The scholarly community mourns the loss of Professor Oleg Grabar who died on 8 January 2011 at age 81. Grabar was a renowned and world expert on Islamic art and architecture who held professorships at the University of Michigan, Harvard and was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In the words of the ninth century Arab poet, Abu Tammam, we say:
هيهات هيهات لا يأتي الزمان بمثله
إن الزمان لمثله لبخيل
“How unlikely that time will again reward us with the likes of him
Indeed, time is quite grudging with people like him”
Abu Tammam
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