Alfred Guillaume

Alfred Guillaume (8 November 1888 – 30 November 1965) was a British Christian Arabist, scholar of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament and Islam.

Career Guillaume was born in Edmonton, Middlesex, the son of Alfred Guillaume. He took up Arabic after studying Theology and Oriental Languages at the Wadham College, Oxford. In the First World War, he served in France and then in the Arab Bureau in Cairo. Guillaume was a Christian and later ordained. and was also a professor of Hebrew from 1947 to 1955. In 1955, Guillaume served as president to the Society for Old Testament Study.

In 1916, he married Margaret Woodfield Leadbitter, daughter of Rev. William Oram Leadbitter, and they had two sons and two daughters. He died in Wallingford, Berkshire at age 77.

Works He was best known as the author of Islam, published by Penguin Books, and as co-author, with Sir Thomas Arnold, of The Legacy of Islam, in the Legacy series, which has been translated into several languages. He also translated Ibn Ishaq's "Sirah Rasul Allah", published as The Life of Muhammad. A translation of Ishaq's "Sirat Rasul Allah".

The Traditions of Islam: An Introduction to the Study of the Hadith literature (1924). Oxford: Clarendon Press. The Legacy of Islam (with Thomas Arnold) (1931). Oxford, Clarendon Press. Kitāb Nihājat al-iqdām fī ʿilm al-kalām / Abu-ʾl-Fatḥ Muḥammad Ibn-ʿAbd-al-Karīm aš- Šahrastānī (1934). Oxford University Press. Prophecy and Divination Among the Hebrews and Other Semites (Bampton Lectures) (1938). London: Hodder & Stoughton Islam (1954). Hammondsworth, Penguin. The Life of Muhammad (1955). Oxford University Press. Later editions include The Life of Muhammad (1967). Hebrew and Arabic lexicography (1965). Leiden: Brill.