Wolfhart Heinrichsʼ Essays and Articles on Arabic Literature: Authors, Semitic Studies, and Islamic Jurisprudence

Wolfhart Heinrichs’ Essays and Articles on Arabic Literature: Authors, Semitic Studies, and IslamicJurisprudence is the second of two volumes that showcase a great number of Heinrichs’ writings on Arabic literature, Semitic Studies, and Islamic jurisprudence.

Wolfhart Heinrichs (1941-2014) was James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic at Harvard University. He is remembered as a significant adviser to Fuat Sezginʼs fundamental Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums; as an editor of and contributor to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second edition; and, most importantly, as an author of many independent studies on Arabic literature, many of which were groundbreaking in the history of Arabic philology. He is also known for his studies on Semitic linguistics and Islamic jurisprudence.

This volume collects relevant bibliographical data, offers an introductory essay on the author by his distinguished student Michael Cooperson (UCLA), and presents reprints of his articles and essays. These include the remainder of Heinrichsʼ contributions to Arabic literature, dealing with a number of classical Arabic authors, Semitic studies in general (among them Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic), and Rhetoric as used in Islamic jurisprudence and in the game of scholarly debate (jadal). An index of classical authors, book titles, and technical terms concludes the volume.

This volume and its companion will appeal to students and researchers in the fields of Arabic literature, Semitic Studies, and Islamic jurisprudence.

Hinrich Biesterfeldt is a retired Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. He received his PhD in 1970 in Göttingen. He is the author of books and articles on Arabic literature and the history of the sciences in Islam. Together with Sebastian Günther, he is the editor of the series Islamic History and Civilization.

Alma Giese is an Arabist who received her PhD in 1980 in Giessen, Germany, a translator of numerous works from classical Arabic literature into German, and the widow of Wolfhart Heinrichs.