The Khalidi family has lived in Jerusalem since the eleventh century and is noted for a long line of judges and scholars.
[citation needed][7] In 1952, Khalidi attended Haileybury College in Hertford, England where he was on the classical side (Latin, Greek and Ancient History).
He taught at AUB through the Lebanese Civil War with a brief departure from 1985 to 1986 to become a senior research associate at St. Antony's College, Oxford.
[citation needed] In 1996 he was named the Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic and a fellow of King's College, Cambridge as well as director of the Center of Middle Eastern Studies there.
[9] He returned to AUB again in 2002 to occupy his position as Shaykh Zayid Chair at the Center for Arab and Middle East Studies.