schimmel on german islamicstudies

7/30/2019 Schimmel on German Islamicstudies

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Islamic Studies in Germany: A Historical Overview

Author(s): ANNEMARIE SCHIMMELSource: Islamic Studies, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Autumn : 2010), pp. 401-410Published by: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, IslamabadStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41480180 .

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Islamic tudies 9:3 2010) p. 01-410

Islamic Studies in Germany: A Historical OverviewANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

In December1996, he renownedGerman cholarAnnemarie chimmel(d. 2003)visited he slamicResearchnstitute,slamabad, nd deliveredlecture on Islamic Studies n Germany. n view of the Schimmerseminence nd theexcellencefthe ecture,slamic tudiesspublishingt.Minor editorial changes have been made in the lecture,withoutcompromising he substance while transformingerbal to writtencommunication/

The historyof the studies on Islam and Islamic culture in Europe, and inparticular n Germany, is a long one. We can trace it back to the year 1143when the firstLatin translation of the Holy Qur'n was made in Spain, atranslationwhich was printedfor the first ime in Basel, Switzerland,at theinstance of no less important a figurethan the German reformer MartinLuther (d. 1546). This translationremained n use in Europe forthe next 400years.Afterthat, however, several translations f the Qur'n were made intoLatin, and these translationsprovided the texts that were re-translatedntoGerman and other European languages. In the 18th century,two mediocretranslations f theQur'n appeared in Germany,which are importantbecausethe greatGerman poet and thinkerJohannWolfgang von Goethe (d. 1832)was aware of them and used them n his own works relatedto Islamic Studies.Scholarlystudies of Arabic began in Germany in the 16thcenturywhenseveral manuscripts came to the library in Heidelberg and a number ofChristianSyriansworked on thesemanuscripts.But for a long time the realcentreof Islamic Studies in Europe was Holland, especiallythe UniversityofLeiden with men like Jacob Golius (d. 1667) and Thomas Erpenius (d. 1624).As a result of the special scholarly interest n Arabic, several works weretranslatedfrom Arabic into Latin includingIbn TufayPs (d. 1185) Hayy IhnYaqzn. This book provided inspiration for the famous novel Robinson

Crusoe which most of the German children read and become excited about*TranscribedyDr. Muhammadkram.

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402 ANNEMARIECHIMMELthe adventures of the lonely man in his island who slowly discovered all thepossibilitiesof human life ncludingphilosophyand religion.

But we have to keep it in mind that at that time Arabic Studies wereusually thoughtto be usefulfor the studyof Hebrew. For those who neededan understandingof the Old Testament Arabic was a kind of key totheologicalstudies. n otherwords,Arabic was studied as necessaryforothersubjects and not for its own sake. The firstperson in Europe to undertakeArabic Studies for their own sake was a German called,Johann JakobReiske(d. 1774), a man with a very tragic career because his Dutch and Germancolleague did not like his approach to orientalstudies, s he was not willingtomakeArabic subservient o the studyofHebrew. For him Arabic and IslamicHistory had to be studied for their own sake and he tried to add to it anumber of works and made the first ttemptto understand slamic historyalittle bit better han it was known previously.Reiske was called theMaster ofArabic Literaturewhen he died in 1774 and it was he who really freed thestudyof Arabic frombondage of theological enterprises. t is for this reasonthat we honour his name. His autobiography,which his widow edited afterhisdeath, s still a majorhallmark of slamicStudies,particularlyn Germany.

