Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb

Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb (2 January 1895 – 22 October 1971), also commonly referred to as "H. A. R. Gibb", was a Scottish scholar of Islam and the Middle East.

Life

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Gibb returned to Scotland for education at the age of 5 after the death of his father. He attended the Royal High School, Edinburgh. Studies at the University of Edinburgh were interrupted by World War I, during which he served in France and Italy in the Royal Field Artillery. For his service, he was awarded a 'war privilege' MA. After the war he studied Arabic at the School of Oriental Studies of London University and obtained an MA in 1922. His thesis, later published by the Royal Asiatic Society as a monograph, was written on the Arab conquests of Central Asia. He married Helen Jessie Stark (Ella) the same year, and together they had one son and one daughter.

From 1921 to 1937 Gibb taught Arabic at the then School of Oriental Studies becoming a professor there in 1930. He served as an editor of the Encyclopaedia of Islam in this period. In 1937 Gibb succeeded D. S. Margoliouth as Laudian Professor of Arabic with a fellowship at St. John's College at Oxford, and remained there for 18 years. Gibb's "Mohammedanism", published in 1949, became the basic text used by Western students of Islam for a generation.Fact|date=August 2008

In 1955, Gibb became the James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and University Professor at Harvard University. The latter, a rare title, is conferred on select scholars "working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross the conventional boundaries of the specialties."Fact|date=August 2008 Later, he became director of Harvard's Center For Middle Eastern Studies, and in this capacity he became a leader of the movement in American universities to set up centres of regional studies, bringing together teachers, researchers and students in different disciplines to study the culture and society of a region of the world. A library at Harvard, the Gibb Islamic Seminar Library, is named in his honor.

Bibliography

* "Arabic Literature - An Introduction" (1926), also (1963), Clarendon Press.
* "Ibn Batuta, 1304-1377" (1929), ( _ar. Tuhfat al-'anzar fi ghara'ib al-'amsar), English translation by Gibb.
* "Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354" (1929), translated and selected with an introduction and notes, R. M. McBride. ISBN 8120608097
* [http://nobsnews.blogspot.com/1993/10/geneses-of-civilizations.html#gibb "Note by Professor H. A. R. Gibb"] (1939), from Arnold J. Toynbee, "A Study of History", Part I. "C" I ("b") "Annex I", p. 400-02.
* "Modern Trends in Islam" (1947).
* "Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey" (1949) retitled "Islam: An Historical Survey" (1980), Oxford.:* [http://www.bible.ca/islam/library/Gibb/koran.htm Online Chapter The Koran] :* [http://www.bible.ca/islam/library/Gibb/sharia.htm Online Chapter The Sharia]
* "Islamic Society and the West" with Harold Bowen (vol. 1 1950, vol. 2 1957).
* "Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam" (1953), edited with J. H. Kramers, Brill.
* "The Encyclopaedia of Islam" (1954- ), new ed. Edited by a number of leading orientalists, including Gibb, under the patronage of the International Union of Academies. Leiden: Brill, along with that edited by J. H. Kramers, and E. Levi-Provençal.
* "Islamic Biographical Literature," (1962) in "Historians of the Middle East", eds. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, Oxford U. Press.
* "Studies on the Civilization of Islam" (1982), Princeton U. Press.

ources

* Albert Hourani, " [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31143 Gibb, Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen (1895–1971)] ", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 6 Aug 2008.

Persondata
NAME=Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Scottish orientalist
DATE OF BIRTH=2 January 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH=Alexandria, Egypt
DATE OF DEATH=1971
PLACE OF DEATH=