Abdel Wahab El-Messiri

Abdel Wahab El-Messiri studied at Columbia University, Rutgers University and Alexandria University. The recorded working language is English and Arabic. Employment is recorded with Ain Shams University, King Saud University and Kuwait University. Works named in the authority record are Aydiyūlūjīyah al-Ṣihyūnīyah: dirāsat ḥālah fī ʻilm ijtimāʻ al-maʻrifah (Vol.

• Native Name — عبد الوهاب المسيري • Website — http: www.elmessiri.com

El-Messiri was born in Damanhur, Egypt, graduated with a BA in English literature from Alexandria University in 1959. He received an MA in English and comparative literature from Columbia University in 1964 and a PhD in the same field from Rutgers University in 1969. He was professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at Ain Shams University, Egypt, from 1988. He was also a university professor at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia (1983–1988) and at Kuwait University, Kuwait (1988–1989) and a visiting professor at the International Islamic University Malaysia.

El-Messiri's major areas of research included: Jews, Judaism and Zionism; secularism and prejudice; Western culture and contemporaneity; modernism and postmodernism; literary theory and comparative literature. Over the course of his life his outlook moved from western secularism to a modern Islamic vision. El-Messiri wrote several articles about his ideas, including "Chosen Community, an Exceptional Burden", "A People Like Any other". He has also written for children. His eight-volume Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism (" موسوعة اليهود واليهودية والصهيونية: نموذج تفسيري جديد"), written in Arabic in an analytical/methodological form rather than an encyclopedic collection of information, is intended to provide analysis of the Middle East crisis, the history of Jews and the history of Zionism, as well as an in-depth analysis of Zionism, its ideology and beliefs, and ultimately the goals of such movement.

On July 2, 2008 he died after a very long battle against cancer at the Palestine Hospital, Cairo.

• "The functional nature of Israel means that it was created by the colonialism for a specific purpose. It is thus a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism".