Islamic Studies in Romania

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The centuries-long contacts with Islam in Romania have led to the emergence of an old tradition of Islamic , Turkish and Ottoman research.

Beginnings in the 17th and 18th centuries

Dimitrie Cantemir in Turkish clothes.

Dimitrie Cantemir wrote several fundamental works as early as the late 17th and early 18th centuries . In his book Kitâbu 'Ilmi'l-Mûsikí alâ Vechi'l-Hurûfât ( Ottoman The Book of Written Musicology, probably published in 1698 in the Moldovan capital of Iași ), the young scholar (he was then 25 years old) developed a theory of Ottoman music , his own notation and collected valuable information on musical practice in the Ottoman Empire as well as songs that would have been lost without his contribution to musicology. Cantemir was also active as a composer in Constantinople. In the history of Turkish music he is known as Kantemiroğlu. His monograph Historia incrementorum atque decrementorum Aulae Othomanicae ( History of the emergence and decline of the Ottoman Empire , written 1714–1716 in Latin, translated into English in 1734, French in 1743, and German in 1745) was the standard work on this until the middle of the 19th century Theme. Cantemir also wrote a book in Russian with the title Kniga sistema muhamedanskoi relighii ( System of the Muslim Religion ).

The interreligious and inter-lingual constellation is also interesting for an epoch when the individual branches of science were not yet autonomous or did not emerge at all: 1701 appeared in the Snagov Monastery near Bucharest with the financial support of Constantin Brâncoveanu and under the direction of the scholar and later Metropolitan von Bucharest Antim Ivireanul a bilingual Orthodox missal (Greek-Arabic) that is considered to be one of the first books in the world to be printed in Arabic script. In 1711 Ivireanu also printed the first Bible in Arabic script for the Syrian Christians.

present

Nicolae Iorga, 1914.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the historian Nicolae Iorga also wrote a five-volume history of the Ottoman Empire based on the sources (Gotha, Perthes 1908–1913, reissued by the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1997). In 1913 Iorga founded the interdisciplinary Institut d'Etudes Sud-Est Européennes and its publication organ Bulletin de l'Institut pour l'Etude de l'Europe Sud-Orientale , from 1924 under the title Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen . The German Osmanist Franz Babinger worked here in the 30s and 40s . When he had to give up his professorship in Berlin in 1933 because the Nazis came to power, Nicolae Iorga offered him a position in Bucharest. From 1933 to 1939 he held a position at the Bucharest Institute for Southeast European Studies. Babinger founded an institute for Turkish and Islamic Studies at the University of Alexandru Ioan Cuza Iași in 1939/40 , which only survived until 1944.

The religious scholar Mircea Eliade dealt with Islam in the third volume of his main work History of Religious Ideas , From Mohammed to the Beginning of Modern Times (1983).

In 1957, a department for Arabic was established at the University of Bucharest. In the years 1974–1976 the journal Romano-Arabica appeared at the University of Bucharest , founded u. a. by Constantin C. Giurescu , Virgil Candea and Aurel Decei (1905–1976). Well-known contemporary historians who have also dealt with Islam are Mihail Guboglu (1911–1989) and Virgil Ciocîltan . Also the theologian and religious scholar Andrei Scrima , who u. a. taught at the French university in Beirut from 1968–1989, studied Islam. Andrei Pleșu gave lectures on the mysticism of Islam at the University of Bucharest in the 1990s . Some of his interpretations have appeared in his book Despre îngeri (Bucharest, Humanitas 2003; German under the title Das Schweigen der Engel , Berlin University Press, 2007). Remus Rus published a history of Islamic philosophy ( Istoria filosofiei islamice , Bucharest, 1994). There is a department for Arabic at the University of Bucharest and since 1994 a center for Arabic studies. The international journal Romano-Arabica (New Series) has been published here since 2001 , often also dealing with Islamic studies (No. VIII – XI / 2011, for example, under the title Islamic Space: Linguistic and Cultural Diversity ). As part of this department, there is a master’s course The Islamic Space: Societies, Cultures, Mentalities . The Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj has had an Institute of Turkish and Central Asian Studies since 2009 . The Kriterion publishing house (based in Cluj-Napoca since 2002 ) has been issuing the Bibliotheca Islamica series since 2000 in collaboration with the Department of Oriental Languages ​​and Literatures at the University of Bucharest.

