Kamal Salibi, Lebanese historian, died he was 82.

Kamal Suleiman Salibi was a prominent Lebanese historian, professor of history at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the founding Director (later Honorary President) of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan died he was 82.. He was a lifetime bachelor, who devoted his life to books.

(2 May 1929 – 1 September 2011)

Career

Born to a Protestant family in Beirut,^[5] Salibi's family came from the Lebanese village of Bhamdoun in French Mandatory Lebanon. After studying at French missionary schools in Bhamdoun and Broummana,^[6] he completed his secondary education at the Prep School in Beirut (now International College), and his BA in History and Political Science from AUB, before moving to the School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS (University of London) where he earned his PhD in history in 1953 under the supervision of historian Bernard Lewis.^[7] His dissertation was subsequently published under the title Maronite Historians of Mediaeval Lebanon. ^[8]
After his graduation from SOAS, Salibi joined AUB as bibliographer of the Arab Studies Program. He then became professor in the Department of History and Archaeology where he joined other prominent and already established historians such as Nicholas Ziadeh and Zein Zein. In 1965, he published The Modern History of Lebanon, which was subsequently translated into Arabic, Russian, and French. Salibi eventually became one of the pillars of the history department, mentoring, training and supervising many students who later became authorities in their own right.^{[citation needed]}
In 1982 Salibi finalised his book, The Bible Came from Arabia, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.^[9] It was translated into German at the same time as the original English version was being published in London. Salibi wrote subsequent works on biblical issues using the same etymological and geographic methodology. Some of his books are today considered classics, notably A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (1988) and The Modern History of Jordan (1993). In 1994, Salibi helped found the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies^[3] in Amman, Jordan, and became its director from 1997 until 2004, following his retirement from AUB. He was associated as a consultant with the Druze Heritage Foundation.^[10] He retired from the Department of History and Archeology at the American University of Beirut in 1998, and became professor emeritus.^[11] He moved to Amman in the early 1990s and became director of the Institute for Interfaith Studies there from 1994 to 2003. He believed Lebanon's Christian community had an important role to play in building a Lebanon distinct from its Islamic ambiance, but was free of the fanatical Christianity characteristic of many of his Maronite colleagues.^[12] He dismantled the foundational myths which many of Lebanon's communities were attached to, and replaced them with a complex portrait of the nation as an intricate mosaic of disparate but interconnected communities, over which no one group exerted dominance.^[13] He was strongly opposed to sectarian politics, believing that it had been the ruin of his country, and was one of the first Lebanese to remove his sect (madhdhab) identification from the Lebanese census records. He pinned a copy of his new ID, which has 'I' for his madhdhab outside his apartment in Ras Beirut.^[14]

