Farouk shami biography of william

When Farouk Shami's parents learned that he was training to become a hairdresser, they threatened to disown him.

This was in the mid-1960s, long before Shami became the owner of an enormous hair care company in Houston, back when he had recently come to the United States from what was then Jordan and was living in Fayetteville, Ark .

"My dad got very upset with me," said Shami, 67, a Palestinian American who is running for governor as a Democrat. "He said, 'We sent you (to the United States) to be a doctor, , not to be a hairdresser. This is for a woman, and if you stay in it, we will disown you.' And I thought, 'Disowning might be an opportunity not to go back.'"

To understand why Shami would see the possibility of being disowned as an opportunity, it helps to know two things about him. One, that he had a lifelong love of the United States nurtured by having attended a Quaker school in Ramallah, in what is now the West Bank. And two, that this was neither the first nor the last time Shami would find advantages in severe challenges or continue boldly down a path that he has been told is impossible.

That determined spirit might help explain why a man who has never run for political office before says he's "100 percent sure" he will be the next governor of Texas.

"Farouk flourishes on challenges," said his older brother Jamil Shami of Washington. "He has an extraordinary will, and he combines it with his creativity and drive."

For years, Shami had dreamed of coming to the United States. His father, Mohammed Shami, had come to New York about 1920, marrying an American woman and working at a cafeteria (he later married Farouk's mother after returning to his homeland to fight against British rule of Palestine).

"As a child, I was always fascinated by his stories of living in America, and how progressive America was, how beautiful America was, how good America was," Shami said.

He was further inspired by his Quaker school, where instruction was primarily in English.

The event that brought him to that school in the first place, setting him on a path to come to the United States, was a tragedy so horrible that talking about it still brings him to tears.

Shami was born in a village outside Ramallah called Beit Ur al-Tahta, where his family owned an olive grove. According to Jamil Shami, the family was well-to-do, and the children could take olives or olive oil to the general store in exchange for anything they wanted. Young Farouk was a resourceful barterer, and, in a place where children made their own toys, Farouk's toy bikes and cars were especially creative, Jamil Shami said.

Their father was a tribal leader, and from a young age, Farouk saw himself as a leader like him, Jamil Shami said. In role-playing games, he said, Farouk would play the pope and assign his playmates to act as his bodyguards.

In 1955, some of Farouk's brothers and cousins were playing with a bomb left behind after a battle between Israelis and the Jordanian army near the family's house. It exploded. Three of his brothers and two of his cousins were killed.

"It's hard to remember it," he says softly. "I saw my brothers torn into pieces."

He was 12. With the loss of Faheem, 11, Kareem, 10, and Haleem, 7, six brothers became three. After that, everything changed. Jamil Shami said that from that moment, he and Farouk were driven to succeed as a way of compensating their parents for what was lost. And because of the violent incident, the family moved into the city of Ramallah. The Friends School offered Farouk and Jamil scholarships. "It was a disaster, but I was fortunate to go to the best school in the country," Farouk Shami said. "There's always an opportunity in a disaster."

Shami wanted to go to college, but he was in for a shock. He was told that he was getting married. It was an arranged marriage, and he had been engaged for six years. "Nobody ever told me," Shami said.

The bride was his first cousin; their fathers were brothers. Shami said he protested that she was like a sister to him. But Farouk and Izziah Shami were married in 1961. (Still married, they have four children — all of whom were raised in Ramallah and now live in The Woodlands. Izziah Shami divides her time between The Woodlands and the Ramallah area, Farouk Shami said.)

Shami spent a few years teaching Arabic and English, and in 1965, he came to the United States — alone. He had a scholarship to attend a teacher training center in Pikesville, Md.

As he frequently mentions on the campaign trail, he arrived in New York with $71 in his pocket and spent $21 on a cab to visit a brother he had never met (Albert Shami, his father's son from his previous marriage). He made his way to Maryland and later joined his brother Jamil at the University of Arkansas.

After learning about beauty school from some women he met, Shami started cosmetology training while working as a waiter and taking classes at the university. He was especially drawn to coloring hair, having been fascinated by color since watching his mother dye silk threads for embroidery when he was a child.

His parents urgently sent him a ticket to go home, and when he got to Ramallah, it became clear that they were trying to keep him from becoming a hairdresser, he said. "I was stubborn, and I retaliated by opening a beauty salon," he said.

Not long after he opened the salon in Ramallah, the 1967 Mideast war began. Hair products became scarce in the region, so he starting manufacturing shampoos and other products and selling them to salons there. When Jamil Shami started working in Mount Olive, N.C., Farouk Shami returned to the United States to join him, taking college classes (he never graduated) and working as a hairdresser. In the early 1970s, Farouk Shami went to Lafayette, L a., to visit friends and tried to find work at a salon.

"Nobody would hire him," said Rick Landry, who owned a salon there. "His English was poor, he was short, and back in Louisiana, we weren't the most hospitable people to foreigners."

Landry wasn't interested in hiring him, either — until Shami told him that he loved styling long hair. Shami became a hit, Landry said.

"He was very, very creative and artistic," said Landry, who recently retired as director of security for Farouk Systems Inc. "He'd incorporate feathers and ribbons that you see seldom, even now. A lot of times, hairdressers, they do something more traditional — bread-and-butter-type styles. But he'd do something exceptional where you'd want to take pictures."

Shami went on to open his own salon in Lafayette (International Hair Design by Farouk) and later in Houston (Le Salon Farouk ). Along the way, he also became a hairdresser for dignitaries including Saudi Arabian royalty, he said.

Farouk Shami had found his passion, drawn by the artistic nature of the work — and the money. Eventually, his parents — who have died — decided to support his choice to practice what he calls a "living art."

"Them refusing it for me as a profession — I think that helped me to excel and prove myself."

cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548