Sami Moubayed (; born 16 July 1978) is a

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

historian and writer whose works cover the modern history of Damascus from the late Ottoman period until the creation of the

United Arab Republic The United Arab Republic (UAR; ) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 to 1971. It was initially a short-lived political union between Republic of Egypt (1953–1958), Egypt (including Occupation of the Gaza Strip by the United Ara ...

in 1958. In 2017, he co-founded the Damascus History Foundation, a non-governmental organization, aimed at preserving the archives of the ancient city of Damascus.

Biography

Sami Moubayed, a native of Damascus, studied at the Faculty of Political Science at the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...

(AUB). Moubayed, obtained his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

Middle East Studies Middle Eastern studies, sometimes referred to as Near Eastern studies, West Asian Studies or South Western Asian studies, is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, an ...

from the

University of Exeter The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of ...

, specializing in the founding years of the Syrian Republic. During his college years, Moubayed was mentored by Munir al-Ajlani, a parliamentarian and politician from the pre-Baath Era. His first book, ''The Politics of Damascus 1920–1946'', was published under Ajlani's supervision in 1998. In 2000, Moubayed joined the Arab Political Document Center at AUB and worked as a journalist with

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

-based '' The Daily Star''. Between 2005 and 2011, Moubayed taught at the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Kalamoon in Deir Atiyah, 88-km north of the capital Damascus, while serving on its Board of Trustees. Between January 2007 and December 2011, he was editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine. In 2012, he joined the

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the United States. Foun ...

in Beirut, serving as a scholar on Syria until early 2014. Sami Moubayed with US President Jimmy Carter - October 2010

Works

In 2004, along with Syrian web-designer Sahban Abd Rabbo, Moubayed co-founded www.syrianhistory.com, an online museum of Syrian history containing over 10,000 photographs, documents, and rare audiovisual material on Syria during the years 1900–2000. The website also contains unpublished audio clips from historical Syrian figures. Moubayed has written much about pre-Baath Syria and advocated for a political solution to the Syrian civil war. In 2016, was voted into the London-based

Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society (RHS), founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the H ...

Selected works

He is the author of several books on modern Syria, including: *''The Politics of Damascus 1920-1946,'' (Damascus, 1998) *''Damascus Between Democracy and Dictatorship,'' (Maryland, 2000) *''Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000,'' (Cune Press, 2005) *''Syria and the USA: From Wilson to Eisenhower,'' (IB Tauris, 2012) *''Under the Black Flag: At the Frontier of the New Jihad,'' (IB Tauris, 2015) *''Forgotten Tales from Damascus: Four Stories 1916-1936,'' (Arabic, Riad El Rayyes Books, Beirut 2016) *''East of the Grand Umayyad: Damascene Freemasonry 1868-1965,'' (Arabic, Riad El Rayyes Books, Beirut 2017) *''West of the Damascus Synagogue'' (Arabic, Riad El Rayyes Books, Beirut 2018) *''The Makers of Modern Syria 1918-1958: The rise and fall of Syrian Democracy 1918-1958'' (IB Tauris, London 2018) In 2015, he compiled the correspondences of Syrian nationalist Abdul Rahman Shahbandar and Prime Minister Hasan al-Hakim, originally written during the years 1926–1936. In 2018, he edited and compiled the memoirs of Husni al-Barazi, Syria's Prime Minister during World War II, and Ahmad al-Sharabati, Syria's defense minister during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

Biography

Works

Selected works

References

External links