While the world mourned the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs in California, many Syrians were quick to claim the computer genius as one of their own on Thursday through a little-known connection to his biological father.

Jobs, who died of cancer at the age of 56 on Wednesday, was given up for adoption soon after his birth in San Francisco to an American mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, and a Syrian-born father, Abdulfattah “John” Jandali.

Jandali, 80, a former academic, has told how Schieble’s “tyrant” father refused to allow his daughter to marry a Syrian and so the baby was adopted by a married couple from California, Paul and Clara Jobs.

Only in recent years did Jandali, born in the Syrian city of Homs and latterly an executive of the Boomtown Casino in Reno, Nevada, realise that the Apple chief was his son.

“Without telling me, Joanne upped and left to move to San Francisco to have the baby without anyone knowing, including me,” Jandali told the New York Post in an interview in August. “She did not want to bring shame onto the family and thought this was best for everyone.”