Historically,the attitudeof the Europeans towards the Islamic world haschanged several times. On the one hand, there was the first attempt tounderstand slam from the Qur'an as we can see in Germany in the 15thcentury n the work of a learned philosopher,Nicolaus Cusanus (commonlyknown as Nicholas ofCusa; (d. 1464),who attempted he first crutiny f theQur'an. Later on, there was a new wave of hatredagainstthe Islamic worldparticularly n Austria and Germany, when the Ottoman Turks besiegedVienna in 1529 and thus shocked the Westernworld. For about a century nda half until 1683 we find a growing number of anti-Islamic,that is, anti-Turkishwritingsn theWest. This obviouslywas because the Turks seemed tothreaten he European civilization. In factsometimes one has the feelingthatthis fear s stillsub-consciously ingering n. On theotherhand, therewas alsoa new interest n Islamic culture, n particular n the Islamic culture of Iranand India. This was due to merchants s theytravelled to India and explainedin their writings about the treasures of the East and the great culturalachievementsof the Islamic countries. t was the first ime that books fromPersia were translated nto European languages, including German. Let usmentionhere a book which had a great mpact on the German understandingof the Islamic world, in particular,of the Persian world. This is the firstGerman translationof Shaykh Sa'di's Gulistn,which appeared in 1654 inGermany and deeply impressed our great classical writers such as JohannGottfriedvon Herder (d. 1803) and Goethe. The influence of Sa'di's beautiful



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ISLAMICTUDIESNGERMANY:HISTORICALVERVIEWworks, the Gulistn and Bstn,on German literaturewas visible throughoutthe 19thcentury.Thereafterwith the help of other translations uch as thosemade by the British orientalistsof Fort William College, Calcutta, slowly abetterunderstanding f Islamic culturebegan although,of course, there was agreat shortage of criticallyedited sources. We can say that the scholarlyorientalstudies n Europe began around 1800, that s shortlyafterReiske, themaster of Arabic literature,had passed away. On the one hand, we see inGermany the growing interestof people like Herder and Goethe in Islamicculture. When you read Herder's studies in the historyof the Philosophy ofhuman beings you find some very interesting emarks about Islamic cultureand literatures.Remarks which are stunninglymodern in theirapproach butnowadays very fewpeople have read them. I am always amazed by Herder'sapproach to theMuslim world. He was the one who influencedGoethe as youall know probably throughthe work of Allma Iqbl. Goethe, in his youth,attempted twriting drama on theProphetMuhammad, peace be upon him)which was, however, never completed but one of its fragmentsknown inGerman as Mahammadsgesang the song of Muhammad) was translatedveryfreely nto Persian by Allma Iqbl in his Payzm-iMasbriq. And it is AllmaIqbl who for the first nd, as far as I am aware, the only time wrote ananswer, a poetical answer,to Goethe's West-stlicherivan, thus makinghiswork and his way of understanding slamic culture available also to hiscompatriots in Indo-Pakistan. Goethe certainly was a poet and a wisephilosopher and his way of understanding he literatureand the culture ofIslam is amazing. You may rememberthat he was inspiredto writehis Divanreading the German translation of the Diwn-e Hfiz by the AustrianorientalistJoseph von Hammer-Purgstall d. 1856), a book that appeared in1812 to 13. And it was this book thatsparkedoffhis interest n the East. Andwhen you read todaythe notes known asAbhandlungen theEssays),which heappended to his poetical work, you are amazed how intelligently nd howwonderfullyhe has analyzed manyfeatures f slamic culture. And afterhimaman like Friedrich Rckert (d. 1866) was able to translate whatever wasavailable of Arabic, Persian and also Science literature nto German poetry,thusamassinga treasurehouse of oriental ore,whichunfortunatelywas neverfullyunderstoodbyhis compatriots.The East was also at that time the land offairytales. The French translationof the Arabian Nights,which appeared inthe first ecade of the 18thcentury by Antoine Galland (d. 1715), was a newstepto a different nderstanding f the East. Now the Arabic world was seenas a countryoffairies, fghosts, nd of miracles.And a large partofEuropeanliterature,music, and paintingwas inspired by these fairytale images of theEast, which incidentally s continuingto thisday. People like the greatLatin



