George Abraham Makdisi was born in Detroit, Michigan, on May 15, 1920. He died in Media, Pennsylvania, on September 6, 2002. He was a professor of

oriental studies Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern stu ...

. He studied first in the United States, and later in Lebanon. He then graduated in 1964 in France from the

Paris-Sorbonne University Paris-Sorbonne University (also known as Paris IV; french: Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV) was a public research university in Paris, France, active from 1971 to 2017. It was the main inheritor of the Faculty of Humanities of the Universit ...

. He taught in the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and

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 highe ...

before reaching the University of Pennsylvania in 1973, as a professor of Arabic. Here he remained until his retirement in 1990, when he held the post of director of the Department of Oriental Studies. He became a Professor Emeritus of "Arab and Islamic Studies" in the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He was particularly interested in issues around higher education in the world. He published an Arabic edition of the work by IBN AQIL, ''Al-Wāḍiḥ fi Usul al-fiqh'' (The Obvious in the Principles of Jurisprudence), in three volumes, published in

Stuttgart, Germany Stuttgart (; Swabian German, Swabian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fe ...

by Steiner Verlag and reprinted by

Klaus Schwarz Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas. Notable persons whose family name is Klaus *Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American base ...

. He published an Arabic edition of a portion of IBN AQIL's huge work, ''Kitab al-Funun'', 2 vols., printed in Beirut 1970-71. He was a member and honorary member of numerous professional scientific organizations. Among other honors, he was twice a

Guggenheim fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. In 1977, he served as the President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, now based in Tucson, Arizona, United States.

Selected works

*''The Rise of Colleges'', 1981 *''The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West: With Special Reference to Scholasticism'', 1990:

Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh University Press is a scholarly publisher of academic books and journals, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. History Edinburgh University Press was founded in the 1940s and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh ...

*''Paths to the Middle East Ten Scholars Look Back,'' 1993 * Editor, ''Arabic and Islamic Studies in honor of Hamilton A.R. Gibb'', 1965: Leiden, Brill. * ''Ibn `Aqil: Religion and Culture in Classical Islam'', 1997:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Makdisi, George 1920 births 2002 deaths Paris-Sorbonne University alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Michigan faculty Harvard University faculty American expatriates in Lebanon American expatriates in France