author
Najeeb M. (Najeeb Mitry) Saleeby
b. 1870
A physician, scholar, and colonial administrator, he became one of the earliest English-language writers to document the history, law, and culture of Muslim communities in the southern Philippines. His work still stands out for its close attention to local sources and languages.
2 Audiobooks
Studies in Moro History, Law, and Religion
by Najeeb M. (Najeeb Mitry) Saleeby
The History of Sulu
by Najeeb M. (Najeeb Mitry) Saleeby
About the author
Born in 1870 in Suq al-Gharb, in present-day Lebanon, Najeeb Mitry Saleeby studied at the Syrian Protestant College, now the American University of Beirut, before continuing medical training in the United States. He later went to the Philippines, where he worked as a physician and served in the American colonial administration.
Saleeby is best remembered for his research on the Moro peoples of Mindanao and Sulu. Drawing on Arabic, local traditions, and historical records, he wrote books including Studies in Moro History, Law, and Religion and The History of Sulu, works that helped preserve material that might otherwise have been lost.
He also took part in public education and government service, and he became known as an advocate for better understanding of Muslim Filipinos within the colonial system. Today he is remembered as a complicated but important figure whose medical career, language skills, and historical writing left a lasting mark on Philippine studies.