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404 ANNEMARIECHIMMELAmericanpoet JorgeLuis Borges (d. 1986) have largelydrawnon thefigures fthe Arabian Nights nd Germanpoetry.German music in the 19thccnturyhasmany reflections f this fabulous work. But I have to say that from the early19th centuryonward the scholarly approach to the East and the poeticalapproach got separated. Friedrich Riickert, the great orientalist whosetranslations f al-Harirx's d. 1122) Maqmt and othermasterpiecesof Arabicliteratureare still unsurpassed and will remain unsurpassable. However, hewas neither a historiannor a philologist n the narrow sense of theword. Butat the same time, scholars in France, Germany and Great Britain began tostudythe resources of Oriental culture. This wave of studies began with anexcellentArabic Grammar by a French scholar. After a few Arabic to Latindictionaries hat had been broughtout successfullyn thepreviouscentury, orthe firsttime large dictionaries were compiled. Finally in Germany GeorgWilhelm FriedrichFreytag d. 1861) fromtheUniversityof Bonn compiled anenormous Arabic-Latin dictionary which, for many years and decades,remained a standardwork forGerman orientalists.Gradually,more and moresources in Arabic, Persian and Turkish became available to European scholarsand withgreat nterest heyeditedmanuscripts nd triedto tracethe historicaldevelopmentof Islamic culture.Up to that time,the historical sources werevery rarelyused and I can say, without exaggeration, hat from about 1835onwards therehas been a constant streamof editions of classical works in theIslamic languages, n particularArabic and later on in Persian, by Europeanscholars. It is the approach of the historian and philologistto historythat ispredominant n the scholarshipofthe second half of the 19th and the first alfof thetwentieth entury.

As for the German orientalists,they have a particular role in thisdevelopment. Many of you must have read the book by Edward Said,Orientalism, n which he chides French and Britishorientalists, laimingthattheir studies were nothingmore than a tool for the imperialistideas. It istypical that Said did not mention the German orientalistsbecause Germanyhad no colonies. Germany had no interest n the political field n the Islamicworld. For the German orientalists, hestudyofArabic, Persian,and Turkishwas purely acadcmic, a studyaimed at finding he truth for truth'ssake andhence Edward Said's verdict gainsttheorientalists ad nothingto do with thescholarly work of German scholars in the various universities. have tomention just by way of digression, that some of the leading Germanorientalistswent far, ometimeto Great Britain,because theretheyhad morepossibilitiesto continue theirstudies. One of them is a man to whom we owethe first nd an intensestudyofwhat we now would call Pakistani linguistics,that is Ernest Trumpp (d. 1885) who wrote an enormous grammarof the



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ISLAMICTUDIESNGERMANY:HISTORICALVERVIEW 4Q5Sindhi language and who also wrote a grammarof Pushto, both appearing nthe 1870s. He also was interested n Balochi and in Brahwi, not to mentionother languages.But his greatwork, which he did under the auspices of theBritishGovernment,was the Sindhi and the Pushto grammarand the Englishtranslationofthe Adi Grantswhich he producedwhile staying n Lahore. ButErnestTrumpp is an exception.On thewhole, German scholars concentratedon Arabic and on the studyofearly slamic development.Classical Arabic andclassical Persian were the fields n which Germna scholars excelled. Here, thename ofTheodor Nldeke (d. 1930) should be mentioned. He is the one who,for the first ime,venturedto writea historyof theHoly Qur'an, which wascontinued later on by other scholars. Nldeke tried to show the historicaldevelopment in the Srahs of the Qur'an takingadvantage,of course, of theclassificationof Makkl and Madan Surahs in the Qur'an. He tried to showhow thedevelopmentofthoughtcan be detected n thehistoryof theQur'an.He was the first cholar to tacklethisproblem and he was followed by manyothers. There are German and Britishscholars,one of them with his attemptto write his translationof the Qur'an in the historical sequence and manymore. At the same time- and this is somethingwhich is always difficult oexplainto a Muslim audience- the first true" translations f theQur'an intoEuropean languageswere started nd we have a considerable number of themin European languages and especially n German. Recently,a new translationhas been done by a leading Muslim of German origin,Ahmad von Denferwho lives in Munich and who has translated he Holy Qur'an into Germanwith very few footnotes. To be honest, I am not impressed with thistranslation but it is now available and here we come to a problem whichalways creates difficulties orthe western scholars as much as for the Muslimscholars. As all of you know, the Qur'an should not be, and cannot be,translatedbecause the Arabic Word of God is untranslatable nto any otherlanguage. You can make, as Marmaduke Pickthal (d. 1936) did, an integraltranslation ust showing the contents. But one aspect is always irretrievablylost in these cases namely the beauty and the impressiveness f the language,the sound of which moves people even when theydon't understandthewordand the intricate relations between the differentparts of the Qur'an. Ascholarlytranslation s certainly omething hat eaves much to be desired andeven the most scholarlytranslationof the Qur'an into German, thatby RudiParet,which came out about two decades ago is perhaps interesting romtheviewpointof the contents,but it has not the slightresemblanceto the literarybeauty of the original and that is somethingthat worries us orientalistsverymuch.The only translation nto German which gives you a certain nsight nto



