Theodor Nöldeke was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...

 scholar, who was born in Harburg

Harburg (quarter)

General-External links:...

 and studied in Göttingen, Vienna, Leiden and Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

.

In 1859 his history of the Qur'an

Qur'an

The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

 won for him the prize of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.-History:...

, and in the following year he rewrote it in German (Geschichte des Korans) and published it with additions at Göttingen. In 1861 he began to lecture at the university of this town, where three years later he was appointed extraordinary professor. In 1868 he became ordinary professor at Kiel

University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...

, and in 1872 was appointed to the chair of Oriental languages at Strassburg

University of Strasbourg

The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....

, which he resigned in 1906.

Nöldeke’s range of studies were wide and varied, but the main focus of his work has followed the two lines indicated by his prize essay, Semitic languages, and the history and civilization of Islam. While a great deal of his work (e.g. his Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache, 1868, his Mandäische Grammatik, 1874, and his translations from the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 of Tabari

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari

Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...

, 1881–1882) is meant for specialists, many of his books are of interest to the general reader.

Some of Nöldeke's studies are included in The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book edited by Ibn Warraq

Ibn Warraq

Ibn Warraq is the pen name of a polemical author of Pakistani origin who is critical of Islam, and who founded the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society . He is a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry focusing on Qur'anic criticism...

.

Several of his essays first appeared in the Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

, and his article on the Qur'an, with some others, was republished in a volume called Oriental Sketches. The articles dealing with Persia were republished in a German volume, Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887).

Charles Cutler Torrey

Charles Cutler Torrey

Charles Cutler Torrey was an American historian, archeologist and scholar who presented manuscripturial evidence to support alternate views on Christian and Islamic religious sources and origins...

 and Friedrich Zacharias Schwally were his students.

Selected bibliography

• Das Leben Mohammeds (1863)
• Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Poesie der alten Araber (1864)
• Die alttestamentliche Literatur (1868)
• Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments (1869)
• Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt (1879)
• Reste Arabischen Heidentums (1887)
• Zur Grammatik des klassischen Arabisch (1896)
• Fünf Mo'allaqat, übersetzt und erklärt (1899–1901)
• Articles in the Encyclopaedia Biblica
  Encyclopaedia Biblica
  Encyclopaedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religion History, the Archeology, Geography and Natural History of the Bible , edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black, is a critical encyclopedia of the Bible. In Theology/Biblical studies, it is often...
  
   (1903)
• Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (1904)
• Compendious Syriac Grammar (1880, 1888, 1904 [translation])

He contributed frequently to the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen and the Expositor.

External links

• History of Sasanian's State