Arabian Judah theory

Kamal Salibi wrote three books advocating the controversial "Israel in Arabia" theory. In this view, the place names of the Hebrew Bible actually allude to places in southwest Arabia; many of them were later reinterpreted to refer to places in Palestine, when the Arabian Hebrews migrated to what is now called Eretz Israel, and where they established the Hasmonean kingdom under Simon Maccabaeus in the second century B.C. In this new Israel, they switched from Hebrew to Aramaic. It was this switch in language that created the confusions which lead to the distortion of the immigrants' stories.^[15] He also argued that 'Lebanon' itself in high antiquity was a place in the Southern Arabian peninsula-^[16]
The (literally) central identification of the theory is that the geographical feature referred to as הירדן, the “Jordan”, which is usually taken to refer to the Jordan River, although never actually described as a “river” in the Hebrew text, actually means the great West Arabian Escarpment, known as the Sarawat Mountains. The area of ancient Israel is then identified with the land on either side of the southern section of the escarpment that is, the southern Hejaz and 'Asir, from Ta’if down to the border with Yemen.
The theory has not been widely accepted anywhere, and embarrassed many of his colleagues.^[17] and several academic reviewers^[18][19][20] criticised Cape for having accepted “The Bible Came from Arabia” for publication. Salibi argued that early epigraphic evidence used to vindicate the Biblical stories has been misread. Mesha, the Moabite ruler who celebrated a victory over the kingdom of Israel in a stone inscription, the Mesha stele found in 1868, was, according to Salibi, an Arabian, and Moab was a village 'south (yemen) of Rabin' near Mecca. The words translated 'many days' actually meant 'south of Rabin'.^[21]
He shared the view of such scholars as Thomas L. Thompson that there is a severe mismatch between the Biblical narrative and the archaeological findings in Palestine. Thompson's explanation was to discount the Bible as literal history but Salibi's was to locate the centre of Jewish culture further south.^[22]
His theory has been both attacked and supported for its supposed implications for modern political affairs, although Salibi himself has made no such connection. Tudor Parfitt wrote “It is dangerous because Salibi's ideas have all sorts of implications, not least in terms of the legitimacy of the State of Israel”.^[20] Since the theory casts no doubt on the existence, location or legitimacy of the Hasmonean kingdom, nor rewrites in any way the history of Palestine in the last 2200 years or more, it can only have that implication for those who take literally the divine award of the Promised Land to Abraham and his successors.^{[citation needed]}
The location of the Promised Land is discussed in chapter 15 of “The Bible Came from Arabia”. Salibi argues that the description in the Bible is of an extensive tract of land, substantially larger than Palestine which includes a very varied landscape, ranging from well-watered mountain-tops via fertile valleys and foothills to lowland deserts. In the southern part of Arabia there are recently-active volcanoes, near to which are, presumably, the buried remains of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Works

• Maronite Historians of Mediaeval Lebanon, Beirut, AUB Oriental Series 34, 1959
• The Modern History of Lebanon, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965
• Crossroads to Civil War, Lebanon 1958-1976, Beirut, Caravan Books, 1976
• Syria under Islam: Empire on Trial 634-1097, Beirut, Caravan Books, 1977
• A History of Arabia, Beirut, Caravan Books, 1980
• The Bible Came from Arabia, London, Jonathan Cape, 1985
• Secrets of the Bible People, London, Saqi Books, 1988
• Who Was Jesus?: Conspiracy in Jerusalem, London, I.B. Tauris, 1988
• A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, London, I.B. Tauris, 1988
• The Historicity of Biblical Israel, London, NABU Publications, 1998
• The Historicity of Biblical Israel (second edition), Beirut, Dar Nelson, 2009
• The Modern History of Jordan, London, I.B. Tauris, 1993
• A Bird on an Oak Tree" (Arabic طائر على سنديانة), Amman, Ashshoroq Publishers, 2002

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Paul Abisheganaden, Singaporean music conductor and Cultural Medallion recipient, died he was 97.

Paul Abisheganaden  was a Singaporean conductor and 1986 Cultural Medallion recipient for his contributions to music died he was 97..


(March 27, 1914 – August 31, 2011)


Paul was educated at Serangoon English School and St Andrew's School, passing his Senior Cambridge examinations in 1931. He studied arts subjects at Raffles College and graduated with a Diploma in the Arts in 1934. He joined the education service and taught at the Geylang English School, where he composed the music and lyric for what was to be the first school anthem, entitled the "Geylang English School Song".
Paul is credited with championing and reviving classical music in Singapore during the 1940s and 1950s. He founded one of the country's first string ensembles.^[1] As an educator, he was the principal of Victoria School from 1959 to 1961 and the principal of Teacher's Training College from 1963 to 1968. He later taught in the music department of the National University of Singapore for decades.^[1]
Paul Abisheganaden died on August 31, 2011, at National University Hospital in Singapore at the age of 97.^[1] He was survived by three daughters, eight grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.^[1] Abisheganaden was predeceased by his wife. His younger brother, Alex Abisheganaden, is a classical guitarist.^[1]
His funeral service was held on September 3, 2011, at St Andrew's Cathedral, where he served as choir master.^[1]

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Denis Collins,Australian football player, died from a heart attack, he was 58.

