Tayeb El-Hibri is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History: The Rashidun Caliphs (2010) and Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate (1999) which won the Albert Hourani Award Honorable Mention at the Middle East Studies Association Convention in 2000. He has published articles on the Abbasids in journals including Arabica, Der Islam, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of the American Oriental Society, and Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.