Haider Murad

(November 10, 1940 – September 12, 2018) was a Jordanian economist, who established several major commercial institutions and launched many economic projects that formed an essential part of the Jordanian economy. He is a politician who served as a member of the Senate, from the nineteenth to the twenty-second session 2001-2009. He also occupied the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federation in the Federation of Jordanian Chambers of Commerce in 1994 and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chamber in the Amman Chamber of Commerce in 1994, and before that he held the position of Chairman of the Arbitration Committee in the Chamber in 1986, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Haider Murad & Sons Investment Group 1970. He also a member of the Board of Directors of Cairo Amman Bank 1995, a member of the Board of Directors of the Supreme Investment Council 1995, a member of the Board of Directors of the Investment Promotion Corporation 1995, a member of the Supreme Council of Endowments 1985, a member of the Board of the National Aid Fund 1990, a member of the Board of Directors of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce 1994, a member of the Board of Directors The Arab American Chamber of Commerce 1994, a member of the Board of Directors of the Federation of Arab Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture 1994. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Haider Murad Group, the Leading Marketing Company (Leaders Center), and Al-Wathiq Telecom Group.
Growing up in Gaza and his family

Haider is the eldest son of his parents Issa Murad and Raoufa Ragheb Mahani. He was born in Shujaiya in Gaza in 1940 by the midwife Zahra Belbeisi, and Haidar has six brothers: Ahmad (who died in 2016), Muhammad, Zuhair, Suhail, Majed and Samir, and two sisters: Maryam and Magda. His father was a famous merchant between Jordan, Beirut, and Gaza; However, in 1954, he lost his entire trade after a storm led to the drowning of his entire trade of 600 tons of food on a steamer at sea.

After that, Haider lived with his family a very difficult life. Despite his skill in the trade, Haidar’s father was not educated, he could not read and write, but he was able to overcome his illiteracy, through self-education, so a sheik from the book used to visit him at his home to give him lessons that enabled him to read and write (in exchange for an egg and a loaf).

Haidar studied primary at Al-Rimal School, later called Al-Carmel School. Haidar finished his studies in Gaza from the only secondary school at the time, Palestine Secondary School.
And after he sat for the secondary examination in Gaza (the Egyptian Tawjihi), after which he joined the Faculty of Commerce and Economics at Cairo University, where he obtained his BA in 1962, and his diploma was signed at the university in 1963. His father’s business conditions began to improve little by little, especially after Haider graduated in 1962. And his return from Egypt, to work with his father in his trade and as a teacher at Palestine Secondary School.

His marriage and children

In the same year, 1963, he married Raeda Haider al-Lulu, a Ghazia from the Lulu family, who bore him all his children over the years; Issa (June 23, 1964) Gaza/Rimal, Youssef (December 15, 1966) Gaza/Rimal, Randa (November 20, 1968) Gaza/Rimal, Raghda (2 May 1970) Gaza/Rimal, Suzanne (September 18, 1971) Amman, Ali (13) December 1976) Amman.

His professional start

With the growth of the resistance movement and the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Army on September 1, 1964, the Israeli threats to invade the Gaza area began, especially after President Gamal Abdel Nasser agreed, at the second Arab Summit, to put the Gaza Strip and Sinai at the disposal of that army, on the first anniversary of the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Army under Sovereignty of the Egyptian administration. The cities of the sector witnessed military parades, attended by the Egyptian governor of the public sector, Lieutenant-General Youssef Al-Agroudi; Major General Wajeeh al-Madani; and senior Palestinian army officers.

During 1967, before the 1967 war, Governor-General Youssef Al-Ajroudi asked Haider’s father to import what Gaza needs of various commodities, especially wheat and flour, in preparation for the next war. Then he left for Beirut with four of the merchants chosen by the ruler. Where his father traded in oil, dates, soap, and grains. But the war broke out and his father was unable to leave Beirut and return to Gaza, so he moved to Amman and the family remained in Gaza.

Then Haider’s father started buying citrus fruits from Gaza and sending them to Amman, while at the same time buying grain from Amman to sell them in Lebanon, where Jordan was a major producer of wheat. And from Lebanon and Syria, they buy goods and ship them by sea to Gaza. This helped him buy a house on Hamra Street in Beirut after the 1967 war.

After Haider’s marriage, he gradually entered the trade with his father, benefiting from his accumulated experience, and worked in the field of selling sanitary ware, within the Issa Murad and Sons Company. When his father traveled to Beirut in 1967, and after the Israeli occupation forces entered the Gaza Strip, Haidar began managing trade in Gaza place of his father, who moved to Amman. As for his father, he moved from Beirut to Jordan and opened a branch of his company in Amman to sell and repair electrical appliances. The work was simple, sometimes not exceeding the installation of antennas, but this enabled his father to obtain Jordanian citizenship, especially since he entered Jordan from Lebanon and not from Gaza, so he was considered an Arab national. Accordingly, he obtained citizenship as an Arab investor. And then he brought his family from Gaza to Amman, where Issa opened his first branch in Amman in Akef Al-Fayez Building on Shabsough Street. After that, his father expanded to another simple shop on Al-Masdar Street to repair appliances, and it was handed over to Ahmed, Haider’s uncle. The company’s business at that time was mainly based on repairing televisions.

