A00088 - Mostafa el-Abbadi, Champion of Alexandria's Resurrected Library

Mostafa El-Abbadi (Arabic: مصطفى العبادي‎‎; b. October 10, 1928, Cairo, Egypt - d. February 13, 2017, Alexandria, Egypt) was a prominent historian of Greco-Roman Egypt and an Egyptian public intellectual.  Formerly the Emeritus Professor in Classics at the Alexandria University, he is credited with proposing the revival of the ancient library of Alexandria, a project embraced by UNESCO in 1986 and completed in 2003. He was later critical of some of aspects of the project as realized by the Egyptian government, telling the New York Times that the library was at risk of becoming "a cultural center" rather than fulfilling its "promise as a world-class research center."

A recipient of the Order of the Nile, El-Abbadi was a member of Egypt's Supreme Council of Culture (SCC), Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), and l'Institut d'Egypte.  He also served as President of the Archaeological Society of Alexandria and was an advisor to UNESCO. Educated in Egypt and the United Kingdom, El-Abbadi received a bachelor's degree from Alexandria University and a special bachelor's degree and doctorate from the University of Cambridge.  He also held an honorary doctorate from the Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM).