Professor Majid Khadduri

by Andrew I. Killgore

Majid Khadduri was born in Mosul in northern Iraq in 1908. In the Arabic language Mosul, which derives from the verb to arrive or connect, might be translated as the place of arrival or connection. Dr. Khadduri believes his own family may have originated in the Caucasus before it “arrived” in Mosul some generations ago.

At the northern tip of the Middle East’s “fertile crescent” and also on the “silk road” to China, Mosul traditionally produces leaders, ideas and energetic “go-getters” such as Dr. Majid Khadduri. An often heard comment in Iraq is that Maslawis (people of Mosul) tend to excel in every field of endeavor.

Young Majid finished high school in his native city in 1928. Then, aware that he was supposed to excel, he was off to make his mark in the wider world.

The first stop was Lebanon, where he studied at the famed American University of Beirut (AUB). Then, after earning his B.A. degree in 1932, he headed for the United States and the University of Chicago. Six years later, he had his Ph.D. degree in political science and international law.

There were good job prospects for Dr. Khadduri at that time in the United States, but sentiment pulled him back to Baghdad, the capital of his native land. There the Iraqi Ministry of Education became his professional home from 1939 to 1947. During the same period he also was a professor of law and taught at the Higher Teachers Colleges.

As World War II came to an end, he was “borrowed” for what became one of the most exciting periods of his life. From Baghdad he was sent to San Francisco as a member of Iraq’s delegation at the founding sessions of the United Nations. Although he was not the most senior member of the delegation, Dr. Khadduri nevertheless spent many days and nights actually drafting or suggesting changes in the draft of what eventually became the charter of the world body.

A delightful surprise for the by then middle aged Iraqi delegate was the discovery in San Francisco of so many fellow AUB graduates among the various national delegations at the U.N. conference.

In fact it later appeared that there were more graduates of AUB among the U.N. founding delegates at San Francisco than from any other university in the world. Thus, in a sense, the optimism and practical idealism with which the American founders and professors of AUB imbued the university’s graduates still can be seen today in a United Nations which, despite its problems, remains the world’s greatest hope.

After his interlude with the Iraqi delegation in San Francisco, Dr. Khadduri’s academic home for more than 30 years was Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. He served there as professor of Middle East studies from 1949 to 1970. He also was director of the SAIS Center for Middle East Studies for 20 years, from 1960 to 1980. His academic title between 1970 and 1980 was Distinguished Research Professor. Since his retirement in 1980 he has held the same honor as Emeritus Professor.

Honors and Recognition

Majid Khadduri has received all the honors and recognition that the academic world can bestow. Hundreds, even thousands, of his former students have gone on to high positions in diplomacy, academia and business. Students in 10 other universities, including England’s Oxford University, have studied under him as a visiting professor between 1947 and 1978. On one of those stints he helped establish the University of Libya and served as its dean in 1957.

Over the past 50 years, Dr. Khadduri has authored 16 books, many dozens of major articles and 29 essays in books and encyclopedias, including the Encyclopedia Britannica. His books on Islamic law, Middle Eastern politics and modern Middle Eastern history have become highly credible sources in their field. His latest book, The Gulf War, was written and published when Professor Khadduri was in his mid-80s.

While living in the United States Dr. Khadduri and his Iraqi-born wife, the late Majdia Dawaff, had two children. Their son, Farid, an engineer, has two daughters of his own. Their daughter, Shirin, and her husband, Dr. Edmund Ghareeb, have one son.

Now a widower in his late 80s, Professor Khadduri remains in excellent mental and physical health. He does his grocery shopping on foot at a store nearly a mile from his home. He follows world affairs and Middle East politics with absorbed interest.

Long a member of the board of governors of Washington, DC’s Middle East Institute, he continues his interest in that organization as an emeritus member of MEI’s board.

As a pioneer in the ever-changing and ever-controversial field of Middle East studies in America, Dr. Khadduri has watched many of his students rise to positions of prominence in government, diplomacy and journalism and then retire to write books and memoirs of their own.

With the unique perspectives of a man who was born in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, matured in the new Middle East that emerged between the wars, and then became an active participant in the birth of the U.N. and the development of America’s relationships with more than two dozen resurgent Middle Eastern countries, he has become the grand old man among Middle East experts in the nation’s capital.