Abdul Latif Tibawi was a
Palestinian historian and educator. He was born in 1910 in
Tayibe and attended Tulkarm High School. During his studies in 1925, he won a prize for best article in
Al-Hilal magazine. In 1929, he obtained a BA in History and Arabic Literature from the
American University of Beirut (AUB) . He was District Inspector in
Jaffa,
Lydda and
Gaza from 1935 to 1941 and in 1948, he received his PhD in Philosophy from the
University of London, the same year as the
Nakba. Between 1960 and 1963, he researched at
Harvard and prepared his work titled
American Interests in Syria 1800-1901. He won the Monroe Award for his study titled,
The Islamic Pious Foundations in Jerusalem (1969). He was appointed professor of Islamic education at the Institute of Education, University of London, and remained in this position until his retirement in 1977. He taught at the University of London and
Harvard and published numerous books and articles in history, literature and education in both English and
Arabic. His work is often seen as part of a broader intellectual resistance to British imperial narratives about Palestine and the Arab world and has been translated into Arabic, Persian, French, German and Italian. Tibawi was appointed Lecturer in Comparative Education at the
Institute of Education (IOE) at
University College London (UCL) and retired in 1977. After his retirement, many of his friends including Dr. Habibulhak Nadwi, published writings dedicated to him, titled
Arabic and Islamic Garland, which contained more than thirty articles by various scholars from many countries of the world. Before his death, Tibawi established a fund for Palestinian postgraduate students at the
School of Oriental and African Studies. Among the more than fifty articles he published in various newspapers and journals in the last twenty years of his life, two are particularly important. In
Critiques of English Speaking Orientalists and their Approach to Islam and the Arabs and
On the Orientalists Again, Tibawi criticized the views of
Orientalism on Islam and criticized
Alfred Guillaume for his English translation of Muslim historiographer
Ibn Ishaq’s work,
The Life of Muhammad (London 1955). He was also critical of historians like R. V. Sergeant and
B. Lewis on various issues. On October 16, 1981, Abdul Latif Tibawi died in a car accident in
London. ==Select bibliography==