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(1/5) Joseph Schacht, one of the giants in the Western study of Islamic law, was appointed professor of Oriental Studies @UniFreiburg in 1924, at the tender age of 22. Between 1925-1932, when he left for Königsberg, he taught the following languages: Arabic, Babylonian-Assyrian,
(2/5) Biblical Aramaic, Egyptian Arabic dialect, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Hittite, Mandaic, Middle Turkish, Neo-Aramaic (dialect of Maʿlūla), Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Phoenician, Syriac, modern Turkish, Uyghur and Yakut. He had no assistants but was, in fact, a one- man-department
(3/5) who also offered classes on Arabic poetry, politics of the Middle East, Islamic modernism - and Islamic law. He traveled widely in the Middle East and got promoted in 1929 to become, at age 27, the youngest full professor in Germany at the time. Opposed to the Nazis, he
(4/5) spent WWII in the UK, never to return to Germany. But he remained attached to Freiburg, as he put it in a letter in 1947: "At all events, I have only fondest memories of my youth in Freiburg, and even if I know now that I had built on sand, it nevertheless was the happiest
(5/5) and most civilized period between the two wars,
when one had at least the illusion of making positive progress." If you'd like to know more, check out Rainer Brunner's fascinating piece: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.31826/9781463240035/html @IslamicSt_UniFR
when one had at least the illusion of making positive progress." If you'd like to know more, check out Rainer Brunner's fascinating piece: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.31826/9781463240035/html @IslamicSt_UniFR
