Tim Mackintosh-Smith
Visiting Professor of Practice of Arab Crossroads
Affiliation: Visiting
Education: BA, MA University of Oxford
Research Areas: Arabic travel and geographical literature, Arab history, literary translation
Tim Mackintosh-Smith is an Arabist, historian, translator, novelist, and author of prize-winning, genre-bending books that explore time, place, and culture through travel.
At Oxford University he studied Classics, followed by Arabic language and Islamic history. He has lived in the Arab world for over forty years, much of it in the Old City of Sana’a, Yemen.
Mackintosh-Smith’s books include a trilogy of travels with Ibn Battutah. His edition-translations for the New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Library of Arabic Literature began with the oldest Arabic travel book, Accounts of China and India. A foray into fiction produced Bloodstone, a thriller set in the Alhambra. His monumental 2019 Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires examines history and identity through the lenses of language and mobility, and has been translated into a dozen languages. His film and TV work include a major BBC television series on Ibn Battutah.
Mackintosh-Smith has been a Senior Research Fellow of the Library of Arabic Literature in 2018 and 2023-2025. He is working on a new edition and first complete translation of Ibn Khaldun’s autobiography and a book about Gibraltar. Since September 2025, he has been Visiting Professor of Practice of Arabs Crossroads Studies at NYUAD.
In 2011, Mackintosh-Smith was named by Newsweek as one of the twelve finest travel writers of the previous hundred years. His awards include the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award, The Oldie Travel Book Award, and the Ibn Battutah Prize of Honour. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain.