Nasir al-Din al-Asad

Nasir al-Din Muhammad Ahmad Jamil al-Asad (ناصر الدين محمد أحمـد جميل الأسد) (1922-2015) was a Jordanian professor, lecturer, author, and first president of the University of Jordan.

Biography
He was born in Aqaba in Jordan in 1922 to a Jordanian father and Lebanese mother.

He studied at Cairo University and graduated with a doctorate degree with an excellent grade in 1955. He lectured in a number of universities and research institutes in Jordan, Libya, and Egypt and was a member of the Arabic language academies in Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Morocco. He served as Ambassador of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1977 to 1978, and headed several academies and councils including the Royal Academy for Research on Islamic Civilization (Aal al-Bayt Foundation), the board of trustees at Isra University in Amman, and the Board of Trustees of the Abdul Majeed Shoman International Award for Jerusalem.

He served as the first president of the University of Jordan from 1962 until 1968 and also worked as a professor there.

He passed away in at Amman Surgical Hospital. He was prayed over after 'Asr prayer in the Jordanian Mosque.

Awards
Nasir al-Din received the Taha Hussein Prize in 1947, the King Faisal International Prize for Arabic Literature in 1982, the Sultan Owais Cultural Award in 1994–95, and the State Appreciation Award in Literature from Jordan in 2003. In 2011 he was given the Naguib Mahfouz Award for Arab Writers by the Egyptian Writers Union. He said in a short speech, "I stand today surrounded by the Taha Hussein Award at the beginning and the Naguib Mahfouz Award at the end. What crown is dearer than my crown, as our poet al-Akhtal al-Saghir said."

Published works
He has authored contributed to at least 38 different publications.


 * "Muʿǧam ǧawāhir al-ašʿār wa-l-taḥqīqāt al-adabiyyaẗ" (2013) of Ṣāliḥ Ǧaybāt with Nāṣir al-Dīn al- Asad (1923-2015) (Author of introduction)
 * "Dīwān" (1991) of Qays ibn Adī Abū Yazīd Ibn al H̱aṭīm with Nāṣir al-Dīn al- Asad (1923-2015) as Editor
 * Al-Qiyān wa al-ġināʾ fī al-ʿaṣr al-ǧhilī (1988)
 * Maṣādir al-šiʿr al-ǧāhilī wa-qīmaẗuhā al-tārīẖiyyaẗ (1962)