Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb (2 January 1895 – 22 October 1971), known as H. A. R. Gibb, was a Scottish historian and Orientalist.

Early life and education

Gibb was born on Wednesday, 2 January 1895, in

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

, Egypt, to Alexander Crawford Gibb, the son of John Gibb of Gladstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, and Jane Ann Gardner of

Greenock Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh of barony, burgh within the Counties of Scotland, historic ...

, Scotland. His father died in 1897, following which his mother took up a teaching position in Alexandria. Hamilton returned to Scotland for his formal education at the age of five: first, four years of private tuition, after which he started at the

Royal High School, Edinburgh The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh is a co-educational school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It serves 1,200 pupils drawn from four feeder primar ...

in 1904, staying until 1912. His education was focused on

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

, though it included French, German, and

physical sciences Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences". Definition Phy ...

. In 1912, Hamilton matriculated at

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, joining the new honours program in

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

(

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, and

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

). Hamilton's mother died in 1913 while he was studying in his second year at university. He had two brothers, Euston Gibb and Archibald Gibb.(family knowledge)

Military service

During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Gibb broke off his studies at the

to serve for the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

of the United Kingdom in France from February 1917 and for several months in Italy as a

commissioned officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent context ...

. He was commissioned at the age of 19. He was awarded a "war privilege"

undergraduate Master of Arts The degree of Master of Arts (MA; , ) in Scotland is an undergraduate degree. The degree can be either a three-year general or four-year ''Honours degree'' in humanities or social sciences, awarded by one of several institutions. Chiefly, the ...

(MA) because of his service until the

Armistice of 11 November 1918 The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea, and air in World War I between the Entente and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices ...

Academic career

After the war Gibb studied Arabic at

SOAS University of London SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...

, gaining his

postgraduate Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...

MA in 1922. His MA thesis, published later by the

Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

as a monograph, was on the

Muslim conquest of Transoxiana The Muslim conquest of Transoxiana or Arab conquest of Transoxiana were the 7th and 8th century conquests, by Umayyad and Abbasid Arabs, of Transoxiana, the land between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) rivers, a part of Central A ...

. From 1921 to 1937 Gibb taught Arabic literature at the then School of Oriental Studies, guided by Professor

Thomas Arnold Thomas Arnold (13 June 1795 – 12 June 1842) was an English educator and historian. He was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement. As headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, he introduced several reforms that were wide ...

, becoming a professor there in 1930."H.A.R. Gibb," ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

'', 3rd Edition (1970–1979). During this time he was an editor of the ''

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published in ...

''. Among his students was the British Arabist and Reader in Arabic,

James Heyworth-Dunne James Heyworth-Dunne (1904–1974) was a British orientalist. He studied Arabic literature under Sir H. A. R. Gibb in London in 1932, and became senior reader in Arabic at SOAS, University of London from 1928-1948. Under Gibb's direction he pub ...

. In 1937 Gibb succeeded

David Samuel Margoliouth David Samuel Margoliouth, FBA (; 17 October 1858, in London – 22 March 1940, in London) was an English orientalist. He was briefly active as a priest in the Church of England. He was Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford ...

Laudian Professor of Arabic The position of Laudian Professor of Arabic, now known as the Abdulaziz Saud AlBabtain Laudian Professor, at the University of Oxford was established in 1636 by William Laud, who at the time was Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Archbi ...

with a Fellowship at

St John's College, Oxford St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to pro ...

, where he stayed for eighteen years. In 1955, Gibb became the James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and University Professor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He became director of the Center for Middle East Studies in 1957, and retired in 1963. H. A. R. Gibb was one of the trustees of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial, an organisation which since 1905 has published the

Gibb Memorial Series The "E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series (abbreviation: GMS) is an orientalist book series with important works of Persian, Turkish and Arab history, literature, philosophy and religion, including many works in English translation. Some works were incl ...

