Laurence Frederic Rushbrook Williams,CBE, FRSA (1890–1978) was a British historian and civil servant who spent part of his working life in India, and had an abiding interest in Eastern culture.[1]
Williams was an Examination Fellow ofAll Souls' College,Oxford, between 1914 and 1921.[2][3] He built up a school ofMughal studies at theUniversity of Allahabad,[4] where he worked as professor of Modern Indian History between 1914 and 1920.[1] He was briefly Eastern Services Director of theBBC, and also worked on the editorial staff ofThe Times (London) between 1944 and 1955.[1] He acted as a government advisor on Middle East and Asian affairs,[5] and contributed to publications like theRoyal Central Asian SocietyJournal and theEncyclopædia Britannica.[4]
He became interested inSufism through his contact withSirdar Ikbal Ali Shah and later edited an anthology of contributions to a symposium in honor of the work of the notedSufi author,Idries Shah.[6]
Williams wrote several works on India, Asia and the Middle East, among them the following:
Pakistan Under Challenge
What About India?
The State of Israel
India in 1921-22: A report prepared for presentation to Parliament in accordance with the requirements of the 26th Section of the Government of India Act
An Empire Builder of the Sixteenth Century: A Summary Account of the Political Career of Zahir-Ud-Din Muhammad, Surnamed Babur (1918)
Ethnic diversity in India
The black hills: Kutch in history and legend: a study in Indian local loyalties
Handbook for Travellers in India, Pakistan and Nepal
^abWilliams, L.F. Rushbrook, editor (1974).Sufi Studies: East and West, E.P.Dutton & Co., p. 259.ISBN0-525-47368-8.
^McLeod, John (1999).Sovereignty, Power, Control: Politics in the State of Western India, 1916-1947.Brill Academic Publishers. p. 242.ISBN90-04-11343-6.
^Williams, L.F. Rushbrook, editor (1974).Sufi Studies: East and West, E.P.Dutton & Co., p. 18-19; 259.ISBN0-525-47368-8.
