Muntasir Family
MUNTASIR FAMILY
Prominent Tripolitanian Arab family in Libya.
The Muntasir family resided in the coastal town of Misurata. It collaborated with the Turkish administrators of Libya during the second Ottoman occupation, after 1835, but fell out with the Young Turk revolution of 1908, since one of its leading members was murdered, allegedly, at Young Turk instigation.
The Muntasirs switched support to Italy during Italy's entry into Libya, before the military occupation of 1911, and cautious support continued during the first Italo-Sanusi War that ensued.
When the United Nations took charge of Libya's transition to independence in 1950, Mahmud Bey Muntasir was made premier of the provisional government, a position that was confirmed upon independence until his resignation in 1954. As an intimate of the royal family, he became premier and interior minister again in 1964, during pro-Arab nationalist agitation in Tripoli. Since the Great September Revolution (1969), members of the family have acted in a ministerial capacity and Umar Muntasir has been seen as the leading light of the technocrat faction within the Jamahiriya.
Bibliography
Wright, John L. Libya. London: Benn; New York: Praeger, 1969.
george joffe