Page 219 - Arabian Studies (II)

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

A. F. L. Beeston is Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford. He
is one of the leading scholars in the field of ancient South Arabian epigraphy and
grammar.
T M. Johnstone is Professor of Arabic at the School of Oriental and African
Studies, London. He has published a book on Eastern Arabian dialects and
articles on Arabic dialects and linguistics. He has a book on Harsusf in the press.
Colonel Gerald de Gaury has had great experience of the Middle East as soldier,
diplomat and scholar. His numerous works include the indispensable Rulers of
Mecca (1951) and more recently biographies of King Faisal (1966) and of
Alexander Kinglake (1972).
Dr Walter Dostal, a Viennese, was Professor of Ethnology at Berne University
from 1965 until his appointment at Vienna in September 1974. His field-work in
Arabia has taken him to most parts of the Peninsula including Kuwait, Ras
al-Khaimah, Hadramawt and North Yemen. He is the author of numerous
publications in the field of ethnology including a book on the Beduins which is
being translated into English.
H. E. Sayyid Ahmad al-Shanu is well known in Yemeni and international Arab
political circles and is a poet and writer of distinction. An early member of the
Yemeni Liberals (al-Ahrar) he spent some time in Aden during World War II in
association with Ahmad Nu‘man and Muhammad Mahmud al-Zubairi, but at the
time of the 1948 revolt in the Yemen he was made prisoner in San‘a’ and spent
five years confined at Hajjah. On release he joined Muhammad al-Badr who
become heir apparent to Imam Ahmad, and held a number of senior posts. At
the time of the coup d’etat in the Yemen in 1962 after the accession of al-Badr
to the Imamate he was Yemeni Ambassador in London and became Royalist
Foreign Minister, playing a prominent diplomatic role during the years 1962-9.
Since the reconciliation between Royalists and Republicans he has held
ministerial and ambassadorial posts with the Yemen Arab Republic.

Dr Peter Lienhardt has been Lecturer in Middle Eastern Sociology at Oxford
since 1963. His particular interests are Oman and Muslim East Africa.
John Baldry taught English for some years in a secondary school in Jlzan before
moving to the University of Sana‘a\ He has written a major work on the history
of the Idris! Emirate of which this article forms part of a chapter.
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