Évariste Lévi-Provençal, French orientalist and historian (b. 1894)
Évariste Lévi-Provençal (4 January 1894 – 27 March 1956) was a French medievalist, orientalist, Arabist, and historian of Islam.
The scholar who would take the name Lévi-Provençal was born 4 January 1894 in Constantine, French Algeria, as Makhlóuf Evariste Levi (Arabic: مخلوف إفاريست ليفي), his second name revealing that his North-African Jewish family was already somewhat Gallicized. By the age of nineteen when he published his first paper he had rechristened himself Évariste Lévi-Provençal. He studied at the Lycée in Constantine, and served in the French army during World War I, being wounded in the Dardanelles in 1917. He then joined the Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines. He held positions at the University of Algiers (1926) and later the Sorbonne (1945).Lévi-Provençal was the founder of the French study of Islam and the first director of the Institute of Islamic Studies (Institut d'études islamiques) in Algiers. He specialized in the history of al-Andalus and the Muslims of Spain. He worked on editing and translating the Arabic sources for the medieval history of Spain, often with Spanish Arabist Emilio García Gómez. His writings about Muslims scholarship were both admiring and critical. He was anticolonial in his leanings, and he tended to ignore or underplay Jewish sources and obfuscate his own Jewish origins to avoid French Antisemitism.
1956Mar, 27
Évariste Lévi-Provençal
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Events on 1956
- 26Jul
Suez Crisis
Following the World Bank's refusal to fund building the Aswan Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, sparking international condemnation. - 17Oct
Bobby Fischer
Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer play a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne and wins a Brilliancy prize. - 23Oct
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Thousands of Hungarians protest against the government and Soviet occupation. (The Hungarian Revolution is crushed on November 4). - 4Nov
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country. - 12Nov
Sudan
Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations.