Irfan Arif Shahîd ( ; January 15, 1926 – November 9, 2016), also known as Erfan Arif Kawar ( ), was an American professor and scholar in the field of Oriental studies. Between 1982 and 2016, he was the Oman Professor of Arabic and Islamic Literature at Georgetown University. Shahîd also became a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2012.
Biography Shahîd was born in Nazareth, Mandatory Palestine, to a family of Palestinian Christians. He left in 1946 to attend St John's College, Oxford, where he studied classics and Greco-Roman history under the renowned British historian A. N. Sherwin-White.
He received his PhD from Princeton University in Arabic and Islamic Studies. His doctorate thesis was "Early Islam and Poetry" and his research was primarily focused on three major areas: the area where the Greco-Roman world, especially the Byzantine Empire, meets the Arabic and Islamic worlds in the late antique and medieval times; Islamic studies, particularly the Quran; and Arabic literature, especially classical and medieval Arabic poetry.
Selected works Rome and the Arabs: A Prolegomenon to the Study of Byzantium and the Arabs, 1984
Byzantium and the Arabs in The Fourth Century, 1984
Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century, 1989
Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume 1, part 1, 1995 Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume 1, part 2, 1995
Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume 2, Part 1, 2002 Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume 2, Part 2, 2010
Byzantium and the Semitic Orient Before the Rise of Islam (Collected Studies Series: No.Cs270), 1988
Omar Khayyám, the Philosopher-Poet of Medieval Islam, 1982
References
External links As enacted, S. 1483 is Private Law 536, 84th Congress (70 Stat. A18). "59 - Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill for the Relief of Irfan Kawar." , The American Presidency Project, Washington DC, 19 March 1956. Retrieved on 22 August 2015.