Kamal Salibi

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Kamal Suleiman Salibi (Arabic كمال سليمان الصليبي) (born in Beirut, [1929]) is Emeritus Professor at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Department of History and Archaeology, and Honorary President (formerly, founding Director) of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Jordan.

A Protestant from the village of Bhamdoun (Lebanon), he initially studied at the Prep School in Beirut (now International College) completed a BA in History from AUB and then moved to the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) where he earned his PhD under the supervision of Professor Bernard Lewis.

His dissertation was on Maronite historians of Mount Lebanon. After his graduation from SOAS, he published his first book, The Modern History of Lebanon, and joined AUB first as a librarian and then as a professor of history in the department of History and Archaeology where he joined other famous historians such as Nicholas Ziadeh and Zein Zein. Salibi eventually became one of the pillars of the department, mentoring, training and supervising students such as Abdul-Rahim Abu-Husayn, a known expert in Ottoman history.

In 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Salibi was finalizing his book, The Bible Came from Arabia, which was originally published in German since no anglo-saxon publisher was willing to endorse such a controversial book. He subsequently wrote a series of works on biblical theories using the same etymological and geographic methodology for his arguments. Meanwhile, he wrote 2 other books on the modern history of Lebanon and Jordan.

Since his retirement in 1997, Salibi has been dedicating his time to the Jordanian Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, which he had earlier helped to found and became its director. In 2004, Salibi ended his tenure at the Jordanian institute and has been supervising since then the Druze Heritage Foundation.

Contents

[edit] Salibi's theory that the Old Testament refers to events in West Arabia

Kamal Salibi has written three books advocating the controversial "Israel in Arabia" theory. In this view, the placenames of the Hebrew Bible actually allude to places in south-west Arabia; many of them were later reinterpreted to refer to places in Palestine when the Hasmonean kingdom was established by Simon Maccabaeus in the second century BC.

The (literally) central identification of the theory is that the geographical feature referred to as הירדן, the “Jordan”, which is usually taken to refer to the Jordan River, although never actually described as a “river” in the Hebrew text, actually means the great West Arabian Escarpment, the Sarawat Mountains. The area of ancient Israel is then identified with the land on either side of the southern section of the escarpment that is, the southern Hejaz and 'Asir, from Ta’if down to the border with Yemen. Salibi finds hundreds of correspondences between place-names in the Bible and towns and villages still extant in this area.

It is claimed that Salibi was able in this book to resolve many mysteries and contradictions in the modern view of the history of pre-Islamic Semitic groups[citation needed].

The theory has not been widely accepted anywhere, and several academic reviewers (Beeston, Hammond, Parfitt) criticised Cape for having accepted “The Bible Came from Arabia” for publication. His ideas have also been widely misunderstood and distorted, in particular as regards the early history of Palestine. Salibi never disputes the general view, established by the epigraphic evidence, that Palestine was populated by speakers of Hebrew, or a language very like Hebrew, from an early date. Furthermore since there was undoubtedly cultural contact with West Arabia it is likely that many of these people were Jews, however that term is defined. He shares the view, however, of such scholars as Thomas L. Thompson that there is a severe mismatch between the Biblical narrative and the archaeological findings in Palestine. But whereas Thompson’s explanation is to discount the Bible as literal history, Salibi’s is to locate the centre of Jewish culture further south.

His theory has been both attacked and supported for its supposed implications for modern political affairs, although Salibi himself has made no such connection. For example Tudor Parfitt (cited below) wrote “It is dangerous because Salibi’s ideas have all sorts of implications, not least in terms of the legitimacy of the State of Israel”. Since the theory casts no doubt on the existence, location or legitimacy of the Hasmonean kingdom, nor rewrites in any way the history of Palestine in the last 2200 years or more, it can only have that implication for those who take literally the divine award of the Promised Land to Abraham and his successors.

The location of the Promised Land is discussed at length in chapter 15 of “The Bible Came from Arabia”. The description there is of an extensive tract of land, substantially larger than Palestine, in south west Arabia. It includes a very varied landscape, ranging from well-watered mountain-tops via fertile valleys and foothills to lowland deserts. There are deposits of iron, copper, lead, titanium, tungsten, nickel and possibly gold. It includes Saudi Arabia’s highest mountain and its only forest. In the southern part of the country there are recently-active volcanoes, near to which are, presumably, the buried remains of Sodom and Gomorrah. It has a rich flora and fauna, with valleys famed for their honey-bees and ample grazing land, so that one can truly speak of “a land that floweth with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8-17 etc. etc.)

[edit] Works

  • The Modern History of Lebanon, Caravan Books, 1965
  • Crossroads to Civil War, Lebanon 1958-1976, Caravan Books, 1976
  • Syria Under Islam, Empire On Trial 634-1097, Caravan Books, 1977
  • A History of Arabia, Caravan Books, 1980
  • The Bible Came from Arabia, London, Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1985
  • Secrets of the Bible People, London, Saqi Books, 1988
  • Who Was Jesus?: Conspiracy in Jerusalem,London, I.B. Tauris, 1988
  • Maronite Historians of Mediaeval Lebanon, Beirut, Naufal Group, 1991
  • A House of Many Mansions - The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, I.B. Tauris, 1993
  • (as editor, with Yusuf Khoury) The Missionary Herald, Reports From Northern Iraq 1833-1870, Amman, RIIS, 1997
  • The Historicity of Biblical Israel, London, NABU Publications, 1998
  • The Modern History of Jordan, London, I.B. Tauris, 1998
  • (as editor) The Druze: Realities & Perceptions, Druze Heritage Foundation, 2005

[edit] External links

[edit] References on his theory of Jewish history

Al-Ahram weekly, a major Egyptian publication, briefly alluded to it [1]

Some critical reviews:

Supportive review:

  • Salamé-Sarkis, H., "Et si la Bible venait d'Arabie?", Berytus, Beirut 1985 XXXIII pp. 143-165

Books based on the “Bible from Arabia” theory:

Languages