Hugh N. Kennedy

Kennedy was born on 22 October 1947 in Hythe, Kent, England.[1] He spent a year 1965-6 studying at the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies at Shemlan in Lebanon; he had received a scholarship from the British Foreign Office.[2] From 1966 to 1969, he studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge.[1][2] He studied Arabic and Persian for Part 1 of the Tripos (achieving a 2:1), and history for Part II (achieving a first).[2] He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1969.[1] From 1969 to 1972, he was a postgraduate student within the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge.[2] He completed his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1978 with a doctoral thesis titled Politics and the political élite in the early Abbasid Caliphate.[3]

In 1972, Kennedy joined the University of St Andrews as a Lecturer in Mediaeval History. He was promoted to Reader in 1990.[2] He was appointed Professor of Middle Eastern History in 1997.[1][2] He held a number of academic administration appointments at St Andrews: he was Deputy Head of the School of History from 1992 to 1998, and was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1995 to 1998.[2]

In 2007, he left the University of St Andrews to join the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.[1] He was appointed Professor of Arabic at SOAS.[2] From January 2015 to January 2018, he is leading a project at SOAS titled Economic integration and social change in the Islamic world system, 800-1000CE; it is being funded by the Leverhulme Trust.[4]

Among his research topics is the History of the Islamic Middle East, Islamic Archaeology and Muslim Spain.[5]

In 1970, Kennedy married Hilary Wybar. Together they have had four children; one son and three daughters. One of their daughters has pre-deceased her parents.[1]

In 2000, Kennedy was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).[2][6] In July 2012, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).[7][8] He is also a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society (FRAS).[2]

• 1981, The Early Abbasid Caliphate; a Political History (Barnes and Noble, London and New York). (ISBN 978-0389200185)
• 1986, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, 600–1050 (London, Longman) (ISBN 0-582-49312-9)
• 1990, Al-Mansur and al-Mahdi; being an annotated translation of vol. xxix of the History of al-Tabari (Albany, State University of New York Press) (ISBN 0-7914-0142-1)
• 1994, Crusader Castles (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) (ISBN 0 521 42068 7)
• 1996, Muslim Spain and Portugal: a political history of al–Andalus (London, Longman) (ISBN 0 582 299683)
• 2001, The Armies of the Caliphs: military and society in the early Islamic State (London, Routledge) (ISBN 0 415 25092 7)
• 2001, Revised ed. of Crusader Castles (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) (ISBN 0 521 79913 9)
• 2003, Mongols, Huns and Vikings: Nomads at War (London, Cassell) (ISBN 0 304 35292 6)
• 2004, The Court of the Caliphs (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson) (ISBN 0 297 83000 7)
• 2006, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East (Variorum Collected Studies Series) (Farnham, Ashgate Publishing Limited) (ISBN 0 754 65909 7)
• 2004, Revised ed. of Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, 600–1050. (London, Longman) (ISBN 0 582 40525 4)
• 2005, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty (Cambridge, MA, Da Capo Press) (ISBN 0 306 81435 8)
• 2007, The Great Arab Conquests. How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In. (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson) (ISBN 0 297 84657 4)
• 2016, The Caliphate: A Pelican Introduction. (London, Penguin) (ISBN 978-0141981406)