Arthur Stanley Tritton (25 February 18818 November 1973) was a British

Arabist An Arabist is someone, often but not always from outside the Arab world, who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and culture (usually including Arabic literature). Origins Arabists began in medieval Muslim Spain, which lay on the ...

. He wrote a number of books on Islam and its history, and from 1938 to 1946 was Professor of Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Life

Tritton was born on 25 February 1881. His father was the senior pastor of a

Congregational church Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...

, but when Tritton was still young the family moved to Wandsworth. In 1900, he was admitted to Mansfield College, Oxford, where he studied theology. He later also studied briefly under

Julius Wellhausen Julius Wellhausen (17 May 1844 – 7 January 1918) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist. In the course of his career, he moved from Old Testament research through Islamic studies to New Testament scholarship. Wellhausen contributed to t ...

at the University of Göttingen. He taught at the Friends' Mission School in

Brummana Brummana ( ar, برمانا) is a town in the Matn District of the Mount Lebanon Governorate in Lebanon. It is located east of Beirut, overlooking the capital and the Mediterranean. Brummana has long been a summer destination for visitors and loca ...

in Lebanon, and then at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He received his

D. Litt. Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...

from Edinburgh in 1918. In 1921, he was appointed Professor of Arabic at

Aligarh University Aligarh Muslim University (abbreviated as AMU) is a public central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. Muhammadan Anglo-Orienta ...

in India, where he remained for the rest of the decade. In 1931, he was made Lecturer in Arabic at the School of Oriental Studies. Two years later, he was promoted to Reader, and in 1938 he succeeded H. A. R. Gibb as Professor of Arabic and Head of Department. In 1943, his popular introduction to the Arabic language was published in the Teach Yourself series. He retired in 1946, but continued to teach for a time as a part-time lecturer. He died on 8 November 1973, at the age of ninety-two.

Published works

Tritton wrote six books, all of which were published under the name A. S. Tritton. *''The Rise of the Imams of Sanaa'' (1925) *''The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects: A Critical Study of the Covenant of ‘Umar'' (1930)
''Teach Yourself Arabic''
(1943) *''Muslim Theology'' (1947) *''Islam: Belief and Practices'' (1951) *''Materials on Muslim Education in the Middle Ages'' (1957)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tritton, Arthur Stanley 1881 births 1973 deaths 20th-century British historians 20th-century linguists Academics of SOAS University of London Alumni of Mansfield College, Oxford British Arabists British orientalists British historians of Islam Linguists from the United Kingdom