BEIRUT, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF

private, nondenominational, coeducational international and intercultural university in Beirut, Lebanon, chartered in 1863 by the state of New York, U.S., as the Syrian Protestant College. Classes started in 1866. Although founded by the American Protestant Mission to Lebanon, the school was set up as an autonomous organization and has no official relationship with any religious body. Its present name was adopted in 1920. The educational philosophy is similar to that of an American university, but its program is adapted to the educational needs of the Middle East; some 80 percent of its students come from the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa. A school of medicine was opened in 1867, a school of pharmacy in 1871, and a school of nursing and a hospital in 1905. All are important to the country, and the hospital was the main medical centre of Beirut in the early years of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90). The university managed to remain in operation during the war, but most of the non-Arab members of its faculty had fled Lebanon by the late 1980s. History The early period The antiquity of Beirut is indicated by its name, derived from the Canaanite name of Be'erot (Wells), referring to the underground water table that is still tapped by the local inhabitants for general use. Although the city is mentioned in Egyptian records of the 2nd millennium BC, it did not gain prominence until it was granted the status of a Roman colony, the Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Berytus, in 14 BC. The original town was located in the valley between the hills of Al-Ashrafiyah and Al-Musaytibah. Its suburbs were also fashionable residential areas under the Romans. Between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD, Beirut was famous for its school of law. The Roman city was destroyed by a succession of earthquakes, culminating in the quake and tidal wave of AD 551. When the Muslim conquerors occupied Beirut in 635, it was still mostly in ruins. Arab and Christian rule Beirut was reconstructed by the Muslims and reemerged as a small, walled garrison town administered from Baalbek as part of the jund (Muslim province) of Damascus. Until the 9th or 10th century, it remained commercially insignificant and was notable mainly for the careers of two local jurists, al-Awza'i (d. 774) and al-Makhul (d. 933). A return of maritime commerce to the Mediterranean in the 10th century revived the importance of the town, particularly after Syria passed under the rule of the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt in 977. In 1110 Beirut was conquered by the military forces of the First Crusade and was organized, along with its coastal suburbs, as a fief of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. As a crusader outpost, Beirut conducted a flourishing trade with Genoa and other Italian cities; strategically, however, its position was precarious because it was subject to raids by the Druze tribesmen of the mountain hinterland. Saladin reconquered Beirut from the crusaders in 1187, but his successors lost it to them again 10 years later. The Mamluks finally drove the crusaders out in 1291. Under Mamluk rule, Beirut became the chief port of call in Syria for the spice merchants from Venice.