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Clifford Edmund Bosworth (1928-2015)

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Clifford Edmund Bosworth (1928-2015) In Memoriam CLIFFORD EDMUND BOSWORTH (1928-2015) lifford Edmund Bosworth was a giant a biographical sketch, while weaving in amongst historians of the Middle East the highlights from his scholarly portfolio. and Central Asia, and only the likes of Above all, I want to explore what made Chis direct and indirect mentors, Vladimir Edmund—as he liked to be called—who Minorsky (d. 1966) and V.V. Barthold (d. he was: an institution unto his own, a 1930) respectively, could parallel his stag- trailblazer, and nonetheless, incredibly gering erudition and productive zeal in kind, polite, and generous in spirit, a tall, his writings on the eastern Islamic world slender man with his hallmark “unfash- and beyond it.1 Other colleagues have ionable sideburns.”3 After publishing written detailed bibliographies of Edmund Bosworth’s astoundingly prolific work, and bibliography. Ed. Ian R. Netton, Carole Hillenbrand 2 I will draw on these. In this essay, I offer and and C.E. Bosworth, Studies in Honour of Clifford Edmund Bosworth (Leiden: Brill, 2000), vol. 1. C.E. Bosworth, A Century of British 1: xiii-xxxv. That list has now been boosted and Orientalists, 1902-2001 (Oxford: Oxford University updated to the present day by Michael O’Neal in “C. Press, 2001): 205. Edmund Bosworth: An Updated Bibliography,” in 2. Until now, the two-volume Festschrift this issue of al-ʿUsur al-Wusta. published in his honour fifteen years ago 3. Ian R. Netton, “An Appreciation of the Life provides the most comprehensive and accurate of Professor Clifford Edmund Bosworth,” posted Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 23 (2015): 167-178 In Memoriam: Clifford Edmund Bosworth hundreds of articles, twenty monographs the foundations for the next generation of and edited volumes, hundreds of confer- scholars and making more widely available ence papers, and editorial productions of the primary sources for non-specialists multi-tome compendia such as the Ency- and specialist readerships alike. clopaedia of Islam (second edition), the British Institute of Persian Studies journal I. Formative Years: Sheffield and Oxford (IRAN) for more than 40 years—“surely a (1928-52) record in journal editorship!” by his own 4 Edmund was born during the Christmas account —the Journal of Semitic Studies, season, on the 29th of December 1928, in and the UNESCO series on The History the industrial steel-producing town of of Civilizations in Central Asia, as well as Sheffield in the English county of South numerous major translation projects in Yorkshire. His grandfather had worked in advanced age, Edmund Bosworth never the steel industry as a fitter, and his father lacked the time to meet and support the was a local government clerk. His mother lowliest of scholars—myself included (I had come to Sheffield from Peterborough had the pleasure of Edmund’s acquaint- as a teenager for her father to take up a ance and mentorship in the last decade of post as a reporter with one of the local his life). Geert Jan van Gelder remarks that: papers. At the time, Sheffield was suffering Meeting him was always a pleasure, for from a recession and the effects of high he was not only a mine of information, levels of urban growth. The city saw the often curious and entertaining, to use development of back-to-back dwellings, that phrase once again, but also kind and poor water supply, and factory pollution, interested in other people (unlike some 5 which inspired George Orwell to write in other brilliant academics I have known). 1937 (when Edmund was nine years old): “Sheffield, I suppose, could justly claim I have divided up the biographical to be called the ugliest town in the Old sketch into four chronological sections: World.”6 I) Edmund’s formative years in war-time Edmund began his secondary schooling Sheffield, and his early studies at Oxford; II) at Sheffield City Grammar School at the His Scottish years and his transformation start of World War II in 1939. The pupils at into an academic and a family man; III) grammar schools, which provided a strong Manchester, where Edmund consolidated focus on intellectual subjects (classics, and established himself as a senior literatures, math), were given the best academic; and finally, IV) Castle Cary, his opportunities of any school children in refuge of peace and writing, and setting the state system, and many had received extra tutoring for entering the Oxford and online http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/iais/ Cambridge University systems. Edmund news/title_443572_en.html [last accessed: 15.09.15]. was to become a success story of that 4. C.E. Bosworth (tr. and ed.), The Ornament of Histories. A History of the Eastern Islamic Lands AD system. Sheffield City Grammar School 650-1041. The Persian Text of Abu Sa’id Abd al-Hayy “was to prove very influential in his Gardizi (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011): xi. 5. International Study for Iranian Studies 6. George Orwell, “Chapter 7,” The Road to Newsletter 36/1 (May 2015): 16-18. Wigan Pier (Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1937): 72. Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 23 (2015): 168 In Memoriam: Clifford Edmund Bosworth life,” writes Edmund’s family.7 It is worth time despite a sleepless night caused by mentioning some of the fine qualities of the air raids. It would be hard to imagine his school: it was co-educational at a time that young Edmund’s drive for knowledge when it was considered revolutionary for and cross-cultural understanding was the sexes to mingle in class. One reporter not related to his childhood wartime wrote: experience. He was only 12 during the ... there is a solid, down-to-earth “Sheffield blitz” and 16 when the war atmosphere about it that fits the character ended: too young to be involved on the of the city, and its pupils have the battlefield, but too old to be unmoved by friendliness and assurance one expects the horrors that war and hatred of “the from Sheffield’s hard-working, self- other” can bring. respecting citizens ...8 The end of the war also brought to the British education system a new vigour. Sheffield’s steel factories began Edmund’s old headmaster, Mr Northeast, manufacturing weapons and ammunition explained: “As all who lived through it will for the war effort, which made it a remember, the end of the war brought a target for bombing raids by the German great surge of spirits as though we had Luftwaffe. Edmund’s school suffered emerged into the daylight after a journey damage after the “Sheffield blitz” on the through a long, dark tunnel.”11Edmund’s 12th of December 1940, but it was nothing music tutor instilled in him a love that could not be fixed in a few weeks.9 for classical music (Edward Elgar, in However, more than 660 lives were lost particular), and his history tutor coached and many other buildings were destroyed him for the Oxford entrance exams. He in the blitz.10 was awarded a scholarship (“exhibition”) According to an account written in 1963 at St John’s College, which Edmund took and attributed to the school’s headmaster, up after attending his mandatory army Stephen Northeast, the School resumed service from 1947 to 1949. its normal function after the Christmas At Oxford, Edmund picked up choir holiday in January 1941 amid occasional singing and photography, while earning evening raids. In his retrospective, a first-class degree in Modern History—a Northeast marveled at the steadfastness programme that was focussed on Europe of the pupils to assemble at the usual and the history of the West. At Oxford, he also began his contact with the Church, 7. Personal communication, 6 May 2015. which was to become a lifelong passion. 8. “The City Grammar School, Sheffield,” It was a personal acquaintance with an Yorkshire Life Illustrated (March 1960): 54. American friend at Oxford studying Arabic 9. Account by Stephen Northeast, “You that awakened in Edmund what would will have a new building soon.” http://www. become an enduring interest in Arabic and omnesamici.co.uk/SPTC/SPTCnortheast.HTM [last the Islamic world. And thus, his journey accessed 14.09.15] 10. Mary Walton and Joseph P. Lamb, Raiders over Sheffield: the Story of the Air raids of 12th 11. http://www.omnesamici.co.uk/SPTC/ & 15th December 194 (Sheffield: Sheffield City SPTCnortheast.HTM [last accessed on 10 September Libraries, 1980). 2015] Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 23 (2015): 169 In Memoriam: Clifford Edmund Bosworth into the world of the Islamic history began. and Arabic at the University of Edinburgh. But first he had to earn money. In Edinburgh, he met Annette Todd. They married, and she joined him in St II. Scottish period (1952-67): Becoming an Andrews where Edmund took up his first academic, gazing to “the east” lectureship and started working on his Edmund set off for Scotland in 1952, Ph.D. (at Edinburgh). Edmund and Annette aged 24, to take up a new post in the had a long and happy marriage together, Department of Agriculture. The job paid and their three daughters were all born the bills, but Edmund’s real interest lay in St Andrews (and eventually produced elsewhere. He managed to combine work six grandchildren). Edmund was awarded with Arabic studies with the help of the his Ph.D. in 1961 when he was 33 years Reverend Professor Montgomery Watt, old. Edmund’s thesis on the “Transition who headed the department of Arabic and from Ghaznavid to Seljuq rule in the Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University Islamic East” was prepared under the joint (1947-79). Watt studied Islam from a supervision of Montgomery Watt (d. 2006) Christian perspective, and was driven and J.R.
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