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406 ANNEMARIECHIMMELthe rhetoricalbeauty of the Qur'an is thatby Rckert,who has been alreadymentioned above. It is unfortunatelynot complete, it contains about threequartersof the Qur'an. It was published in fragmentsn the 1820s, then re-edited n 1888 with a quite obtuseintroductionby a German orientalistnamedAugustMller, and finallyre-edited yHartmut Bobzin a young scholar fromthe Universityof Ireland who is also a specialist on the translationsof theQur'an into European languages. am very happy that this translation s nowavailable in a good print o thatpeople can at leasthave a certain mpressionofthe beauty of the language as well as of the contentsand I recommend thisbook to everyonewho wants to know more about Islam and itsfoundations.In any case, along with translationof the Qur'an there is an increasingamount of interest n, what European scholars call, different ources of theQur'an and a greatnumber of articles have triedto show theJewishand theChristian and God knows what other sources and inspirations n the Qur'an.Some of the modern British cholars have tried to show that the Qur'an wasdeveloped much later than the Prophet's life. So we have all kinds of criticalapproacheswithwhich we have to work and which we have to share with ourstudents in order to provide them overview or make them a little moreunderstanding f thesubject.Besides attempts o understandthe Qur'an, there have been attempts tunderstandinghedevelopmentof Islamic history nd culture. From theearly19thcenturywe have a number ofconsiderablyvastwritings n thehistory fthe Arabs, on the culturalhistoryof the Arabs, and so on. In fact,historicalwritinghas always been a major featureof the German oriental studies. Tothisday,we have a number ofexcellent historianswho, ofcourse,do not dareany more to write comprehensive surveysbut ratherconcentrate on specificevents in the historyof Islam. Especially afterWorld War , the interest nmodernIslam is growing steadily. t is an interest hat s quite natural becausenow, thanks to the new media and thepossibilityoftravelling ery quicklytothe countries of the Islamic world, it is importantfor us to understand theIslamic issues. We have seen, and we are still seeing,that oftenthroughthemedia facts and developments appear in distorted form. Our generationoforientalists, hat is now in their50s, have taken over a great responsibilitynproducing good books, since the number of studies on the modern historyofthe different slamic States, be it Kuwait or Egypt, Sudan or Morocco, isincreasingalmost week by week. Hence, the historical approach is stillverystrong nd I am happyto saythat our youngorientalists re doing an excellentjob in this field.Another aspect,which was largelyneglected n previoustimes, s IslamicLaw. It is amazing thatduringthe last fewyearsa growingnumber of studies



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ISLAMICTUDIESNGERMANY:HISTORICALVERVIEW 4qjon various aspectsof the Islamic Legal Systemhave been produced specially nGermany but also in the United States and other countries. We have someexcellent doctoral dissertationswhich have been published as books aboutaspects of Islamic law, about the role of the fatw about modernfatw inEgypt, concerningseveralproblemssuch as familyplanning and so on. Theseworks are really very mportantfor theunderstanding f Islam bccause on thewhole thegeneral reading public knows very ittle about Islamic law and theydo not know all the intricacies of the Shari'ah and the ways in whichjurisprudencehas been used to apply the differentaspectsof Shari'ah to dailylifeespeciallyto modern life,and here is a field that becomes more and moreimportantthe fartherwe go in time. I am veryhappy to say thata numberofyoungGerman scholars aredoingexcellent, olid, and impartialwork on theseaspects. This is something that should be taken into account for a betterunderstanding f the role of German orientalists.On the otherhand, severalaspectsof orientalstudies,which mighthavebeen prominent in the past, have now receded a little bit more in thebackground.One of them is the studyof literature, specially of the Persianliterature.We had a good number of scholars for t,of whom we have alreadymentioned Rckert above. These German orientalistsdevoted theirtime,andsometime their entire lives to Arabic, Persian and also Turkish literatures.Especially those orientalistswho worked on the connectionbetween literatureand Tasawwufproduced some exquisitework. Let us mention only one of thegreatGerman scholars,Hellmut Ritter (d. 1971). He was a philologist of thefirst rder. He was a man who worked forlong years n Istanbul and knew allthemanuscripts, he cataloguedones, in the IstanbulLibraryand whose majorinterestwas literature. arid al-Dln 'Attr (d.c. 1220) was his favourite mongthe Sufis. Ritter's book Das Meer der Seele (the Ocean of the Soul) is anunsurpassable survey of the work of Farid al-Dn 'Attr, both from thephilological and the mystical view-points. t is a pity that it has never beentranslated nto English. My studentsat Harvard whose German was prettyshakywere deprivedof theknowledgeof this marvellous book. Ritter had alsoworked on Turkish and Syrian popular literature. n short, his work is atreasre rove for all of us and it is his studentswho have continued his workto a certainextent.

