Aziz Atiya

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Aziz Suryal Atiya ( Arabic عزيز سوريال عطية; * July 5, 1898 ; † September 24, 1988 ) was an Egyptian Coptologist and historian .

Life

Atiya was born in a small Egyptian town called al-Aysha in Al-Gharbiyya Province . When he was five years old, his parents sent him to a school in Cairo . After studying in Cairo, which he graduated from Higher Training College in 1927 , he went to Liverpool to continue his studies there at the university. He graduated with a BA in Medieval and Modern History in 1931 and went to the University of London, where he completed his studies with a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 1933. In 1935 he went from London to Bonn, where he was lecturer and honorary professor for medieval oriental history at the University of Bonn at Paul Kahle's oriental seminar . In September 1939, the outbreak of World War II forced him to return to Egypt. There he became school inspector for history and professor for medieval history at Cairo University .

In 1941 he married his wife Lola. This marriage resulted in two children.

In 1942 Atiya received a founding professorship for medieval history at the then-developing University of Alexandria , which he held until 1952. From 1952 to 1954 he was Dean of the Institute of History. From 1950 to 1951 Atiyah lectured in the USA.

From 1954 he taught as a professor at various universities in Michigan , Columbia , Indiana and Princeton , then as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He then established the Center for the Study of Arabic and Middle Eastern Culture at the University of Utah .

The University of Utah's J. Marriott Library has a department named Aziz S. Atiya Middle East Library in his honor . The library also holds Atiya's written estate under the name The Aziz Suryal Atiya Papers (1927-1993) , which can be consulted for research purposes.

Aziz Atiya spoke several languages, including fluent English, Arabic and French, German, Italian, Latin and to a lesser extent Spanish, Greek, Coptic and Turkish.

Research and Teaching

In 1934 he published his work on the battle of Nicopolis - The crusade of Nicopolis (new edition 1978), which had emerged from the studies for his doctorate. As part of these studies, Atiyah traveled to Bulgaria.

In 1938 Atiyah published his extensive work The crusade in the later Middle Ages . He had already announced this in the preface to The crusade of Nicopolis , which he described as the last chapter. Not least for this work, the University of Liverpool honored him with a Doctor of Letters .

In 1946 he undertook an expedition financed by the British military administration to the Pentapolis of Kyrenaica .

From 1949 to 1950 he took part in an expedition to St. Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula , which was carried out jointly by the American Foundation for the Study of Man and the University of Alexandria . On this occasion he recorded the manuscripts still in the monastery on microfilm . In general, Atiya has repeatedly dealt with the collection of manuscripts , papyri and bone inscriptions throughout his entire scientific work .

From 1960, Atiya devoted himself to the development of the Middle East Center (MEC) at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, both in teaching and from 1962 to 1967 in administration. During this time he also made two trips to Egypt to collect important contributions for the library department that is now named after him.

In May 1966, Atiya discovered eleven papyrus fragments while doing research on the search for Coptic and Arabic papyri in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . The museum bought the fragments in 1947. Atiya quickly recognized a connection to Facsimile No. 1 from the Book of Abraham by Joseph Smith . Then on November 27, 1967, the papyri were given to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It is now generally accepted that the fragments contain texts from the Book of the Dead and the Book of Breathing .

In 1967 Brigham Young University awarded Atiya an honorary doctorate in law. In the same year the University of Utah honored him for his services in research, teaching and administration with the award of the title Distinguished Professor of History .

From 1991 Atiya worked as editor of the multi-volume work The Coptic Encyclopedia . Studies on this can be found in his estate. After his death in 1988, his wife Lola completed the publication.

Atiya is the author of numerous articles and reviews in relevant journals and edited volumes. Many of Atiya's publications have been reprinted or translated into other languages.

Fonts (selection)

  • The crusade of Nicopolis . Repr. From the ed. Of London 1934. AMS Press, New York 1978, ISBN 0-404-15410-7 .
  • The crusade in the later Middle Ages . Repr. From the ed. Of London 1938. Kraus, New York 1965.
  • The monastery of St. Catherine in Mount Sinai . Imp. Misr SAE, Le Caire [pref. 1950].
  • The Arabic manuscripts of Mount Sinai. A hand-list of the Arabic manuscripts and scrolls microfilmed at the library of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai . Foreword by Wendell Phillips. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1955.
  • Crusade, commerce, and culture . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1962.
  • The crusade. Historiography and bibliography . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1962.
  • Crusaders and merchants. The encounter between Christianity and Islam . From the American by Rudolf Bockholdt. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1964.
  • A history of eastern Christianity . Methuen, London 1968.
  • The Copts and Christian civilization . Frederick William Reynolds Association, Salt Lake City 1979, ISBN 0-87480-145-1 .
  • The Coptic Encyclopedia . MacMillan, New York 1991, ISBN 0-02-897025-X .

literature

  • Sami A. Hanna (Ed.): Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies. In Honor of Aziz Suryal Atiya . Brill, Leiden 1972, ISBN 90-04-03406-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul E. Walker: Aziz S. Atiya, A Biography. In: Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies. (in English), p. 5.
  2. ↑ s. Doctor of Letters on Wikipedia (in English)
  3. ↑ Paul E. Walker: Aziz S. Atiya, A Biography. In: Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies. (in English), p. 6.
  4. ↑ Erik Hornung: Ancient Egyptian Beyond Books - An Introductory Overview . Wissenschaftlich Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1997. There is a short outline of these two books.
  5. ↑ Jay M. Todd: Papyri, Joseph Smith. - The Encyclopedia of Mormonism.Retrieved March 24, 2010
  6. ↑ a b Aziz Suryal Atiyah Papers. ( Memento of October 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, (in English). Retrieved September 2, 2013
  7. ↑ Paul E. Walker: Aziz S. Atiya, A Biography. In: Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies. (in English), p. 7.
  8. ^ Paul E. Walker: A Bibliography of the Books and Articles of Professor Aziz Suryal Atiya. In: Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies. (in English), pp. 9–15.
personal data
SURNAME Atiya, Aziz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Atiya, Aziz Suryal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian coptologist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1898
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1988