Josef Horovitz
Josef Horovitz ( born July 26, 1874 in Lauenburg county in Pomerania; † February 5, 1931 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German orientalist. His scientific focus was the early Arabic poetry and exploring the various Jewish, Christian and other influences on early Islam, the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the Koran.
Origin, youth and education, academic career
Josef Horovitz was born as one of eleven siblings, a son of the Orthodox Frankfurt Rabbi Markus Horovitz ( 1844-1910 ). He grew up in a traditional Jewish community in Frankfurt. Prior to his studies, he had acquired a thorough knowledge of Hebrew and traditional Jewish literature. After visiting the philanthropist, he enrolled in 1892 at the University of Berlin for the field of study Oriental languages and literature and studied with Eduard Sachau.
1898 Josef Horovitz graduated his studies with a dissertation on the Arab historian al - Waqidi from. With Eduard Sachau he published the writings of the Arab historian Muhammad ibn Sa ʿ d. Since 1902 Josef Horovitz worked at the University of Berlin as a lecturer. In order to develop early Arabic manuscripts, he traveled to Turkey, Egypt, Palestine and Syria. In 1904 he presented his habilitation thesis, a commentary on the writings of Shiite poet Kumait.
1907 was married to Joseph Horovitz Laura veil just before he founded a professorship at the 1878 in India as the first European Muhammedan Anglo - Oriental College in Aligarh (later Aligarh Muslim University ) accepted, taught Arabic there and on behalf of the Indian Council was curator of Islamic inscriptions. In this role he was the Epigraphia Indo- Moslemica, the collection of Islamic inscriptions of India, out ( 1909-1912 ). As a German, he lost at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 his place and was interned briefly.
After his return to Germany he was from 1915 until his death professor of Semitic languages at the Oriental Institute of the University of Frankfurt, where Shlomo Dov Goitein counted among other things to his disciples. His chair was an endowed chair of the Jewish banker Jakob Heinrich Schiff. For the construction of Oriental Languages at the University of Frankfurt Horovitz acquired from the funds of the Foundation by Jakob Heinrich Schiff library of Orientalists Jakob Barth (1851-1914) and part of the library of the orientalist Hermann Reckendorf ( 1863-1924 ).
Since the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1918, Horovitz was a member of its Board of Trustees. He founded at the Hebrew University, the Department of Oriental Studies and became its " External Director " ( "Visiting Director" ), as he headed the department until his death. Since 1925 he has lectured at the Hebrew University.
Scientific works, death, estate
First, Josef Horovitz devoted to the study of historic Arabic literature. He then founded the concordance earlier Arabic poetry as a collective project, for which he had bogged down the printed divans. To date, recorded under Horovitz ` line one and a half million entries are a centerpiece of the Jerusalem Oriental and attracts researchers from all over the world.
In his Quranic studies (1926 ), he used his method of detailed analysis of the language of Muhammad and his followers as well as historical insights from the study of early texts themselves In his treatise Jewish Proper Names and Derivatives in the Koran and in the Koranic paradise, he examined the relations between Islam and Judaism. His work in India under British rule extends from the time the first Islamic dynasty in Delhi until the occurrence of Gandhi.
His major work was a Koranic commentary, which remained unfinished as Josef Horovitz, died unexpectedly of a planned expedition on February 5, 1931 in Frankfurt am Main due to a stroke. Unfinished also his work remained the worldview of the Qur'an and the critical edition of the writings of the Arab historian al - Baladhuri.
On February 8, 1931 Joseph Horovitz was buried in the Israelite cemetery in Frankfurt. His older brother, Rabbi Jacob Horowitz, held the grave speech. Among the guests at the funeral representatives of the Turkish Embassy Berlin to have been that "in the name of Islamic peoples " thanked the deceased for his contribution to the international understanding, as well as representatives of the Society for the Advancement of Jewish Studies.
Laura Horovitz had in his will that her husband's scientific estate should belong to the Oriental Institute of the University of Frankfurt under the supervision of Gotthold Weil. As was asked by the Faculty of Arts to examine the estate, saying in a letter dated February 16, 1934 his concerns about the commencement of the inheritance from. On this basis, the Board of Trustees of the University decided to refuse the inheritance. Because counted in its opinion refers only objective reasons for a rejection of the estate, but it is likely that time already have been clear that the scientific legacy of a Jew would not be held securely in the hands of the Nazis and not adequately evaluated. What happened to ` estate Horovitz, therefore, is unknown.
Writings
- India under British rule. Publisher of BG Teubner, Leipzig and Berlin, 1928, doi: . 10.1007/978-3-663-15922-3