Professorship at Fuad University

While doing his book research, Creswell joined the staff of Fuad University of Cairo in 1931 as a lecturer and three years later as a tenured professor in a new Chair for Islamic Art and Archaeology. While at Cairo University, Creswell was not a born teacher—his lectures consisted largely of readings from his books or articles, replete with facts but too magisterial to encourage a totally inexperienced audience toward independent inquiry.

In 1939, he became an ex officio member of the Higher Council for the Conservation of Arab Monuments. In 1949 he accepted trusteeship of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem, and for eighteen years shared the delicate task of sustaining the perfect order and precarious independence of the stranded British administration in Jerusalem.

Creswell’s tenure as University Chair was abruptly ended by the Cairo University in 1951, after twenty years of service, for reasons that are not recorded. He felt justly aggrieved at his dismissal. His frustration and anger only increased when a successor was never appointed. Furthermore, continuation of his work, which the two Kings of Egypt had sponsored, depended in part on his university salary—traveling expenses were heavy. More importantly, however, he relied on his salary to support his sister who was suffering from arthritis. Fortunately, the Rockefeller Institute and then the Bollingen Foundation came to his rescue with successive fellowships for his research, greatly alleviating problems.

In 1952 the first volume of The Muslim Architecture of Egypt appeared, the substantive work started thirty-two years before. The two preliminary and equally as massive volumes, titled Early Muslim Architecture, were published in 1932 and 1940 respectively.

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At the American University in Cairo