by French soldiers, who searched him and found his stiletto. He was arrested and tortured, his right arm burnt to the bone while he denied any relationship with Sheikh Al-Sharkawi or the popular resistance movements. He was tried and sentenced to death by impalement.

[edit] Death and afterward

His skull was sent to Paris, where it was used as an example of a bump that shows "criminality and extremism" in phrenology. Today his skull and stiletto are on display in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris.

[edit] External links

Gazetteer Syrian Volume II page 668