David Samuel Margoliouth

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

David Samuel Margoliouth
D.S. Margoliouth
Born17 October 1858
London, England
Died22 March 1940 (1940-03-23) (aged 81)
London, England
NationalityBritish
EducationNew College, Oxford, England
Known forScholar, linguist, translator, editor and author
MovementOrientalist

David Samuel Margoliouth, FBA (/mɑːrˈɡoʊliəθ/;[1] 17 October 1858, in London – 22 March 1940, in London) was an English orientalist. He was briefly active as a priest in the Church of England. He was Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford from 1889 to 1937.[2][3]

Life

His father, Ezekiel, had converted from Judaism to Anglicanism, and thereafter worked in Bethnal Green as a missionary to the Jews; he was also close to his uncle,

double first Bachelor of Arts (BA) in literae humaniores in 1880:[6] he won an unprecedented number of prizes in Classics and Oriental languages, of which he had mastered Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian and Syriac, in addition to Hebrew. His academic dissertation, published in 1888, was entitled Analecta Orientalia ad Poeticam Aristoteleam. In 1889, he succeeded to the Laudian Chair of Arabic, a position he held until he retired, from ill health, in 1937. He received the degree Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from New College in July 1902.[7]

Many of his works on the history of Islam became the standard treatises in English, including Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (1905), The Early Development of Mohammedanism (1914), and The Relations Between Arabs and Israelites Prior to the Rise of Islam (1924).[3]

He was described as a brilliant editor and translator of Arabic works,

H. F. Amedroz
under the title The Eclipse of the 'Abbasid Caliphate, 7 vol. (1920–21).

He identified a business letter written in the Judeo-Persian language, found in Dandan Uiliq, northwest China, in 1901, as dating from 718 C.E. (the earliest evidence showing the presence of Jews in China).[8]

He was a member of the council of the

Royal Asiatic Society from 1905 onwards, its director in 1927, was awarded its triennial gold medal in 1928, and was its president 1934–37.[2]

Egyptian Poet Laureate Ahmed Shawqi dedicated his famous poem, The Nile, to Margoliouth.

Margoliouth on the Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry

The Pakistani Islamic scholar Javed Ghamidi spoke of "the recent campaign to cast aspersions on the relevance and reliability of the whole corpus of classical Arabic literature of the Jahiliyyah period which began with 'Usul al-Shu‘ara al-'Arabi' by the famous orientalist D.S. Margoliouth ..."[9]

However, a look at D.S. Margoliouth's own writings on Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry reveals that his views were not so black and white as has been claimed in, for instance, the above-mentioned examples, but in fact, had shades of gray which indicate scholarly caution and reserve in the face of paucity of data.[citation needed]

In his Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, Margoliouth wrote: "The language of the Koran was thought by experts to bear a striking likeness to that of the early poetry: and though for us it is difficult to pass an opinion on this point, seeing that the early poetry is largely fabrication modelled on the Koran, we may accept the opinion of the Arabs."[10]

In an article in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Margoliouth wrote: "The relation of this Qur'anic style to the verse and rhymed prose of classical Arabic is an enigma which cannot at present be solved."[11]

Personal life

Handwriting of Margoliouth (1930)

On 5 April 1896, Margoliouth married

Jessie Payne Smith (1856–1933), daughter of Robert Payne Smith.[6] Jessie was a Syriac scholar and campaigner for women's suffrage.[12]

Margoliouth was

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography "extreme evangelistic tendencies".[6]

Publications

Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus, 1912

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-19-282745-6
    .
  2. ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica (14th edition) - article Margoliouth, David Samuel
  3. ^ a b c Encyclopædia Britannica (15th edition) - article Margoliouth, David Samuel
  4. ^ Werner Eugen Mosse and Julius Carlebach, Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-speaking Jews in the United Kingdom
  5. ^ A. F. L. Beeston (2004). "Margoliouth, David Samuel (1858–1940)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
  6. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34874. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  7. ^ "University Intelligence". The Times. No. 36813. 7 July 1900. p. 5.
  8. ISBN 978-0-88125-791-5
  9. ^ Footnote 17 in an earlier edition of Ghamedi's book Meezaan at http://www.studying-islam.org/articletext.aspx?id=553 In the 9th Printing (May 2014) of the same book, as well as in the 2nd edition (July 2014) of Ghamidi's English work Islam – A Comprehensive Introduction, this footnote stands omitted.
  10. ^ Margoliouth, D. S. (1905) Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons , p. 60
  11. ^ Margoliouth, D. S. (1915) Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Vol. VIII, p. 874.
  12. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58372. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to David Samuel Margoliouth.
Wikisource has original works by or about:
David Samuel Margoliouth
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Samuel_Margoliouth&oldid=1210259591"