Similarly,a scholar who is Swiss but trained n the German tradition, sFritz Meier of Basel (d. 1998) whose work on the greatSfis is probably thebest ever written.He has devoted studies to Ab Ishq Kazarnx of Shirzwho died in 1035. He has a major work on Ab Sa'ld ibn 'Abi '1-Khayr(d. 1049), the greatSuf of Mahn and probably his best-knownwork is thestudyofNajm al-Dn Kubr who died duringtheMongol invasion in 1221. In



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40g ANNEMARIECHIMMELhis work we find a wonderful combination of philological subtleness andphilosophical understandingof the teachingsof Kubr and his students.also devoted an interesting ook to the father f Mauln Jall-ud-DlnRumi,Bah' al-Dn Walad, which examines Sufism from a completely differentviewpoint. Lately he has publisheda book on the Naqshbandiyyah, in whichhe follows up the spiritual teachingsand the philosophical approaches of theNaqshbandiyyah to life. He is,withoutany doubt, the greatmasterof studieson Arabic, Persian,and Turkishmystical nd philosophical traditions. n fact,it is difficult o find s erudite scholar as Fritz Meier who is a greatmodel forall who work in the fieldof oriental and Islamic studies.Unfortunately, gain,none of his works has appeared in English. Now there are coming out thePersian translations f some of his work but for some reason no one has daredto translatehis completeworks into English.It is a pitythat his books are notavailable to the English readingfriends.Fritz Meier is now the last scholar,who represents he classical orientalstudies,thoughhis students nd admirershave triedto continue his work. Their interest n the Sfl ordershas grownagain after t was almost dead for some decades but we should not forget hatthe first tudyof,for nstance,on theBektashiorder in Turkey,was made byGeorg Jacob, a scholar of theUniversityof Kiel. Lately several studentshavewrittenspecificallyon the Sufi ordersin Turkey. In this connection, a veryimportantstudyon the political role of the Naqshbandiyyah has appeared afewyearsback by a young German orientalist.On the whole, these scholarsfollow up the lines of Sufism more or less from the anthropological or thephilosophical viewpoints.As for Arabic poetry,which has been one of the major fields of classicalGerman scholarship, t is now representedby two or three orientalistswhodedicate their work to classical ArabicJbiliyyah oetry,Abbasid poetry,andso on. However, latelyunder the impact of modern developments there arealso studies on the modern Arabic writers, specially the Palestinian writerswith theirexpressionsof fears and hopes. There are some works on MahmdDarwsh (d. 2008) and Fadwa Tqn (d. 2003) and other Arabic writers.Coming to Persian,themost beautifulflower ofIran, it is taughtrarely nthe universities nd fewer scholars concentrateon this field. The only scholarof Persian whom I know is interested n a kind of statisticalapproach andmore or less computerized understanding fgreatPersianpoets likeHfiz, hisapproach is purely scholarlyand intellectual. t seems that the feelingof theheart s not verymuch in vogue amongGerman orientalists t the moment.On the other hand, we have seen developments in the Central AsianStudies. Coming out of the traditionalTurkish and Persian Studies,a numberofyounger people have takenup the studyof the languagesof Central Asia as



