The Masri family

A word of honesty first: al-Masri — “the Egyptian” — is one of the most common surnames in Palestine and the wider Arab world, and most people who bear it are not related to one another or to the family treated here. What is documented is a specific Masri family of Nablus: a prominent merchant family of the city, in the words of Haaretz’s profile of the banker Sabih al-Masri, whose members turned Nabulsi commercial wealth into some of the largest business fortunes in the Palestinian and Jordanian worlds.

The family’s patriarch is Munib Rashid al-Masri (b. 1934), born in Nablus, educated at An-Najah and the University of Texas, and wounded by British soldiers as a boy in 1944. He made his fortune in oil and contracting abroad, then brought it home: a founder of the Palestine Securities Exchange and of the PADICO holding company, close confidant of Yasser Arafat, and builder — between 1998 and 2000 — of Beit Falasteen, the Palladian palace on the hill above Nablus that Ghada Karmi read as a deliberate answer to the settlements rising on the surrounding hilltops. The Israeli press dubbed him the “Palestinian Rothschild”; Nablus calls him its Duke.

The documented family network extends through Jordan’s economy and politics. Munib’s cousin Sabih al-Masri, also of Nablus, chairs the Arab Bank and Paltel — his 2017 detention in Saudi Arabia made international news. Munib’s nephews include Taher al-Masri (b. 1942), born in Nablus, who served as prime minister of Jordan in 1991 and later as speaker of both houses of the Jordanian parliament, and the developer Bashar Masri. The Nablus Masris, in short, are a well-attested modern dynasty of commerce; beyond that documented core, the surname proves nothing — and this entry claims nothing more.

Notable members

• Munib al-Masri (b. 1934) — industrialist and family patriarch; co-founder of PADICO and the Palestine Securities Exchange, builder of Beit Falasteen above Nablus.
• Sabih al-Masri — his cousin; chairman of the Arab Bank and Paltel, among the Arab world’s leading bankers.
• Taher al-Masri (b. 1942) — Munib’s nephew; prime minister of Jordan (1991), later speaker of the Jordanian House and Senate president.
• Bashar Masri — Munib’s nephew; businessman and property developer.

Sources

• Munib al-Masri — Wikipedia
• Taher al-Masri — Wikipedia
• Palestinian billionaire Sabih al-Masri released by Saudis — Haaretz
• The Duke of Nablus — MIFTAH