Alfred Guillaume was an Arabist

Arabist

This is an article about the western scholars known as Arabists, not the political movement Pan-Arabism.An Arabist is someone normally from outside the Arab World who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and Arab culture, and often Arabic literature.-Origins:Arabists began in medieval...

 and Islamic scholar

Islamic studies

In a Muslim context, Islamic studies can be an umbrella term for all virtually all of academia, both originally researched and as defined by the Islamization of knowledge...

.

Career

Guillaume took up Arabic after studying Theology and Oriental Languages at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. In the First World War he served in France and then in the Arab Bureau

Arab Bureau

The Arab Bureau was a section of the Cairo Intelligence Department during the First World War. According to a Committee of Imperial Defence paper from January 7, 1916 the Arab Bureau was established to "harmonise British political activity in the Near East...[and] keep the Foreign Office, the India...

 in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. He was ordained when he returned to England.

He became Professor of Arabic and the Head of the Department of the Near and Middle East in the School of Oriental and African Studies

School of Oriental and African Studies

The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...

, in the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. He was later Visiting Professor of Arabic at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, New Jersey.

During the Second World War the British Council

British Council

The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...

 invited him to accept a visiting professorship at the American University of Beirut

American University of Beirut

The American University of Beirut is a private, independent university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionaries in 1866...

 where he greatly enlarged his circle of Muslim friends. The Arab Academy of Damascus and the Royal Academy of Baghdad honored him by electing him to their number, and the University of Istanbul chose him as their first foreign lecturer on Christian and Islamic theology.

Works

He was best known as the author of Islam, published by Penguin Books

Penguin Books

Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

, and as co-author, with Sir Thomas Arnold

Thomas Walker Arnold

Sir Thomas Walker Arnold was an eminent British orientalist and historian of Islamic art who taught at MAO College, Aligarh Muslim University, then Aligarh College, and Government College University, Lahore. He was a friend of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, and wrote his famous book "The preaching of Islam"...

, of The Legacy of Islam, which has been translated into several languages. He also translated Ibn Ishaq

Ibn Ishaq

Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...

's "Sirah Rasul Allah", published as The Life of Muhammad. A translation of Ishaq's "Sirat Rasul Allah".

• The Life of Muhammad. A translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah ISBN 019636034X Oxford 1955
• The traditions of Islam : an introduction to the study of the Hadith literature ISBN 978-0836992601 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924
• (with Thomas Arnold) The Legacy of Islam ISBN 978-8171512393 Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1931
• Kitāb Nihājat al-iqdām fī ʿilm al-kalām / Abu-ʾl-Fatḥ Muḥammad Ibn-ʿAbd-al-Karīm aš- Šahrastānī Oxford University Press, 1934
• Prophecy and Divination Among the Hebrews and Other Semites London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938
• Hebrew and Arabic lexicography Leiden: Brill, 1965
• Islam ISBN 978-0140135558 Hammondsworth, Penguin 1954