George Makdisi

George Abraham Makdisi was born in Detroit, Michigan May 15, 1920, and died in Media, Pennsylvania on 6 September 2002.^[1] He was a professor of orientalism who became a Professor Emeritus of "Arab and Islamic Studies" in the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He studied first in the United States and later in Lebanon, then graduated in 1964 in France from the Paris Sorbonne.

He taught in the University of Michigan and Harvard 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 was particularly interested in issues around higher education in the world. He published the work al-Wadih fi Usul al-fiqh (The Fundamentals of Principles of Jurisprudence) in three volumes, published in Stuttgart, Germany by Steiner Verlag.

He was an honorary and member of numerous professional scientific organizations.

Selected works

• The Rise of Colleges, 1981
• The Rise of Humanism, 1990

References