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ISLAMICTUDIESNGERMANY:HISTORICALVERVIEW 4Qgwell as the political and religiousstate of these countries. During the recentconferences n Samarkand and Bukhara, we had the opportunityto come toknow some scholars who approach CentralAsian Islamic historyfromvariousvantage points such as those of social anthropology, inguistics, nd so on. Inmy opinion, this is a field that will grow in the next decade because now theCentral Asia is being opened up to scholars of the world. There is enormousamount of work to be done in this regard. t seems that the shiftfrom theclassical orientalism to a modern and contemporary approach is discernible.Interest in the border zones of the Muslim lands seems especially to begrowingnot only in Central Asia but also in West and South Africa. TheIslamicheritageof theseregionswas rarely tudiedduringthe lastcentury.

There is, however, one field which is surely under-represented nGermany although t originedthere. This is thehistoryof the Islamic art. Thefirstmajor publication on Islamic art was a catalogue of the exhibition ofIslamic masterpieces n Munich in theyear 1910. This was a starting oint fortaking seriously slamic art which up to that time had attracted nly a few artlovers and was considered to be rather second or third rate compared withEuropean art but thanks to the efforts f Ernst Kiihnel (d. 1964) Islamic artbecame an importantfield n German Islamic Studies.Unfortunately, he bestof the art students of Kiihnel left Germany after 1933 and built up thetradition n the United States and Great Britain.Presently, here s not a singlechair for slamic art in Germany. I knowabout the attemptsbeing made to create such a chair in the UniversityofBamberg but it seems that there are no competent people available. On thepositiveside,as a resultof the unification fGermanytwo Islamic museums nBerlin have now mergedwhich is, of course, a wonderful event for the artlovers but it has also creates administrative ifficulty. here is a huge numberof objects,which have never been exhibited.According to my knowlege, inthe magazines of Berlin museum there are more than 25,000 pieces ofceramics,metalwork, and otherpieces of Islamic art which have never beenexhibitedproperly.The sudden death of the Director of the Berlin Museum,Michael Meinecke (d. 1995), who was a great specialist of architecture nMamlk Egypt and Syria, has created a void which has not yet beenadequately filled. So, this field, which is very close to my heart, isunfortunately eglected.In myview, which I always share with my students, o understand slambetter n its manifold aspects it is necessaryto know at least a little bit ofIslamic art or calligraphy.For, how can one really enjoy readingsomethingabout medieval Islamic thoughtwhen one doesn't know how the architecturelooked like. And how can one enjoy the master-piecesof art- a beautiful



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4JQ ANNEMARIECHIMMELcopy of the Qur'n written on vellum, or a marvellous prayer book orsomething like that- without ever having touched such a manuscript.Reliance on the written word is somethingthat is certainlynecessarybut itshould not be the only way of approaching Islamic culture. I was luckyenoughto live in Turkeyforfiveyearsand to go to Pakistan and other slamiccountries and to see thingsthat arc not written n the books and thus havesome feelingforthings hat can neverbe put in writing. n fact, t is extremelyimportantforyoung scholars to experiencethe East or the orientalcountriesfrom Morocco to Pakistan and Bangladesh for some time just to get in touchwith thepeople who live in Islamic culture.Lukily, young studentshave nowmore such opportunities, hen before which will certainlyresult n scholarlyworks that bear warmth andsympathy or slamic culture n general.In Germany orientalstudies declined in the 1950swith the loss of a greatnumber of good scholars either due to the war or due to emigration. amhappyto saythat fromthe mid60s of the twentieth enturyonward we have agrowingnumber ofyoung people who are interested n all the differentacetsof Islamic Studies. Hopefully, duringthe next fewyearsGermany will againbe producing some of the leading scholars in this field, Insh' Allah. Thepeople with whom I am in touch, colleagues and studentsalike, give me thehope and the conviction that this will be the case. I hope when I come hereagain after ome time, nsh'Allah, I will be able to presenta surveyof whathas been happening in the late 1990s and the beginning of the twentyfirstmillennium.Thank you.

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