But less well known is the fact that while Steve Jobs was born in California, he was adopted, and his biological father was a political immigrant from the Syrian city of Homs, already destroyed by the civil war in Syria.

On Twitter this fact has already been widely shared through a "tweet" by David Galbraith, and further exposed by a program outside the BBC.

While some people are shocked at the numbers showing the exodus from Syria, and worry about the consequences of other countries taking in millions of refugees, there are rumors that the former Syrian immigrants have even developed the culture, business and technology of the West.

And among those who have contributed the most, Steve Jobs' biological father - Abdul Fattah Jandalin, who is still alive (at age 84) and lives in Nevada, is also appreciated.

Jandali had fled the Middle East because of the protests and demonstrations that eventually toppled Lebanon's president.

He is not a practitioner of Islam and has not been on the Hajj, but he has declared that he believes in Islamic doctrine and culture, Telegraph reports.

"I have never experienced any problems or discrimination in the United States because of my religion or race. Apart from the accent, which makes me a little different from people here, I have been completely integrated into society here," he was quoted as saying to a Lebanese news website.

Jandali was born in 1931 in Homs, Syria, into a wealthy landed family. His father was a millionaire who owned "several entire villages," according to his son. The father held full authority over his children.

His mother was a traditional Muslim woman who took care of the house, her son and her four daughters, but was conservative, obedient and a good housewife.

He had wanted to study law at Damascus University to become a lawyer, but his authoritarian father refused, saying there were "too many lawyers in Syria".

At the age of 18, Jandali left Syria for Lebanon to continue his studies at the American University of Beirut. He described Beirut as the city "where I spent the best days of my life".

At university he was an activist for Arab nationalism, and had participated in demonstrations for Algerian independence. He even spent three days in prison.


The protest from 1952-54 forced him to leave Beirut. The protests demanded the resignation of then-Lebanese president Bechara El Khoury, who later became the first Arab president to resign under pressure from street demonstrations.

Unlike many of the Syrian immigrants fleeing to Europe, reports the Telegraph, Jandali went to New York, where he lived with a relative, Najm Eddin al-Rifai, who was the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations.

Jandali had studied at "Colombia University" and "Wisconsin University", where he received a scholarship that enabled him to obtain a Ph.D. in Economics and Political Science.

While studying in Wisconsin, Jandali met a German-Swiss Catholic girl named Joanne Carol Schieble, who soon became pregnant.

Her conservative Catholic father refused for her to marry Jandal because he was a Muslim.

Jandali then left Schieble, not long before the birth of their child, on February 24, 1955.

Steve Jobs' adoptive parents

The newborn child was placed in foster care in San Francisco, provided the parents were Catholic and educated.

The first couple to meet the criteria were looking for a girl, so it was another couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, who adopted the boy.

Schieble almost rejected the adaptation because the Jobs couple were not well educated.

Fortunately for us, Paul Jobs had "transferred" his love of mechanics to his son, which led Steven to an association with Steve Wozniak and to the founding of Apple Computer.

"Knowing that I was adapted made me feel more independent, but I never felt abandoned," Steve Jobs is reported to have said.

"I felt special. My parents made me feel special."

He even hated when someone referred to Paul and Clara Jobs as his "adopted" parents and not his real parents. "They were 1000% my parents", he said.

Regarding his biological parents, Jandali and Schieble, he had said: "They were only carriers of the sperm from which I was born, nothing more."

Not long after the adaptation, Jandai and Schieble were reunited and also married, reports the Telegraph. A year later they had a daughter, Mona – who went on to become a successful American novelist. Jobs didn't meet her until she was 27 years old.

But Jandali had taken the journey again. Due to financial problems, he had returned to Syria, hoping for a job in the diplomatic corps.

But that didn't happen and instead he worked for a year as a director at an oil refinery in Homs. While in Syria he was divorced from Shible.

By 1962, Jandalin had returned to the US but had no further contact with Joanne, who had remarried to an American.

Jandali had worked as an assistant professor at Michigan University and later at the University of Nevada.

He later bought a restaurant in Las Vegas. At the age of 84, he became deputy director of
Boomtown Casino and Hotel in Reno, Nevada.

Did Steve Jobs ever meet his biological father?

It is believed that Steve Jobs unknowingly met his biological father when Jandali was a restaurant manager in Sacramento.

"I was in the restaurant once or twice and I remember meeting the owner who was from Syria. And that of course was my father. We held each other's hands and that's all", Steve Jobs is quoted as saying to the "official biographer", Walter Isaacson.

Later, his sister Mona revealed that Jandali was the owner of that restaurant, Telegrafi reports.

Jobs also told Isaacson that he had decided not to continue his relationship with Jandali: "I learned very little from him and I didn't like what I learned."

Before Steve's death, Jandali had clarified that he had no contact with his son, but believed he might be a genius.

I have no close relationship with him. I sent him a birthday message, but neither of us has made any attempt to get closer. I think that if he wants to share time with me, he knows where I am and he can come."

Jandali had rejected the epithet of "Father of the discoverer", which some tried to "put on".

"My daughter Mona is a famous writer and my biological son is Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple. The reason he was adopted was because my girlfriend's father was a conservative extremist and wouldn't let him marry me, so she decided to adopt him."

"Steve is my biological son, but I didn't raise him. He has a family that raised him."

"I think if Steve came up with a Syrian name, he would achieve the same success. He had a brilliant mind. And he had not finished his studies at the university. That's what makes me think he would be successful regardless of his background." /Telegraph/
 

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