Another branch of one of Lebanon’s most distinguished cultural family trees fell this week with the death of Hali Rahbani, 68, son of revered singer Fairuz.
Hali's death compounded the family’s sense of loss following the death in July of Fairuz’s oldest child, Ziad Rahbani, at the age of 69.
The tragedy has once again drawn attention to Fairuz’s family with her late husband, the pioneering composer Assi Rahbani, who died in 1986. The couple raised four children, each of whom took a distinct path.
Their collective experiences form a family portrait shaped by cultural innovation and resilience.
Here is what we know about all of Fairuz’s children.
Ziad Rahbani (1956 – 2025)
The Lebanese composer and playwright, who died in July aged 69, charted his own path over a five-decade career.
Ziad redefined his mother’s music career, shaking up Fairuz's sound with brilliant albums such as Wahdon (1979) and Maarifti Feek (1987), which found her moving away from the pastoral scenes and folk wisdom of the Rahbani Brothers, Assi and Mansour, to embrace darker ballads and jazzy torch songs.
As a solo artist, Ziad infused the Lebanese theatre stage and songs with unfiltered Beiruti dialect – fast, clipped and dripping with sarcasm. The move also aligned with his image as enfant terrible, disrupting the approach of the Rahbani Brothers, who often drew on stylised village dialect in their work.
That freewheeling approach to lyrics and vocal delivery has since become a trait of Arabic indie music.
Hali Rahbani (1958–2026)
Hali lived a more private life owing to a childhood diagnosis of meningitis, which left him paralysed and under the care of his family.
His death comes less than a year after his brother, with Hali's last public appearance at Ziad's funeral in Lebanon, which drew thousands of mourners.
Lebanon’s Information Minister Paul Morcos described Hali’s passing on X as “a painful loss for a family that has given Lebanon and the world an invaluable artistic and human legacy”.
Layal Rahbani (1960–1988)
In the old family photos of Fairuz and her children circulating online, it's Layal who stands out for the familial features – brown eyes, high cheekbones and a Mona Lisa-esque smile. Layal died in 1988 at the age of 28 from a brain haemorrhage, the same cause of her father Assi’s death two years prior.
The tragedy played out amid the turbulence of the Lebanese civil war, which was raging across the country, with Beirut geographically split across various factions.
Layal’s brief career included an appearance in the 1982 play Al Rabee Al Sabee, directed by her father, as well as a nod as co-director of Lebanese television drama Arhal Waheeda the following year.
Rima Rahbani (born 1965)
As Fairuz’s only surviving child, Rima plays a substantial role behind her mother’s career, as an official spokesperson, a social media manager and a documentarian.
A director and visual artist, Rima reportedly oversees the presentation of her mother’s stage works, concert recordings and public image in the years following Assi's death.
In 2017, Rima produced her mother’s comeback album Bebalee. Fairuzz's first new work in seven years, the album consisted entirely of Arabic adaptations of international songs that had influenced Fairuz over her lifetime, including I Put a Spell on You and La Vie en Rose.
While Rima rarely gives interviews, she has been spotted at public events involving Fairuz and is regarded as the primary custodian of her mother’s artistic legacy and archive.