Denis Collins was an Australian rules footballer who played for Footscray, Carlton and Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL) died from a heart attack, he was 58..

(17 May 1953 – 31 August 2011)

After arriving from Braybrook, Collins became a regular fixture in the Footscray side for six seasons. A pacy wingman, he was also used as a half forward and rover during his career. He averaged a career high 19 disposals from his 20 games in 1977 but it would be his final season at Footscray.^[3] While at Footscray he was joined briefly by his brother Daryl and the two of them played together in the opening round of the 1974 season.
Collins made 21 appearances for Carlton in 1978 and took part in his second finals series, having played an elimination final with Footscray.^[3] In the last round of the home and away season he was famously felled by Robbie Muir. With Muir reacting angrily to being reported for striking Val Perovic, Collins came up behind him and ruffled his hair, to which the St Kilda player responded by flinging back his forearm and striking Collins on the jaw.^[4] In the Brownlow Medal count later that year, Collins was Carlton's best performed with 12 votes.^[3]
Dissatisfied after spending much of the 1979 season in the reserves and missing out on playing in Carlton's 1979 premiership team, Collins was granted a clearance to Richmond in 1980. Although he made 17 appearances in 1980, including a qualifying final win over his former club Carlton, Collins was only an emergency for the VFL Grand Final, which Richmond won.^[3] Collins was set to be named on the bench for the Grand Final, but missed an appointment with the club psychologist the Thursday before the game. As a result, coach Tony Jewell dropped him from the side and played Daryl Freame instead.^[5]
Collins retired from the VFL after the 1980 season and soon after moved to Western Australia where he played for East Perth in the West Australian Football League.^[1]
He was the son of Essendon premiership player Jack Collins.^[1]
Collins of a heart attack on 31 August 2011 in the Western Australian town of Hyden. He was 58 years old.^[1][6]


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Abderrahmane Mahjoub,Moroccan-born French footballer, died he was 82.

Abderrahmane Mahjoub or Abderrahmane Belmahjoub  was a French and Moroccan international football (soccer) midfielder died he was 82..

(April 25, 1929 – August 31, 2011)

Known as Prince du Parc (Prince of the Park) in his playing days for his dominant control of the midfield, was one of the best Arab players of his generation, and one of the few who graced the sports fields of Europe in the 1950s and 1960s.^[2]
Born in Casablanca, the young Mahjoub began playing on the streets of his home city with his brother Mohamed, who later played for Olympique Marseille in the late 1940s. Abderrahmane started his career with the Union Sportive Athlétique Casablanca in 1948, where he spent three seasons before moving to Europe to join RC Paris of the French first division, but it was his performances for OGC Nice in 1953 that caught the eye of French selectors making his international debut against Luxembourg in a World Cup Qualifier. He stepped out at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris in the blue of France alongside his Nice teammate Moroccan-born Just Fontaine. The midfielder was an instant success on his first appearance, assisting in the first goal in a 8-0 rout in only the second minute of the game, Mahjoub went onto play six other occasions for France including a 3-2 win over Mexico at the 1954 FIFA World Cup in Switzerland along with another Arab, Algerian Abdelaziz Bentifour.
After a season with Nice, where he was part of a French Cup winning side beating Larbi Ben Barek’s Olympique Marseille in the final, he rejoined Racing Club spending six successful seasons at the Paris club, reaching high as third place in the French first division in two consecutive seasons in 1958 and 1959. At the age 31, the club thought the Moroccan’s best years were behind him, and let him go but he proved all his critics wrong by guiding SO Montpellier to the 1961 French Second Division title, and promotion to the top flight. Racing Club eventually bought back the player for a final season in 1963, before he returned to play for Wydad Casablanca, where he was later coach.
One of the greatest moments in his career came in a memorable 1962 World Cup Qualifier; when Abderrahman captained his native country Morocco against the star-studded Spanish national team of Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas, and Francisco Gento, before stepping onto the pitch he told his teammates to look at the flags of the two nations, planted in the ground at the same height “I want you to be like these flags, on the same level as the Spaniards”. Spain knocked out the Moroccan side but everyone at the time admired the Moroccan side for their style of play and how they had humbled the Spaniards. Abderrahman would later go onto coach the Moroccan national team.
In 2006, he was selected by CAF as one of the best 200 African football players of the last 50 years.^[3]



