Abbas Halim

Abbas Halim (Egyptian Arabic: عباس حليم, 9 October 1897 – 6 July 1978), also known as Nabil Abbas Halim or Sherief Abbas Halim, was a prince of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty and a labour activist in Egypt.

Early military career and personal life

Born in Alexandria at the end of the 19th century, Halim was educated in Germany and fought with the German Air Force during the First World War, becoming a fighter pilot with the rank of first lieutenant and awarded the Iron Cross. He later joined the Ottoman Air Force.

Michel Antoine Mamlouk recounts that Halim had three children, Mohamed Ali, Ulvia and Nevine, who were educated in Virginia and Pennsylvania in the United States, and that Halim owned the Khedivial Mail Line fleet.

Political activism in Egypt

Halim joined the Wafd Party and fought with his cousin King Fuad I, while also opposing prime minister Isma'il Sidqi's constitutional reforms in 1930. In December 1930 Halim became president of the Egyptian National Federation of Trade Unions, where he fought for improved working and living conditions for the Egyptian working class. He left politics later that year, returning the next year and attempting to lead The committee to Organize the Workers' Movement. He later let the Cairo Tramway Workers' Union and helped organize the Join Transport Federation.

Halim was arrested for two years by the British in the 1940s for pro-German sympathies during the Second World War; in the event that the advancing German army led by Erwin Rommel had occupied Cairo, Halim was considered the most likely candidate to be installed as King of Egypt. Despite this, Halim later said that British Ambassador Killearn had at one point asked if the British should appoint him King. British officials called Halim "very popular but obstinate and stupid." Halim was sentenced to 15 years in prison after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 by the Gamal Abdel Nasser government. While his property was confiscated from him for a time, it was returned in 1975.