Moving to Amman
Haider’s arrival in Amman forced his father to return to Gaza to protect his real estate properties, Al-Bayarat; At that time, Gaza was under Israeli control, which meant losing their property under the pretext of the Absentee Property Law. In addition, the Israeli army was destroying any farms whose owners were not present in order to avoid the Palestinian resistance whose members could hide among their trees. With Haider’s arrival in Amman, the family rented a building within the Al-Nasha Roundabout (currently the station intersection) on Al-Mahatta Street in Amman, where most of the agencies and families controlling trade were concentrated, such as Al-Tabbaa, Abu Al-Filat, Abdo Naqawah, and others. Haider also rented a two-door shop on Al-Masdar Street, whose buildings I later transferred to the ownership of. These old buildings were built in the fifties and were occupied by blacksmiths’ shops and owned by the Jamal family.

Haidar traveled to the Damascus International Fair, which was held annually, where he launched talks with the Greek company Isola Refrigerators in 1971. Haidar proceeded from the principle that the work should be based on contractual relations with large and important trading companies. Within a market monopolized by televisions from old used brands such as Magnavox and Telefunken, Haidar was able to bring Normandy televisions.
From Damascus Fair, but in small quantities. There was not a wide market for television in Oman, with the predominance of used devices.

Seventies period

Attracting Normandy Television Agency opened the door for the company to obtain foreign agencies, and other branches were opened in different areas of Amman to move Haider and his brothers from retail trade to wholesale trade, especially after the entry of the Isola Refrigerators Agency, which formed his transfer in the Jordanian consumer’s disposal mechanism. Electrical tools used to travel by land from Greece to Turkey to Syria and Jordan. The company’s image was established as a supplier to most of the traders in the Kingdom’s regions, and then it entered into a series of huge bids until the company became one of the major importers of electrical tools. This introduced the Jordanian consumer to the TV remote control, as Prince Al-Hassan bin Talal was the first to see it at the Orthodox Club exhibition in Ras Al-Ain. The remote control had no buttons except for volume and playback. It also introduced color television to the Jordanian market, which caused a qualitative leap and led to the fact that Jordan Television was forced to start broadcasting color after it was black and white in 1974.

Haider was distinguished by his strong commitment in commercial dealings, and what his son Issa tells about that is his stance during the civil events in Amman in 1970, where Haider went with his son Issa, who was a child, to pay at that time a premium that was due when it was paid to the family of Khalil al-Talhouni, and it was to start shooting in the area Which Haidar went to, he carried his son on his shoulders and ran with him to the Talhouni house to pay his premium, instead of Haria going back to his house. It was also distinguished by introducing the installment system in the sale instead of cash payment. Later, in the mid-seventies, Haider introduced Service washing machine agencies to Jordan, coinciding with the opening of maintenance centers linked to the company, allowing the consumer to maintain subsidized by manufacturers instead of maintenance in public stores.

Haidar then began expanding in the range of electrical appliances agencies, where he obtained the agency of Odsen washing machines and the Italian Ogee ovens, and in 1976 he acquired the Italian agency Candy, announcing the entry of fully-automatic washing machines to Jordan. And at the end of the seventies, with the rapid growth of the Jordanian economy at that time

He brought the American Frigdeer Agency, where he introduced the No Frost refrigerators to Jordan. And at the same time, air conditioners were introduced from the United States, as he became one of the first to introduce them to Jordan. He also introduced telex technology and related devices to Jordan. And his company was the first company to use that technology and the international line technology, which was not available to citizens except through the central center, and then he introduced the fax to the company, and then in the eighties, he began importing Sharp’s faxes.

In the mid-1970s, Haidar established a contracting company, Jabji, and Murad, with his brother, the engineer Muhammad, and with Daoud al-Jabaji in Jabal al-Hussein. And This continued until the beginning of the eighties when the company with Al-Jabji was dissolved, and the company became owned by the Murad family and in the name of the Construction Company for Contracting and Building Works.

80’s period

His brother Muhammad’s desire to enter into large construction contracting bids with the Jordanian government contradicted the desire of their partner, Dawood al-Jabji, which led to the dissolution of the partnership, and the establishment of a new company in Jabal Al-Hussein next to Service No. 9. Haider spent the morning in the electrical company and evening in the contracting company with his brother Muhammad. In 1994, he started his work at the Sharp agency with all its products, and then started a new business in the field of furniture, which he imported from Tunisia and Turkey under the same name of the company. In 1985 they moved to Mecca Street next to Jabr Complex. And the company’s sites expanded in Al-Masdar Street, and electrical showrooms were taken up in the tower building. He also rented an entire floor in the same building for the furniture company. He also expanded in the Abu Alanda area, where the company’s warehouses were, and a factory for assembling furnaces was established. In the same period, the station’s stores were closed due to changes in Amman.

In 1985 Haider’s father passed away, so Haider’s brothers took the engineers in the contracting company, and the electrical work moved to Haider and his brother Ahmed. Where Ahmed took over the supervision of exhibitions, sales operations, and dealing with the public. Haider supervised the external management and communication with companies.

Amman Chamber of Commerce

Haider’s father decided to run for elections in the 1970s, but he did not do so. After the death of his father, Haidar ran for the Chamber of Commerce in 1986. At that time, two blocs competed for the chamber, the first headed by Haj Hamdi al-Tabbaa and the other headed by Muhammad al-Hajj Theeb. Haider joined the second bloc. The surprise was that Haider and Hajj Hamdi received the highest votes, with a very high difference from the rest of the candidates. His wife tells how Haidar came home that night, before the results were released, to sleep, thinking that he and the entire bloc to which he belonged had lost the elections after seeing the results of the first hour. His wife woke him up the next day, telling him that the governor was asking him because he had participated in the head of the bloc competing for the highest votes.

Three days after his win, King Hussein bin Talal invited Haider to discuss with him.

And due to the loss of his entire bloc, with the exception of him, for the elections, despite his landslide personal victory, Haidar was not able to obtain any seat on the administrative board, except that he received the Commercial Arbitration Committee. That committee, which did not have a real role before that or the activation of its members. And Hajj Misbah al-Zamili was the one who would resolve disputes between merchants. With the death of Al-Hajj Al-Zamili and Haider receiving the commission, he found a way to solve difficult issues among merchants and build him a reputation among his merchant peers.

On January 10, 1988, an amendment was made to the government of President Zaid Al-Rifai, which was formed on April 4, 1985, so Haj Al-Tabbaa received the posts of Minister of Industry and Trade and Minister of Supply. Vice President Muhammad Asfour assumed the position of president as he was vice president. However, Haider’s obtaining more votes than Muhammad Asfour during the elections and the spread of Haider’s popularity due to his method of arbitration among merchants led Asfour to choose him as Vice President within the Chamber of Commerce Council.

In the 1990 elections, Haidar ran as vice president with Muhammad Asfour as president in one bloc, refusing to be in competition with his rival and former colleague. In the 1994 elections, he ran as president and won the presidential seat and continued to maintain the presidential seat in all subsequent elections for a period of 16 years, until 2009. After that, he fell ill and had to undergo a disk operation, and therefore decided not to return to the room because of the long time that doctors expected for his recovery. And their prediction was correct, as he made a full recovery in March, 2010.

Jordan Chamber of Commerce

On Wednesday, October 26, 2011, the Jordan Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors issued a decision to award Haider the title of Honorary President of the Chamber in honor of his efforts over a quarter of a century in serving the commercial sector. The Chamber’s president, at the time, Nael Al-Kabariti, announced that the council decided in its session to grant Murad this title due to the great services he provided to the commercial sector during his presidency of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce because of his significant imprints in the course of the commercial sector.

The Senate

On November 23, 2001, a royal decree was issued by King Abdullah II appointing Haider as a member of the nineteenth Senate for the period between 2001-2003, then he was reappointed as a member of the Twentieth Senate 2003-2005, the twenty-first Senate 2005-2007 and finally in the twenty-second Senate 2007-2009.
its decorations
King Hussein bin Talal granted him the Jordanian Planet Medal of the third degree, in appreciation of his role in charitable and volunteer work and community service. During the reign of King Abdullah II, he was awarded the Medal of Economic Independence.

Death

He died on Wednesday, September 12, 2018, and his body was buried in the Sahab Islamic Cemetery, south of the capital, Amman. On Monday, December 18, 2018, the Amman Chamber of Commerce hosted his memorial service, in the presence of Prince El Hassan bin Talal. The eulogy was attended by many ministers and members of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry, where a short film about his life was shown. The Emir delivered a speech on the virtues of Haider. This was followed by a speech by his son, Issa Murad, and Haj Hamdi Al-Tabbaa, President of the Jordanian Businessmen Association and President of the Arab Businessmen Union. And Dr. Muhammad Abu Hammour, Secretary-General of the Arab Thought Forum. Mr. Aqel Biltaji, President of the Jordanian-French Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the former Mayor of Amman.