literature

  • Cantemir, Dimitrie, Sistemul sau întocmirea religiei muhamedane [system of the Muslim religion] , transl ., Foreword and commentary by Virgil Cândea, Bucharest: Ed. Minerva, 1977, 689 pp. + 20 illustrations
  • Cantemir, Dimitrie, Sistemul sau întocmirea religiei muhamedane [System of the Muslim religion] , foreword and commentary by Virgil Cândea, in: Dimitrie Cantemir, Opere complete [Complete Edition], Vol. VIII, Bucharest, 1987
  • Goldenberg, Yves, "Notes en marge de quelques écrits roumains sur le Coranet l'Islam", in: Analele Universităţii Bucureşti, Limbi clasice şi orientale, 21 (1972), pp. 121-127
  • Ioana Feodorov, The Arab World in the Romanian Culture (1957–2001) , Bucharest: Editura Biblioteca Bucurestilor, 2001, 153 p. [Extensive bibliography on the subject]
  • Anghelescu, Nadia, "Dialogul islamo-creştin azi [The Islamic-Christian Dialogue Today]", in: "Luceafărul", 1990, no.38
  • Anghelescu, Nadia, Introducere în islam [Introduction to Islam] , Bucharest, Ed. Enciclopedică, 1993, 144 p.
  • Anghelescu, Nadia, "La minorité musulmane de Roumanie [The Muslim Minority in Romania]", in: Islamochristiana , Rom, 25 (1999), pp. 125-137
  • Anghelescu, Nadia, "Romania", in: Geoffrey Roper, (ed.), World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts , London, Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 1992, pp. 647-659
  • Alexandru Duţu, "D. Cantemir - orientalist", in: Romania literara , 10 (1977), no. 25, p. 19
  • Cândea, Virgil, "La dimension spirituelle de l'oecumenisme du Sud-Est Européen" [including Islam], “Bulletin de l'Association Internationale d'Études Sud-Est Européennes”, 14-15 (1994–1995), pp. 61
  • Cândea, Virgil, "Locurile sacre ale Islamului [Holy Places of Islam]", in: "Magazin istoric", 1993, no.8 (317), pp. 9-13.
  • Cândea, Virgil, "Serapion Arsinoites şi Faridu-d-Din 'Attar. Motive comuneîn literatura creştină şi sufi din secolele V-XII" [Common Topics in the Christian and the Sufi Literature of the V-XII Centuries], in: "Orient ", 1990, no.1, pp. 14-16
  • Dobrişan, Nicolae, "Coranul şi religia islamică" [The Koran and the Islamic Religion (Foreword to a New Edition of the Koran in Romanian)], Bucharest, 1994
  • Dobrişan, Nicolae, "Despre“ inimitabilitatea ”stilului coranic şi“ intraductibilitatea ”Coranului" [On the “Inimitability” of the Koranic Style and “Intraductibility” of the Koran], “Secolul 20”, 1995, no.4-5-6 , Pp. 265-278
  • Dunca, Mircea, catalog of the exhibition Scrierea în arta islamică [Writing in Islamic Art] , Bucharest, Ed. Muzeului Naţional de Artă al României, 2000, 90 p. Fig.
  • Dunca, Mircea, Interview by Roxana Nicolae (on the exhibition “Writing in Islamic Art”), “Ecart”, March 17-18, 2000, no.75, p. 8

Web links

proof

  1. ↑ This book “circulated in manuscripts and in editions printend in 10 languages, and was quoted in Paris, Berlin, and London; in St Petersburg and Bucharest; and from Mount Athos to Istanbul and Alep in the Near East. Great spirits in European letters - Voltaire in his Histoire de Charles XII , Byron in Don Juan , and Victor Hugo - praysed him. ”Cf. V. Candea, Introduction, in: Dimitrie Cantemir. The Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire, Bucharest: Roza Vanturilor, 1999.
  2. ↑ Cf. Petre S. Nasturel, Le mont Athos et les roumains: recherches sur leurs relations du milieu du XIVe siecle a 1654 , Orientalia Christiana Annalecta, Rome, 1986 and Neagu Djuvara, Le pays roumain entre Orient etident : les principautés danubiennes au début du XIXe siècle , Publications orientalistes de France, 1989.