Munib Shahid

Munib Jalal Shahid (1908–1973) led the Hematology and Oncology division at the American University of Beirut’s Faculty of Medicine. He established the faculty’s hematology laboratory, which greatly boosted research output. Each year, the American University of Beirut gives the Dr. Munib Shahid Award to a fourth-year medical student who excels in internal medicine and shows mature character. Born in Acre, Palestine, in 1908, Shahid came from a prominent Baháʼí family; he was the great-grandson of Baháʼu'lláh, the faith’s founder.

His father was Jalal, an Afnán, and his mother was Rúḥá, a daughter of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. His paternal grandfather, Muhammad-Hasan, was known as the “King of the Martyrs.” In 1944, Shahid married Serene Husseini in a Muslim ceremony. She was related to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, an adversary of the Baháʼís.

Shoghi Effendi, Shahid’s cousin and then head of the Baháʼí Faith, called the marriage a “treacherous act” and excommunicated him as a Covenant-breaker. Shahid and his wife remained in Beirut, where he continued his academic work and she supported cottage industries for Palestinian refugees. Serene Shahid wrote a well-reviewed autobiography of her childhood, Jerusalem Memories. They had three daughters, including Leila Shahid.

Shahid published numerous medical papers on topics such as typhoid fever, nitrogen mustard for bone marrow cancers, perarteritis nodosa, ACTH and cortisone in hematology, favism in Lebanon, sickle cell disease, thalassemia, and hemoglobinopathies.