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Robert Muir, Canadian politician, MP and Senator, died he was 91.

Robert (Bob) Muir  was a Canadian Member of Parliament, first in the House of Commons and later in the Senate died he was 91.. Muir sat in both chambers as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He was born in Scotland and raised on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Before he became a politician, he was also a miner, a union official, a salesman and a businessman during his career. He died at his home in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality in 2011.
(10 November 1919 – 31 August 2011)

Early life

Muir was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 10 November 1919.^[1] After his father died in 1920, he and his mother immigrated to Canada.^[2] After leaving school in grade 8, he worked in the coal mines until injuries ended his ability to do so.^[2] Before he was injured for the final time, he was elected as the secretary of his United Mine Workers of America (UMW) local.^[2] After recuperating from his injuries, he worked in insurance for London Life until he was elected to parliament.^[1] He later served as chair of the Miners' Hospital in Cape Breton.^[3]

Political career

Muir began politics as a member of the Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia municipal council, where he served from 1948 to 1958.^[4] He entered federal politics in the 1957 Canadian general election, winning the Cape Breton North and Victoria electoral district in Nova Scotia.^[2] His old riding was abolished after the 1966 electoral district redistribution.^[4] Muir then ran in the newly created Cape Breton—The Sydneys electoral district in the 1968 Canadian general election and won the seat.^[1] Muir won election eight consecutive times, stepping down in 1979 after having served in the 30th Canadian Parliament.^[4]
On March 28, 1979, two-days after an election call, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appointed Muir to the Senate.^[5] Muir sat in the self-designated Senate division of Cape Breton-The Sydneys.^[4] Muir retired from the Senate on 10 November 1994.^[4] He died at home, in Coxheath, Nova Scotia on 31 August 2011, aged 91, from respiratory failure.^[2][6]



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Valery Rozhdestvensky,Soviet cosmonaut, died he was 72.

Valery Ilyich Rozhdestvensky was a USSR cosmonaut  died he was 72..

( February 13, 1939 - August 31, 2011)

Rozhdestvensky was born in Leningrad and graduated from the Higher Military Engineering School of Soviet Navy in Pushkin in engineering. From 1961 to 1965 he was commander of deepsea diving unity in the Baltic Sea War Fleet.
Rozhdestvensky was selected as a cosmonaut on October 23, 1965 and flew as Flight Engineer on Soyuz 23.^[1] After his space flight he continued to work with the space program at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. He retired on June 24, 1986 and worked with Metropolis Industries. He was married with one child.
He was awarded:

• Hero of the Soviet Union
• Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR
• Order of Lenin
• Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR 3rd class
• Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration"

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Peter Twiss, British test pilot, died he was 90.

Lionel Peter Twiss, OBE, DSC and Bar  was a British test pilot who held the World Air Speed Record as the first man to fly at a speed greater than 1,000 mph.

