January 23, 2020  |  News & Events, Sad News, Timely Announcements

Colleagues,

I share with you sad news from Dean Scott Gronert in the College of Letters and Science. Dr. Abbas Hamdani, Emeritus Professor of History in the College of Letters and Science, passed away on December 23, 2019.

Dr. Hamdani received both his B.A. with Honors and his LL.B. from Bombay University, and his Ph.D. from the University of London (School of Oriental and African Studies) in Arabic and Islamic Studies. He taught at several universities before being appointed to the faculty in the History Department at UW-Milwaukee in 1970. His career at UWM spanned over three decades before he retired in 2001. During that time he taught Middle East and Islamic history at UWM, and published widely in the fields of Islamic history and philosophy; Islamic perspectives on the Voyages of New World Discovery; and current events as they related to the Middle East and Islamic world.

Dr. Hamdani was instrumental in developing programs in his field and related areas. At UWM he helped to establish and chair committees in Middle East and North African Studies, and in Comparative Religions. He received numerous grants from the Fulbright Foundation, American Research Center in Egypt and Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. His service was recognized by Distinguished Service and Teaching Awards at UWM, in addition to other local and national awards he received. His contribution to interfaith dialogue is addressed in the forthcoming Interfaith Engagement in Milwaukee (Marquette University Press).

Dr. Hamdani’s obituary is online, and he was laid to rest on December 26. Our condolences to Abbas’s family and to the many others whose lives he touched.

Take care,

Johannes

Johannes Britz
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs