Goldziher, Ignaz
GOLDZIHER, IGNAZ (1850- ), Jewish Hungarian orientalist, was born in Stuhlweissenburg on the 2 2nd of June 1850. He was educated at the universities of Budapest, Berlin, Leipzig and Leiden, and became privat decent at Budapest in 1872. In the next year, under the auspices of the Hungarian government, he began a journey through Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and took the opportunity of attending lectures of Mahommedan sheiks in the mosque of el-Azhar in Cairo. He was the first Jewish scholar to become professor in the Budapest University (1894), and represented the Hungarian government and the Academy of Sciences at numerous international congresses. He received the large gold medal at the Stockholm Oriental Congress in 1889. He became a member of several Hungarian and other learned societies, was appointed secretary of the Jewish community in Budapest. He was made Litt. D. of Cambridge(1904)and LL.D. of Aberdeen(1906). His eminence in the Sphere of scholarship is due primarily to his careful investigationofpre-MahommedanandMahommedan law, tradition, religion and poetry, in connexion with which he published a large number of treatises, review articles and essays contributed to the collections of the Hungarian Academy.
Among his chief works are: Beitrage zur Literaturgeschichte der Schi'a (1874); Beitrage zur Geschichte der Sprachgelehrsamkeit bei den Arabern (Vienna, 1871-1873) ; Der Mythos bei den Hebrdern und seine geschichtliche Entwickelung (Leipzig, 1876; Eng. trans., R. Martineau, London, 1877); Muhammedanische Studien (Halle, 1889-1890, 2 vols.) ; Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie (Leiden, 1896-1899, 2 vols.); Buck v. Wesen d. Seele (ed. 1907).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
