Hugh Nigel Kennedy (born 22 October 1947) is a Britishmedievalist and academic. He specialises in the history of the earlyIslamicMiddle East,Muslim Iberia and theCrusades. From 1997 to 2007, he wasProfessor of Middle Eastern History at theUniversity of St Andrews. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Arabic atSOAS, University of London.

Kennedy was born on 22 October 1947 inHythe,Kent, England.^[1] He spent a year 1965-6 studying at theMiddle East Centre for Arab Studies atShemlan in Lebanon; he had received ascholarship from theBritish Foreign Office.^[2] From 1966 to 1969, he studied atPembroke College, Cambridge.^[1][2] He studied Arabic and Persian for Part 1 of theTripos (achieving a2:1), and history for Part II (achieving afirst).^[2] He graduated from theUniversity of Cambridge with aBachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1969.^[1]

From 1969 to 1972, he was apostgraduate student within the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge.^[2] He completed hisDoctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1978 with adoctoral thesis titledPolitics and the political élite in the early Abbasid Caliphate.^[3]

In 1972, Kennedy joined theUniversity of St Andrews as aLecturer inMediaeval History. He was promoted toReader in 1990.^[2] He was appointed Professor of Middle Eastern History in 1997.^[1][2] He held a number ofacademic administration appointments at St Andrews: he was Deputy Head of the School of History from 1992 to 1998, and wasDean of theFaculty of Arts from 1995 to 1998.^[2]

In 2007, he left the University of St Andrews to join theSchool 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 was leading a project at SOAS titledEconomic integration and social change in the Islamic world system, 800-1000CE; it is being funded by theLeverhulme Trust.^[4]

Among his research topics is theHistory of the Islamic Middle East, Islamic Archaeology andMuslim Iberia.^[5]

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

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

• 1981,The EarlyAbbasid Caliphate: aPolitical History (Barnes and Noble, London and New York). (ISBN 978-0389200185)
• 1986,The Prophet and the Age of theCaliphates, 600–1050 (London,Longman) (ISBN 0-582-49312-9)
• 1990, (Editor and translator)Al-Mansur andal-Mahdi; being an annotated translation of vol. xxix of theHistory 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 ofAl-Andalus (London,Longman) (ISBN 0 582 299683)
• 1998,Egypt as a Province in theIslamic Caliphate, 641–868 //The Cambridge History of Egypt: Vol. 1: Islamic Egypt / edited by Carl F. Petry (Cambridge,Cambridge University Press)ISBN 978 0 521 47137 4
• 2001,The Armies of theCaliphs: military and society in the early Islamic State (London,Routledge) (ISBN 0 415 25092 7)
• 2001,TheHistoriography ofIslamicEgypt, c. 950—1800, editor (Leiden and Boston:Brill) (ISBN 978-9-004-11794-5)
• 2003,Mongols,Huns andVikings: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,TheByzantine and Early IslamicNear East (Variorum Collected Studies Series) (Farnham,Ashgate Publishing) (ISBN 0 754 65909 7)
• 2004, Revised ed. ofProphet and the Age of the Caliphates, 600–1050 (Harlow,Longman) (ISBN 0 582 40525 4)
• 2005,WhenBaghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's GreatestDynasty (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)
• 2008,The Muslims in Europe //The New Cambridge Medieval History: Vol. 2: c.700 — c.900 (Second ed.) / edited byRosamond McKitterick (Cambridge,Cambridge University Press)ISBN 978-0-521-36292-4
• 2010,The Late ʿAbbasid Pattern, 945–1050 //The New Cambridge History of Islam: Vol. 1: The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries / edited byChase F. Robinson (Cambridge,Cambridge University Press)ISBN 978 0 521 83823 8
• 2013,Warfare and Poetry in the Middle East (London,Bloomsbury Publishing)ISBN 0 857 73437 7
• 2013,Crisis and Continuity at theAbbasid Court, with Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El Cheikh and Letizia Osti (Leiden,Brill Publishers)ISBN 978 90 04 25271 4
• 2016,Caliphate: The History of an Idea. (New York,Basic Books)ISBN 978 0 465 09439 4
• 2016,The Caliphate: A Pelican Introduction. (London,Penguin) (ISBN 978-0141981406)
• 2020,The Rise and Fall of the Early ʿAbbāsid Political and Military Elite //Transregional and Regional Elites – Connecting the Early Islamic Empire (Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East, vol. 36) / edited by Hannah-Lena Hagemann,Stefan Heidemann (Berlin,Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG)ISBN 978 3 110 66656 4
• 2022, (Editor and translator)History of the Arab Invasions : the Conquest and Administration of Empire (London:I.B. Tauris) (ISBN 978-0-755-63743-0)
• 2023,Land and Trade in Early Islam: The Economy of the Islamic Middle East 750-1050 CE, editor with Fanny Bessard (Oxford University Press)ISBN 978-0-198-86308-3

• 1947 births
• Living people
• People from Hythe, Kent
• Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
• Historians of the Crusades
• Scholars of medieval Islamic history
• Academics of the University of St Andrews
• Academics of SOAS University of London
• Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
• Fellows of the British Academy
• Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from May 2017
• Use British English from May 2017
• Articles with hCards