Elias Shoufani
Palestinian scholar and politician (1932–2013)
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Elias Shoufani (Arabic: إلياس شوفاني; 1932–26 January 2013) was a Palestinian author and historian whose studies were mostly about the history of Islam and the Israeli affairs. He was one of the leading Arab scholars in the latter topic.[1] He was a member of the Fatah movement until 1983 when he joined the dissident group in Damascus, becoming part of the Fatah Uprising.
1932
Elias Shoufani | |
|---|---|
إلياس شوفاني | |
| Born | Elias Shukri Shoufani 1932 |
| Died | 26 January 2013 (aged 80–81) Damascus, Syria |
| Alma mater | |
| Years active | 1960s–1980s |
Political party | Fatah (until 1983) |
| Academic background | |
| Thesis | Al-Riddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia (1968) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History |
Sub-discipline | History of Islam |
| Institutions | |
Early life and education
Shoufani was born in Mi'ilya in the Galilee in 1932.[2][3] His father, Shukri, was a community leader in Mi'ilya which was a Christian Arab village.[4][5] Elias had two brothers, Naim and Muhanna.[6] The family owned a flour mill in the Wadi al-Qarn stream.[5][6]
Their home in Mi'ilya was demolished by the Israel Defense Forces in 1948.[4][6] The Israeli soldiers killed Nimr, the dog of the family, who was trying to protect the house.[6] Elias and his family had to leave Mi'ilya after this incident on 30 October 1948.[5]
Shoufani graduated from the Teachers' Institute in Jaffa in 1949.[7] He received a degree from the Hebrew University in 1962.[7] He obtained a master's degree in 1965 and a PhD in Islamic studies in 1968 from Princeton University.[7]
Career and activities
Shoufani worked as a teacher from 1949 to 1951.[7] He worked at the Georgetown University and then at the University of Maryland, College Park as a faculty member between 1967 and 1972.[7][8] In the latter he worked as an associate professor of history.[1][9] He left his teaching post and settled in Beirut in 1972.[2] There he worked at the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) as a translator and was named as the head of the IPS's research department in 1973 which he held until 1982.[7] He also worked for the Palestine Liberation Organization Center in Beirut.[10] He became a member of the Fatah's Revolutionary Council in 1980.[7]
Shoufani left Beirut in 1982 when the Palestinian revolutionaries was forced to leave Lebanon.[2] He settled in Damascus, Syria, and continued to work for the IPS.[7] He became a member of the dissident group, known as Fatah Intifada, against the Fatah leadership.[7] However, he left the group and focused on his studies.[7]
Work
Shoufani is one of the Palestinian scholars who analysed the causes and outcomes of the Nakba.[11] He published books and articles on the history of the Middle East and Palestine. One of his books is Al-Riddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia (1973) which was an extended version of his PhD thesis.[8][12] He published an autobiography in Arabic in 2009.[13] He translated Mudhakkirāt Simsār Arāḍı̄ Ṣuhyūnı̄ (Arabic: Memoirs of a Zionist land broker) in 2010.[12]
Personal life and death
Legacy
His daughter, Hind Shoufani, produced a documentary, Trip Along Exodus, in memory of Elias Shoufani. It was premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival in December 2014.[14][16]