Image Source:
Aziz al-Azmeh Library
Laila was a little girl when her father embarked for battle with the French in July 1920. He asked King Faisal I to take care of her, certain that he was going to get killed at the Maysaloun Battle. When he died, Laila went to Istanbul with her Turkish mother, where she lived the remainder of her life, marrying Cevad Asar; a well-to-do owner of a cloth shop in Istiklal Caddesi. Contrary to what was said in several Syrian history books, she did not die poor and ill on the streets of Istanbul and did not lose her eyesight. On the contrary she lived a comfortable and dignified life in Turkey where she died in the early 1970s.