Arthur John Arberry

Arthur John Arberry (Portsmouth , May 12 1905– Cambridge , October 2 1969) was a respected and most prolific scholar of Arabic, Persian, and Islamic studies. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Pembroke College, Cambridge.Formerly Head of the Department of Classics at Cairo University in Egypt, he returned home to become the Assistant Librarian at the Library of the India Office. During the war he was a Postal Censor in Liverpool and was then seconded to the Ministry of Information, London which was housed in the newly-constructed Senate House of the University of London. Arberry was appointed to the Chair of Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS, University of London 1944-47. He subsequently became the Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, his alma mater, from 1947 until his death in 1969. Arberry's translation of the Qur'an is widely respected, one of the most prominent written by a non-Muslim scholar.

Arberry is also notable for introducing Rumi's works to the west through his selective translations - edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar, his interpretation of Muhammad Iqbal's writings is similarly distinguished.

Popular Works

*Translations of Iqbal's works
*The Mysteries Of Selflessness
*Javid Nama
*The Koran Interpreted
*The Seven Odes

External links

* [http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v2f3/v2f3a039.html] Iranica Article