Albrecht Noth

Albrecht Noth (born September 23, 1937 in Königsberg , East Prussia; † February 22, 1999 in Zechlin ) was a German scholar of Islam .

Life

Albrecht Noth was born as the son of the Old Testament writer Martin Noth and Helga Noth-Binterim in Königsberg / East Prussia. After graduating from Beethoven-Gymnasium Bonn , he studied Middle and New History, Islamic Studies and historical auxiliary sciences in Bonn and Freiburg im Breisgau .

In 1964 he completed his studies with a major in history with the dissertation Holy War and Holy Struggle in Islam and Christianity: Contributions to the Prehistory and History of the Crusades . For this dissertation he received the University of Bonn Prize in August 1965. From 1965 to 1970 Noth was a fellow of the German Research Foundation. In 1970 he qualified as a professor at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn with the thesis Source-critical studies on topics, forms and tendencies of early Islamic historical tradition for the subject " Arabic and Islamic Studies".

Scientific career

Since April 1971, Noth worked as a scientific advisor and professor at the Seminar for Oriental Languages ​​(SOS) in Bonn and headed the "Middle East" department. In April 1980 he was appointed to the University of Hamburg , where he held the professorship for the history and culture of the Middle East until his death.

Albrechts Noth's academic career included several visiting professorships: in 1973 he was visiting professor for "Islamic History" at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); 1989 at the University of Sanaa (Arab.Rep.Yemen); 1990/91 at the University of Bordeaux; 1997 at the Azhar University in Cairo. For his services to oriental studies, Albrecht Noth was selected by the Secrètarìa de Estado de Universidades e Investigaciòn Spain for the Humboldt Mutis Prize of 1990, which was associated with long-term research stays at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Madrid.

As editor, Noth was responsible for the edition of the Arabic and Arabic-Greek documents in the Codex Diplomaticus Regni Siciliae since 1975 ; In 1976 he became co-editor of the specialist journal Saeculum and in 1982 the editor of Der Islam , as well as the series of studies on the language, history and culture of the Islamic Orient , which appeared as supplements to Der Islam . The historical approach is predominant in Noth's research. His focus is on common fields of European and Islamic history, Muslim historiography and images of history, non-Muslim minorities in Muslim societies, as well as Muslim law ( Sharia ) as a factor that shapes history.

He was involved in various projects of the Institute for Historical Anthropology , such as "The Origin and Change of Legal Traditions", "Childhood-Youth-Family" and "Killing in War". From 1979 to 1987 he headed the manuscript project "Archiving and restoration of the largest existing collection of the oldest Koran fragments" in Yemen on behalf of the Foreign Office's cultural department and since 1992 he has been involved in the study The historical foundations for the situation and problems of minorities (Islamic and non-Islamic) worked in the Muslim countries of the Middle East .

In his later work, Noth dealt with the forms and characteristics of group formations in Muslim societies and the development of appropriate questions and terms for the recording of historical processes in Muslim countries. In his last publication ("The Islamic Orient - Basics of Its History") he presented the first results of his research in this regard.

Fonts (selection)

Albrecht Noth has published numerous articles for German and international historical, orientalist and Islamic scientific journals as well as numerous articles for compilations, commemorative publications, symposia and scientific conferences.

• Source-critical studies on topics, forms and tendencies of early Islamic historical tradition. In: Bonner Orientalistische Studien, NS 25. Bonn 1973; into English vLConrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, London 1994
• On the relationship between law and history in Islam. In: SAECULUM 26 (1975) 341-346
• Possibilities and limits of Islamic tolerance. In: SAECULUM 29 (1978) 190-204
• The Arabic documents of King Rogers II of Sicily, part 2 in: C.Brühl, documents and chancellery of King Rogers II of Sicily (Cologne / Vienna 1978) 217–261;

• (Ed. With [Hans R. Roemer]): Studies on the history and culture of the Middle East. Festschrift for Bertold Spuler on his seventieth birthday, Leiden 1981
• Alcune osservazioni a proposito dell'edizione dei documenti arabi dei re normanni di Sicilia. In: Atti della Accademia di Scienze Lettere e Arti di Palermo, Series quinta Volume I (Palermo 1982) 123–129
• The empire of the caliph. In: Die Islamische Welt I (= research and information. Series of publications by the RIAS-Funkuniversität, Vol. 35), Berlin 1984, 25–34
• Islam and the non-Islamic minorities. In: W. End / U. Steinbach (ed.), Islam in the Present (Beck, Munich 11984) 527-538
• Early Islam. In: U. Haarmann (ed.), History of the Arab World (Beck, Munich 1987), 11–100
• Problems of demarcation between Muslims and non-Muslims. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (JSAI) 9 (= Festschrift Kister), Jerusalem 1987, 290-315
• Jihad: Striving for God. In: G. Rotter (Ed.), Die Welten des Islam (Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 1993). Pp. 22-32
• The Early Arabic Historical Tradition. A Source-Critical Study = Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 3. Princeton 1994
• Religious Wars of Islam in the Middle Ages. In: Publ. Joachim Jungius-Ges. Knowledge Hamburg, 83 (1996) 109-122
• (Ed. [With Jürgen Paul]): The Islamic Orient. Fundamentals of his history, Würzburg 1998. Therein: (1) From the Medinan "Umma" to a Muslim ecumenism (2) Strata and groups within the "Umma" // both. Pp. 81-149

Translations

• Italian translation: I documenti arabi di Ruggero II, 2nd part in: C. Brühl, Diplomi e Cancelleria di Ruggero II. Palermo 1983. pp. 189–222

Web links

• Literature by and about Albrecht Noth in the catalog of the German National Library