Peter Malcolm Holt, FBA (28 November 1918 – 2 November 2006) was a historian of the Middle East and

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

., British Academy, 2008 He was generally known as P. M. Holt.

Biography

The son of a Unitarian minister, Holt attended

Lord Williams's School Lord Williams's School is a co-educational secondary school with academy status in Thame, Oxfordshire, England. The school takes children from the age of 11 through to the age of 18. The school has approximately 2,200 pupils. In September 2001 ...

Thame Thame is a market town and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England, about east of the city of Oxford and southwest of Aylesbury. It derives its name from the River Thame which flows along the north side of the town and forms part of the ...

, Oxfordshire, and studied history at

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

. He then obtained a diploma of education and worked as a secondary school teacher in

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ') was a condominium (international law), condominium of the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereig ...

1941–53 (initially at

Gordon Memorial College Gordon Memorial College was an educational institution in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It was built between 1899 and 1902 as part of Lord Kitchener's wide-ranging educational reforms. Named for General Charles George Gordon of the British army, who wa ...

, the country's leading school), and then as Government Archivist and part-time lecturer at the University College of Khartoum 1952–55. During these years he became proficient in Arabic. Holt completed a

DPhil 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 ...

at Oxford on “The personal rule of the Khalifa Abdallahi al-Ta'aishi”, on the second ruler of the Sudanese

Mahdist State The Mahdist State, also known as Mahdist Sudan or the Sudanese Mahdiyya, was a state based on a religious and political movement launched in 1881 by Muammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah (later Muhammad Mahdi, al-Mahdi) against ...

''(1885-1899),'' initially under the supervision of H.A.R. Gibb. He taught at SOAS, the University of London as Lecturer from 1955 to 1982, then Reader, then Professor of Arab History, and finally Professor of the Near and Middle East from 1975 to 1982.

Research

Holt was the per-eminent historian of the Sudan. His first book, ''The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881–1898. A Study of its Origins, Development, and Overthrow'' (1958) was based on his DPhil thesis, and was followed by ''A modern history of the Sudan, from the Funj Sultanate to the present day'' (1965, later republished as ''The history of the Sudan from the coming of Islam to the present day)''. He then expanded his interests geographically, publishing ''Egypt and the Fertile Crescent 1516-1922, A Political History'' in 1966). He then added a second field, becoming an authority on the

Mamluk Sultanate The Mamluk Sultanate (), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries, with Cairo as its capital. It was ruled by a military caste of mamluks ...

, (1250-1517), publishing ''The memoirs of a Syrian prince: Abu'l-Fidā, Sultan of Ḥamāh (672-732)'' (1983) and ''Early Mamluk diplomacy (1260 - 1290): Treaties of Baybars and Qalāwūn with Christian rulers'' (1995). A general history of the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

, ''The Age of the Crusades, The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517'' was published in 1986. Holt was also one of the founding editors of The Cambridge History of Islam, along with

Ann K. S. Lambton Ann Katharine Swynford Lambton, (8 February 1912 – 19 July 2008), usually known as A.K.S. Lambton or "Nancy" Lambton, was a British historian, expert on medieval and early modern Persian history, Persian language, Islamic political theory, ...

and

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 ...

. His work on Sudan was carried forward by one of his PhD students, Seán O'Fahey.

Works

*Holt, P.M., ''The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881–1898. A Study of its Origins, Development, and Overthrow'' (Oxford, 1958). *Holt, P.M., ''A modern history of the Sudan, from the Funj Sultanate to the present day'' (London, 1965). *Holt, P. M., ''Egypt and the Fertile Crescent 1516-1922, A Political History'' (London, 1966). *Holt, P. M., ''Studies in the History of the Near East'' (London, 1973). *Holt, P. M., ''Cambridge History of Islam'' (Cambridge, 1978). *Holt, P. M., ''The memoirs of a Syrian prince : Abu'l-Fidā, Sultan of Ḥamāh (672-732)'' (Wiesbaden, 1983) *Holt, P. M., ''The Age of the Crusades, The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517'' (London, 1986). *Holt, P. M., ''Early Mamluk diplomacy (1260 - 1290): Treaties of Baybars and Qalāwūn with Christian rulers'' (Leiden 1995). *Holt, P. M., ''The Crusader States and Their Neighbours, 1098-1291'' (Pearson 2004).

References

HOLT, Prof. Peter Malcolm
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2015; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 1918 births 2006 deaths People educated at Lord Williams's School Alumni of University College, Oxford Historians of the Middle East Academics of SOAS University of London 20th-century British historians Fellows of the British Academy {{UK-historian-stub