Reuven Amitai (
Hebrew: ראובן עמיתי; born August 23, 1955), also Reuven Amitai-Preiss, is an
Israeli-American historian and writer, specializing in pre-modern
Islamic civilization, especially Syria and Palestine during the time of the
Mamluk Empire.[1] In his 20s he moved to Israel, and became history professor at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As of 2012 he is the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University.[2][3]
Biography
Amitai was born in Philadelphia in 1955, and studied at the
University of Pennsylvania. In 1976 he made the aliyah to Israel, intending to live and work on a
kibbutz while also pursuing
Middle Eastern Studies. He worked at the kibbutz for six years as a
welder, and then decided to return to academic studies. He enrolled at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he eventually received a Masters and Doctorate, focusing on the history of Islam, especially during the time of the Crusades, the
Mamluks, and the
Mongol Empire, a time period spanning the 11th to 16th centuries. He spent a year as a visiting fellow at
Princeton University from 1990–91, and
St. Antony's College in Oxford from 1996–97. Returning to the Hebrew University, he became a teacher, then
Chairman of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from 1997–2001, and director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies twice, in 2001–04 and 2008–10.[4] Around 2005, he became director of the
Nehemia Levtzion Center for Islamic Studies, whose goal was to encourage research public activity related to Islamic studies.[2] From 2010 to 2014, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"A Fourteenth-Century Mamluk Inscription from Rural Palestine". Israel Exploration Journal (44): 234–242. 1994.
Theresa Fitzherbert & Julian Raby, ed. (1996). "New material from the Mamluk sources for the biography of Rashid al-Din". The Court of the Il-khans, 1290-1340 (Conference paper). Oxford & New York:
Oxford University Press. pp. 23–37.
"A Note on a "Mamlûk" Drum from Bethsaida". Israel Exploration Journal (47): 113–116. 1997.
Amitai, Reuven (1987). "Mongol Raids into Palestine (A.D. 1260 and 1300)". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2). Cambridge, UK; New York, USA: Cambridge University Press: 236–255.
JSTOR25212151.
Nicola Di Cosmo, ed. (2002). "Whither the Ilkhanid Army? Ghazan's First Campaign into Syria (1299–1300)". Warfare in Inner Asian History (500-1800). Leiden-Boston-Köln:
Brill.
"'Ayn Jalût Revisited". Tarih (2): 119–150. 1992.
"An Exchange of Letters in Arabic between Abaya Îlkhân and Sultan Baybars (A.H. 667/A.D. 1268-69)". Central Asiatic Journal (38/1): 11–33. 1994.
John Prior, ed. (2006). "The Logistics of the Mongol-Mamlûk War, with Special Reference to the Battle of Wâdî'l-Khaznadâr, 1299 C.E.". Logistics of Warfare in the Age of Crusades (Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the Center for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney, 30 Sept.-4 Oct. 2002). Ashgate:
Ashgate Publishing Company. pp. 25–42.