H. U. Weitbrecht

Herbert Udny Weitbrecht ( born January 24, 1851 in London, † May 30, 1937 at Highbury ) was a German-born Protestant missionary and scholar of Islam.

Life and work

The son of Indian missionary Johann Jakob Weitbrecht (1802-1852) and Martha Edwards (1808-1888) and brother of the theology professor Theodor Christlieb went to school in the London borough of Islington and then studied under Religious Studies at the University of Bonn, where his brother- taught. Weitbrecht continued his studies in Berlin and Tübingen continued, and graduated in 1873 with a doctorate in philosophy from.

Then Weitbrecht returned to England and was from 1874, first as a deacon at Christ Church in the area of ​​Liverpool and Everton a year later, in the diocese of Chester worked. In 1876 he sailed on behalf of the Church Mission Society ( CMS) to India and took over from 1878 to 1884 the office of the deputy chief of the St. John's Divinity School in Lahore, were trained at which Indian priest, and was in 1883 in the College of local University of the Punjab selected. A year later Brecht wide dislocation as district missionary to Batala, where as chief auditor, the management of a committee of Indian and foreign missionaries gave him, whose main task should be the implementation of the New Testament in the Indo-Aryan language Urdu. In 1886 Weitbrecht was appointed as a missionary for the Literary CMS and supervised in this function, the creation of the Christian literature which was necessary for the work of the organization. In 1904 he received his doctorate with a monograph on the work of this committee and received in 1906 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Thomas Davidson, the degree of Doctor of Difinity ( DD) of the Lambeth Degree awarded.

In the same year he attended the standing under British rule Egypt and lived the first mission conference for Islam in. His visit coincided with the start-up phase of the new National Party of Egypt, and Weitbrecht pointed it out at the conference that a new, young Egypt would be in the development, which would free itself from the Ottoman Empire and one of the of the concomitant revival Islam should take note. Then Weitbrecht was appointed as Acting Secretary of the CMS, and first in Amritsar, 1907 in Kashmir in 1908 reinstated in Batala and from 1909 to 1911 in Shimla.

In addition Weitbrecht was appointed honorary secretary of the " Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge " ( SPCK ) in the diocese of Lahore in 1878 and was in this capacity from 1886 to 1911 on behalf of the local bishops, Thomas Valpy French, Henry James Matthew and George Alfred Lefroy, responsible for the training and testing of the pastor.

After 35 years of service in India Weitbrecht returned 1911 again to England, where he was appointed first secretary of the Board of the Board of Study for the preparation of missionaries, an organization that better cooperation between the Missionary societies in raising their envoys or representatives should serve. He held that post for three years and was elected in the meantime in 1912 an honorary governor for life of the Bible Society. In 1915 Weitbrecht received the appointment as superintendent of the " Mildmay Institute " and two years later he was given the management of the " St. Catherine's Deaconess House " at Highbury. At the end of his career he still chose in 1925 the Church Mission Society to its Vice-President.

On his return to London Weitbrecht wrote several more important writings, including some translations and wrote numerous articles for various missionary magazines. Due to his long stay in India and its Arabic and Islamic knowledge, he also published some notable publications on Islam in general and the Qur'an in particular.

Herbert Udny Weitbrecht - Stanton was married to Ellen Louise Stanton (approx. 1851-1884 ), whereupon he assumed the double name " Udny - Weitbrecht ". Together they had one son and four daughters, two of which already died as infants.

Writings (selection )

  • Modern Doubt and Christian Belief: A Series of Apologetic Lectures Addressed to Earnest Seekers after Truth. together with Theodor Christlieb, and Thomas Luck Kingsbury (eds ). T & T Clark, 1877.
  • A Descriptive Catalogue of Urdu Christian Literature: With a review of the Same and a Supplementary Catalogue of Christian Publications in the Other Languages ​​of the Panjab. Religious Tract Society, 1886.
  • The New Testament Urdu: a history of its language and its versions. British and Foreign Bible Society, London, 1900.
  • A bibliography for missionary students, Anderson and Ferrier. Edinburgh 1913. ( Digitized at archive.org )
  • Raymond Lull and Six Centuries of Islam.. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1915 ( digitized at archive.org ) ( Reprint: Biblobazaar, 2009, ISBN 978-1-113-13687-9 )
  • The Gospel According to St. Matthew. . Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1919 ( digitized beiarchive.org ) ( Reprint: BiblioBazaar, 2009, ISBN 978-1-117-45613-3 )
  • Selections from the Quran. Translation by John Medows Rodwell. . Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1922 ( Reprint: Kessinger Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-120-86582-3 ). ( digitized at archive.org )
  • Texts for Students. 1922nd ( reprint: NabuPress, 2012, ISBN 978-1-276-24361-2 )

Literature and sources

  • Church Mission Society. Archives, Section III, Central Records. Part I CMS Register of Missionaries, 1804-1918.
  • Paul Weitbrecht: News from the history of families Weitbrecht, Duensing, saddlery and Hölder. Privately printed, Stuttgart 1945.
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