(23 July 1921 – 31 August 2011)

Early life

He was born in Lindfield, Sussex and lived with his grandmother while his parents were in India and Burma. He was the grandson of an admiral and the son of an army officer.^[1] Twiss went to school at Haywards Heath and later at Sherborne School. In 1938 he was employed as an apprentice tea-taster by Brooke Bond in London, before returning to the family farm near Salisbury.^[1][2]

Aviation career

Military

Rejected as a pilot by the Fleet Air Arm, he was accepted as a Naval Airman Second Class on the outbreak of the Second World War. After training at 14 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School, Castle Bromwich, he went on to fly Fairey Battles and Hawker Harts. He underwent operational training at RNAS Yeovilton flying Blackburn Rocs, Blackburn Skuas and Gloster Gladiators.^[2] His next posting was at the School of Army Co-operation at Andover, flying Bristol Blenheims as a twin conversion. He was then posted to 771 Squadron in the Orkney Islands, flying a variety of naval aircraft on various duties, including met observations at 12000 ft in winter in the open cockpit of a Fairey Swordfish, and target-towing duties.^[2]
He then served with the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit on catapult ships flying Hawker Hurricanes. These missions required the pilot to ditch or bale out in the expectation of being recovered by a passing ship. During the Malta Convoys in 1942, he flew Fairey Fulmars with 807 Squadron, from the carrier HMS Argus. For his service, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) in June 1942. Later in the year the squadron converted to Supermarine Seafires flying from HMS Furious for the Operation Torch landings in North Africa. During the Allied landings in Algeria and Morocco he added a bar to his DSC, gazetted in March 1943. By this time he had shot down one Italian aircraft (a Fiat CR.42 on 14 May 1942) and damaged another.^[3]
He then flew long-range intruder operations over Germany from RNAS Ford, developing night fighter tactics with the RAF's Fighter Interception Unit. Ford, also acted as an operational research unit, and so Twiss flew missions over occupied Europe in Beaufighters and Mosquitoes so putting the unit's theory into practice. He claimed two Junkers Ju 88's shot down during 1944.
Later in 1944 he was sent to the British Air Commission Washington DC, where he had the opportunity to test various prototype aircraft and evaluated airborne radar equipment.^[3] He also served at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. By the end of the war he was a Lieutenant Commander. In 1945 he attended No. 3 Course at the Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS), then based at RAF Cranfield.^[4] and then to the Naval Squadron at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down.

Civil

In 1946, Twiss joined Fairey Aviation as a test pilot and flew many of the company's aircraft, including the Fairey Primer, Fairey Gannet, Fairey Firefly, Fairey Delta 1 and the Fairey Rotodyne compound-helicopter. In 1947 he entered the Lympne Air Races flying a Firefly IV, winning the high-speed race at 305.93 mph. He worked for two years on the Fairey Delta 2, a supersonic delta-winged research plane. On 10 March 1956 this aircraft flown by Twiss broke the World Speed Record, raising it to 1,132 mph (1811 km/h), an increase of some 300 mph (480 km/h) over the record set the year before by an F-100 Super Sabre, and thus became the first aircraft to exceed 1,000 mph in level flight.^[5] He received The Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service for this feat. He piloted the Fairey Rotodyne which established a world speed record for rotocraft over a 100-km circuit in 1959.

Later career

In 1960, Fairey Aviation was sold to Westland Aircraft, a helicopter manufacturer, which was not Twiss's area. Twiss left after a career in which he had piloted more 140 different types of aircraft. Twiss joined Fairey Marine in 1960 and was responsible for development and sales of day-cruisers. He appeared in the film From Russia with Love driving one of the company's speedboats.^[1][6] His work as a marine consultant led to directorships of Fairey Marine (1968–78) and Hamble Point Marina (1978–88).^[1]
In 1969, driving the Fairey Huntsman 707 Fordsport, he took part in the Round Britain Powerboat Race, including among his crew Rally champion Roger Clark. He also appeared in the film Sink the Bismarck in which he flew a Fairey Swordfish.^[7] Twiss was for several years a member of Lasham Gliding Society. His autobiography Faster Than the Sun was published in 1963, and revised in 2005.

Personal life

Twiss's first three marriages to Constance Tomkinson, Vera Maguire and Cherry Huggins ended in divorce. His fourth wife, Heather Danby, died in 1988. He was survived by his fifth wife, Jane de Lucey. He had a son, three daughters and several stepchildren.^[1]



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