Nāsīf Qāsim Abī-Al-Munà

Nāsīf Qāsim Abī-Al-Munà was a Syrian passenger aboard *Titanic*.

## Background

Nāsīf Qāsim "Nassef" Abī-Al-Munà was born 29 September 29, 1884 in Shānā, Lebanon. The town of Shānā, laying against a mountain, was very small,  the Abī-Al-Munà family were the most important inhabitants. They were farmers and depended on the valley to deliver them the goods.

Nāsīf was the youngest child of Qāsim and Najibah Abī-Al-Munà. He had two elder brothers: Bryan who was born in 1875 and Richard, who came after him in 1879.

Abī-Al-Munà emigrated to America in 1903 and stayed in various places: Hagerstown, Maryland and Chambersburg. Eventually he settled in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he ran a dry goods store and restaurant while he made the English language his own. His business bore fruit and thrived. He was awarded with US citizenship and naturalised in 1909, so his American name was Nassef Cassen Albimona.

At this point, he was missing his old home and his parents too much and felt that he needed to visit them. Inbetween 1909 and 1910, he returned to the Lebanon, which at the time was part of Syria, to also visit his wife and son. Most of his relatives in the village had organised a party for his return.  After a while, his parents put pressure on him to get a wife. It became Hism, a girl from a village near Swayda. Nāsīf and Hism lived in Shānā for two years. In 1912, his new home in America beckoned.

While in Shānā, it is believed that Nasīf opened up about living the American Dream to young Farīd Husayn Qāsim Al-Munà and, therefore, convinced him to move to the United States too. They would be joined by two other relatives; Farīda Ibrāhīm, Nasīf’s cousin and her eleven-year-old son Husayn Mahmūd Husayn Ibrāhīm.

On a late March morning, the group left on a horse-drawn gharry to Bayrūt where they boarded a ship that would take them all the way across the Mediterranean Sea to Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. There, they had to undergo physical examinations by French officials. All but Farīda passed the examination. It was discovered that the woman had trachoma, a contagious bacterial eye infection. She was forced to get back to Bayrūt on the first ship that would arrive to port, separating her from her son Husayn who cried in fear as his mother was taken away. For the rest of the journey, Nasīf and Farīd had full responsibility of little Husayn.

According to Nāsīf’s grandson Anthony Albimona (the Americanised surname), it was pure coincidence that they were on the *Titanic*. It was not their intention to take passage on a luxurious liner. Financially they couldn’t afford to wait so they had to take the quickest way to the other side of the Atlantic. They inquired in Marseilles which ship this would be. It turned out to be a gigantic new liner that would be sailing to the American shore in three days. Next up, they booked tickets and took the first train to Northern France.

## *Titanic*

He was 27 years old when he and his protegees arrived in Cherbourg to take part in the Maiden Voyage of the *Titanic*. The ship left Cherbourg on the late night of April 10. The three Syrians were in Third Class. Nāsīf was crazy with nerves but in awe when he first saw the impressive vessel. He felt it was a fitting way to get to New York, which renowed for it’s Broadway Musicals. Nāsīf described the atmosphere on board as happy.

Meanwhile Hism was pregnant and would give birth to a child on April 12, two weeks after he left in the middle of March 1912 and 2 days into the voyage. The child’s name was Mahmūd Nāsīf.

An unique story was that Nāsīf met an ex-naval passenger who could read signals of ships passing by. It must have been the *Rappahannock*, which had a dented bow and bent rudder from a collision in an icefeild. She used the morselamp to brief *Titanic* and the said passenger told Nāsīf that this was an ice warning.

On April 14, Nāsīf felt a tremendous jolt late at night. It was *Titanic* having a close contact with an iceberg. All kind of passengers rushed out upon the collision, after which the ship came to a standstill. It was chaos and they spoke different language.

Realising the danger, he went up and made sure the 11-year old Husayn was let through. A gate stopped their progress and seperated them from First and Second Class. It took a very long time before they were released. By then, many lifeboats were gone. It is likely that that crowds caused Nāsīf to lose sight of the two young ones. In lifeboat 15. Abī-Al-Munà could make it off the ship alive. The grand *Titanic* couldn't stay afloat and sank at 2:20 A.M.

The very young Husayn was somehow not saved. He became a victim of one of the greatest maritime distasters in human history. Farīd shared the same fate. Their bodies weren’t found later.

## After the sinking

The occupants of the lifeboats had to wait a while, but they sighed in relief when a ship was nearing them, arriving at the disaster site at 4:00 A.M. This was the RMS *Carpathia* from the Cunard Line which had immediately sprung into action to help Titanic, but she was too far to get there sooner. She spent all morning picking up lifeboats and *Titanic* survivors.

*Carpathia* dropped the former *Titanic* passengers off in New York on April 18. He was taken to the Saint Vincent Hospital like so many of the survivors. He recovered there and through the hospital, $50 was disbursed from the Women’s Relief Committee. In his Syrian homeland, the newspapers reported on April 23 that Nāsīf had reached the USA but that his two relatives had died. He himself confirmed it in an interview with Mir'ah Al-Gharb on April 27.

When fired from the hospital, Nāsīf went to see his uncle George Hassan to recover in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He had a grocery store in the city and Nāsīf spent his time recuprating there for six months.

## Later life

Nāsīf moved to Roxboro, North Carolina in 1915 as an employee of Eatwell Cafe. He hadn't forgotten about Lebanon, which he would visit once in a while to see his wife, who gave him another child, a daughter this time. She was Mahībah. The Abī-Al-Munà's marriage ended in divorce however. Nāsīf later had another wife: Najmie Abī-Al-Munà. She was the daughter of Fāris and Zayn Abī-Al-Munà and from Shānay. She delivered 5 children, all girls: Jamal, Dalāl, Sucād, Wadād and Sāmiyah.

On his second trip to his native country in 1929, his son Mahmūd Nāsīf also came along to the USA where he married a woman later. 1929 was the year of the depression. For years, Nāsīf would send money to his relatives in Lebanon

A North Carolina newspaper interviewed Nāsīf in 1938. He seemed to have taken a with the truth and produced a glammed up story, in which he claims to have not made it off in lifeboat 15 but was randomly picked up from the water after he jumped. There have been passengers guilty about lying about this too as it was considered ‘dishonorable’ for a man to save himself to take a seat in a lifeboat before any women and children. Especially since he lost both the 2 young ones in his care.

In the 1940s, Nāsīf was close to retirement of his work as cafe clerk and was living in Reidsville, Rockingham, North Carolina with a relative.Nāsīf returned to in 1948.

In 1962 , Nāsīf died. Mahmūd Nāsīf was alive until 1997, the year that the well-known ‘Titanic’ movie came out.