Research

Gibb worked in three areas, Arabic literature and language, Islamic history and institutions, and Islam. After ''The Arab Conquests in Central Asia,'' his first major work was ''Arabic Literature – An Introduction'' (1926). His most important work on Islam was ''Modern Trends in Islam'' (1947) and ''Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey'' (1949), later republished as ''Islam: An Historical Survey''. One of his major late works was ''Studies on the Civilization of Islam'' (1962),

Personal life

Also in 1922 Gibb married Helen Jessie Stark. They had one son, Ian (1923–2005), and one daughter, Dorothy (1926–2006, now Dorothy Greenslade). Gibb died on 22 October 1971.

Associations

* Fellow of

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

Danish Academy Danish Academy is an independent organisation founded in 1960 by a circle of Danish intellectuals "to promote Danish esprit and language, especially within the field of literature". It has up to 20 members, currently 18, and is based at Rungstedl ...

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

* Honorary fellow of

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

* Member of Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo, Institut d'Egypte (Associate Member),

Arab Academy of Damascus Arab Academy of Damascus ( ar, مجمع اللغة العربية بدمشق) is the oldest academy regulating the Arabic language, established in 1918 during the reign of Faisal I of Syria. It is based in al-Adiliyah Madrasa and is modeled on the ...

(Honorary),

Iraqi Academy of Sciences The Iraqi Academy of Sciences (Arabic: المجمع العلمي العراقي) is an academy in Baghdad founded in 1948 in order to develop and regulate the Arabic language in Iraq and the Arab World. The Academy also has two other departments t ...

Bibliography

* ''Ottoman Poems Translated into English Verse in the Original Forms'' (1882), Trübner & Company. * ''A History of Ottoman Poetry'' (vol. 1 1900 - vol. 6 1909), Luzac and Company. * ''The Arab Conquests in Central Asia'' (1923), The Royal Asiatic Society. * ''Arabic Literature – An Introduction'' (1926), also (1963), Clarendon Press and (1974), Oxford University Press. * ''

Ibn Batuta Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah (, ; 24 February 13041368/1369),; fully: ; Arabic: commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Berber Maghrebi scholar and explorer who travelled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, largely in the Muslim wor ...

, 1304–1377'
''Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-I354
', trans. and selected by Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Roskeen (London: Routledge, 1929), ( ar, Tuhfat al-'anzar fi ghara'ib al-'amsar).
''Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354''
(1929), translated and selected with an introduction and notes, R. M. McBride.

(1939), from

Arnold J. Toynbee Arnold Joseph Toynbee (; 14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was an English historian, a philosopher of history, an author of numerous books and a research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and King's Colleg ...

, ''

A Study of History ''A Study of History'' is a 12-volume universal history by the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, published from 1934 to 1961. It received enormous popular attention but according to historian Richard J. Evans, "enjoyed only a brief vogue befo ...

'', 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.
Online Chapter The Koran

* ''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 Brill may refer to: Places * Brielle (sometimes "Den Briel"), a town in the western Netherlands * Brill, Buckinghamshire, a village in England * Brill, Cornwall, a small village to the west of Constantine, Cornwall, UK * Brill, Wisconsin, an un ...

. * ''

The Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published in ...

'' (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 Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near E ...

and P. M. Holt, Oxford U. Press. * ''Studies on the Civilization of Islam'' (1962), Princeton U. Press * ''The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades. Extracted and translated from the Chronicle of ibn al-Qalānisi'', Luzac & Company, London, 1932.

Citations

External links

Harvard Library: Gibb Islamic Seminar Library

Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb Papers, Harvard University ArchivesWorks by Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb
at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen 1895 births 1971 deaths 20th-century British historians People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Scottish Arabists Scottish orientalists Historians of Central Asia British Army personnel of World War I British expatriates in Egypt Fellows of St John's College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Harvard University faculty Historians of Islam Knights Bachelor People from Alexandria Royal Artillery officers Scottish expatriates in the United States Scottish scholars and academics Laudian Professors of Arabic Arabic–English translators