author

Thomas Patrick Hughes

1838–1911

A 19th-century Anglican missionary and scholar, he spent two decades in Peshawar and became best known for making Islamic terms and practices more accessible to English-speaking readers. His work reflects both close study and the attitudes of his era, which makes it historically interesting as well as informative.

1 Audiobook

A Dictionary of Islam Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion.

A Dictionary of Islam Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion.

by Thomas Patrick Hughes

About the author

Born in 1838, he trained for the Church Missionary Society and went on to serve for many years in Peshawar, in what was then British India. He was known for his gift for languages and for his long experience working in the region.

He is most closely associated with A Dictionary of Islam (1885), a large reference work describing Islamic doctrines, rituals, customs, and religious vocabulary for an English-speaking audience. He also worked on Pashto materials, showing a strong scholarly interest in the languages and cultures around him.

Today, he is remembered mainly as a missionary writer and compiler whose books offer a window into both Islamic studies in the 19th century and the missionary world in which he worked. Some details of his life are clear from reliable records, but a confirmed suitable portrait image was not available from the sources I could verify here.