Theodor Nöldeke

Portrait of Nöldeke

Theodor Nöldeke (2 March 1836 – 25 December 1930) was a German Semitic scholar, who was born in Harburg and studied in Göttingen, Vienna, Leiden and Berlin.

In 1859 his history of the Qur'an won for him the prize of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and in the following year he rewrote it in German (Geschichte des Korans) and published it with additions at Göttingen. In 1861 he began to lecture at the university of this town, where three years later he was appointed extraordinary professor. In 1868 he became ordinary professor at Kiel, and in 1872 was appointed to the chair of Oriental languages at Strassburg, which he resigned in 1906.

Nöldeke’s range of studies were wide and varied, but the main focus of his work has followed the two lines indicated by his prize essay, Semitic languages, and the history and civilization of Islam. While a great deal of his work (e.g. his Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache, 1868, his Mandäische Grammatik, 1874, and his translations from the Arabic of Tabari, 1881–1882) is meant for specialists, many of his books are of interest to the general reader.

Some of Nöldeke's studies are included in The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book edited by Ibn Warraq.

Several of his essays first appeared in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and his article on the Qur'an, with some others, was republished in a volume called Oriental Sketches. The articles dealing with Persia were republished in a German volume, Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887).

Charles Cutler Torrey and Friedrich Zacharias Schwally were his students.

Selected bibliography

• Das Leben Mohammeds (1863)
• Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Poesie der alten Araber (1864)
• Die alttestamentliche Literatur (1868)
• Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments (1869)
• Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt (1879)
• Reste Arabischen Heidentums (1887)
• Zur Grammatik des klassischen Arabisch (1896)
• Fünf Mo'allaqat, übersetzt und erklärt (1899–1901)
• Articles in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1903)
• Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (1904)
• Compendious Syriac Grammar (1880, 1888, 1904 [translation])

He contributed frequently to the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen and the Expositor.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• Marco Frenschkowski (1993). Bautz, Traugott. ed (in German). Nöldeke, Theodor. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 6. Herzberg. cols. 979–983. ISBN 3-88309-044-1. http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/n/noeldeke_t.shtml. 
• History of Sasanian's State

Persondata
Name	Nöldeke, Theodor
Alternative names
Short description	German Semitic scholar
Date of birth	2 March 1836
Place of birth	Harburg
Date of death	25 December 1930
Place of death