People and Partners

Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921)

Born in Székesfehérvár in 1850, Ignaz Goldziher studied in Budapest, Berlin, and Leipzig, where he took his doctorate under Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, and in Leiden and Vienna, before the study tour of 1873–74 to Syria, Palestine, and Egypt that shaped his outlook for life. In Cairo he was the first European admitted as a student at al-Azhar. Denied a full professorship for more than three decades, he earned his living as secretary of the Pest Jewish community and received an ordinary chair of Semitic philology only in 1905. His major works—Die Ẓâhiriten (1884), Muhammedanische Studien (1889–90), Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie (1896–99), Vorlesungen über den Islam (1910), and Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung (1920)—established the critical, historically grounded study of Islamic religion, law, tradition, and thought as a discipline in its own right. Trained also in the Wissenschaft des Judentums, he taught for two decades at the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest. Honored across Europe, North America, and the Arab world, he was above all a teacher and mentor—in Budapest, and by letter, to scholars from Hartford to St. Petersburg. That is why his letters matter.

Partners

Scientific leads: Kinga Dévényi (Corvinus University of Budapest; former curator, Oriental Collection, LHAS) · Sabine Schmidtke (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)

Host institution: Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Oriental Collection — Máté Rottár (Executive Head, Oriental Collection); Erika Bilicsi (Head, Department of Library Systems and Technology); Orsolya Varsányi (Curator of the Goldziher Collection, LHAS)

Invited partner institutions (institutions are added on an ongoing basis): Tübingen University Library · Leiden University Libraries · Cambridge University Library · Kiel University Library · Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin · Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz · Heidelberg University Archive · Royal Danish Library · Fondation Max van Berchem / Bibliothèque de Genève · Jewish Theological Seminary of America · National Library of Israel · Bibliothek der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Halle) · Istituto per l’Oriente C. A. Nallino (Roma)