Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a British, Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

-based, Oxford-educated  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...

, writer, traveller and lecturer.

Mackintosh-Smith lives in an ancient tower house off the "Market of the Cows" in the old city of San'a, Yemen. He is the author of the Yemen: Travels in Dictionaryland (1997) and Yemen: The Unknown Arabia (2000). He is one of the foremost scholars of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battutah. Mackintosh-Smith has published a trilogy recounting his journeys in "the footnotes" of Ibn Battutah; Travels with A Tangerine (2001), The Hall of a Thousand Columns (2005) and Landfalls (2010). He has additionally written widely on subjects as broad as alabaster

Alabaster

Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals, when used as a material: gypsum and calcite . The former is the alabaster of the present day; generally, the latter is the alabaster of the ancients...

, the collection of frankincense

Frankincense

Frankincense, also called olibanum , is an aromatic resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia, particularly Boswellia sacra, B. carteri, B. thurifera, B. frereana, and B. bhaw-dajiana...

, the stories of M.R. James and the history of umbrella

Umbrella

An umbrella or parasol is a canopy designed to protect against rain or sunlight. The term parasol usually refers to an item designed to protect from the sun; umbrella refers to a device more suited to protect from rain...

s.

He presented a major BBC documentary series Travels with a Tangerine (2007) recounting his experiences tracing Ibn Battutah's fourteenth-century travels in the present day. He was featured in a documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 The English Sheik and the Yemeni Gentleman.

Mackintosh-Smith has won several awards: Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land, won the 1998 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award

Thomas Cook Travel Book Award

The Thomas Cook Travel Book Award originated as an initiative of Thomas Cook AG in 1980, with the aim of encouraging and rewarding the art of literary travel writing. The awards stopped in 2005...

. The Daily Telegraph has described him as "the sage of Sana'a."

External links

• Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah —John Murray, 2003. first part of trilogy following the footsteps of Ibn Battutah by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.
• The Hall of a Thousand Columns: Hindustan to Malabar with Ibn Battutah —John Murray, 2005. second part of trilogy by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.
• Landfalls: on the Edge of Islam with Ibn Battutah —John Murray, 2010. final part of trilogy by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.
• Moonglow from Underground — Saudi Aramco World article by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (May/June 1999).
• A Tangerine in Delhi — Saudi Aramco World article by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (March/April 2006).
• Mackintosh-Smith's official website
• Travels with Ibn Battutah, interview with Tim Mackintosh-Smith in www.theglobaldispatches.com