Edward Granville Browne
Edward Granville Browne ( born February 7, 1862 in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, England; † January 5, 1926 in Cambridge ) was a British orientalist who published numerous articles and books mainly in the fields of history and literature of Persia.
Life
As " Sir Thomas Adams ' Professor of Arabic " at the University of Cambridge, he devoted his main work of the Persian philology. At the University of Cambridge Browne was responsible for founding a school of Oriental Languages , which was related to the training of civil servants for Egypt and Sudan, as well as for the Lebanese consular service provided.
His History of Persian Literature (A Literary History of Persia ), which appeared in the years 1902, 1906, 1920 and 1924 is obsolete today only in details.
The scientific value of his work has been recognized both in his lifetime and after his death. Browne was known primarily for his publications on the Babism and later to the Bahai religion. He has published two translations of the Babi history and wrote some of the few Western books about the early Babi and Bahai history.
He dealt mainly with areas that had explored a few other Western scholars before. In his writings he expressed towards all people, even over those to whom he was personally averse, respectfully. In 1893 he published a respectful representation of Persian culture as it did not exist before. This work was after his death, a classic of English travel literature.
Browne worked in a time when the Persian population towards foreigners and especially against the British and the Russians was very skeptical. Browne and his scientific publications are known and respected in Iran, and even today reminds him of a street named after him in Tehran and a monument that remained even after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Despite his work on the Baha'i religion Browne was never Bahai, but he worked as an orientalist with the young faith. His interest in Babism was awakened by a book by the French diplomat Comte de Gobineau, the Sufism he met with his research. Browne translated Abdul- Baha's work " A Traveller's Narrative " and added an introduction and an appendix. Browne was the development of the written historical perspectives of the Bahai fascinated in respect of the successor regime to the Bab including their idea of an independent dispensation of Baha'u'llah. This work is devoted Baha'u'llah on a larger scale than the Bab and took a critical stance against Subh -i - Azal ( Mirza Yahya ) a, which lists Gobineau as the successor of the Bab. Browne expressed sympathy for Mirza Yahya and wondered about the attitude of the Bahai towards these.
Edward Browne married in 1906 and had two sons.
Quote
After his death in 1925 wrote the Persian scholar Mirza Muhammad Qazvini:
"The existence of Browne for Persia what a God -given blessing. "
"The existence of Browne was a given of God 's blessing for Persia. "
Works (selection)
- Babism. In: Religious Systems of the World: A Contribution to the Study of Comparative Religion. Swann Sonnenschein, London, 1890, pp. 335-353 ( online ).
- A Year among the Persians. Impressions as to the Life, Character, & Thought of teh people of Persia. Received falling on Twelve Months ' Residence in Country did in the Year 1887-1888. Cambridge 1927 ( Online).
- A Literary History of Persia. I-IV, Cambridge 1928 (new edition 1951).
- The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909, by Edward G. Browne, with a new introduction by Abbas Amanat in the Persia Observed series by Mage Publishers (1995, 2006)
- The Persian Crisis of December, 1911 .. University Press, Cambridge 1912 (PDF in the Internet Archive, 2.2 MB).