Rob Jones, in perhaps his last match at Easter Road, was a colossus in the home defence as the match ended 0-0.
The opening stages were dominated by Celtic possession, but with Hibs getting men behind the ball, the visitors were reduced to half-chances which fell to Scott McDonald and Georgios Samaras.
Despite Celtic have all the early possession the first real chance of the match fell to the home side midway through the first half.
With a lot of men up for a set-piece, Steven Fletcher was left unmarked to hook a spectacular shot at goal, which Artur Boruc saved well.
There was little in the way of incident from then until Celtic almost opened the scoring five minutes before the break.
Shunsuke Nakamura found Gary Caldwell in space, but the Celtic captain fluffed his header, and Andreas Hinkel could not get a touch at the back post as a good chance went begging.
The best chance of the match fell to McDonald right on the half-time whistle but, after getting the break of the ball in the box, he contrived to drag his shot wide when he should have done better.
Celtic came out for the second half with a renewed sense of urgency but the Hibs defence, and Jones in particular, were equal to everything that was thrown at them.
As the second half wore on the Edinburgh outfit came more into the game, with the off-colour Derek Riordan having a couple of efforts which flew wide of Boruc's goal.
With that in mind Gordon Strachan brought on Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Shaun Maloney for Samaras and Scott Brown, as the champions' quest for a goal grew more desperate.
Amazingly the visitors' first shot on target came as late as the 72nd minute, with McDonald finding Yves Makalambay on form, as the big shot-stopper got down at the feet of the diminutive Aussie to save.
As the match drew to a close even Boruc went up into the Hibs box, but it was to no avail as the Hoops' title dreams were dealt a critical blow.