Laura Veccia Vaglieri

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Laura Veccia Vaglieri (right) with Virginia Vacca de Bosis (center) at the Oriental Institute in Rome

Laura Veccia Vaglieri (* 1893 ; † 1989 ) was an Italian Islamic scholar and Arabist at the University of Naples L'Orientale .

She was the daughter of the well-known archaeologist Dante Vaglieri (1865–1913) and was very sympathetic to Islam . After a brief study of Tunisian customary law for the Italian colonial ministry in 1917, she wrote a defense for this religion ( Apologia dell 'Islamismo ) in 1925 , which was translated into many languages, including German ( Apologie des Islam . Berlin-Wilmersdorf 1948 ).

At the Congress of European Muslims in Geneva in 1935, she was the only non-Muslim participant. This was justified by the fact that she was assistant to Count Bernardo Barbiellini Amidei, the director of her institute in Naples, who solemnly converted to Islam at this congress. Veccia Vaglieri herself gave a speech at the Congress in Arabic, in which she praised the reforms of Italian colonial policy in the Muslim areas. From the British diplomatic side it was noted that Veccia Vaglieri prepared daily reports on the Congress and forwarded them to the Italian Consul General in Geneva. Veccia Vaglieri's presence and speech at the Congress provoked severe criticism from Arab journalists in Palestine and Egypt. They saw in this a sign that the event organized by Shakīb Arslān had put itself in the service of Italian colonialism.

In 1937 Veccia Vaglieri published a two-volume theoretical-practical grammar of Arabic that became the standard textbook for this language in Italy for several decades. In the following years the history of early Islam was the conflict between Shi'ites , Kharijites , Umayyad and Zubairiden their main area of research. In the early 1950s, for example, she published two studies on the dispute between ibAlī ibn Abī Tālib and Muʿāwiya I , in which she endeavored to shed light on the previously neglected Kharijite perspective on events. She also contributed almost all of the related articles to the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam . Her book L'Islam da Maometto al secolo XVI , published in 1963, provides an overview of classical Islam . In 1964 Roberto Rubinacci published a two-volume commemorative publication in her honor ( Scritti in onore di Laura Veccia Vaglieri , Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale).

Publications (selection)

  • with Virginia De Bosis: Testi giuridici relativi all '"inzal" ed altri diritti "in re aliena" nella consuetudine Tunisina . Ministero delle Colonie, Direzione generale degli Affari civili e delle Opere pubbliche, Rome 1917.
  • Apologia dell'Islamismo . Rome 1925.
  • Grammatica teorico-pratica della lingua araba . 2 volumes. Rome 1937.
  • Il conflitto ʿAlī-Muʿāwiya e la secessione khārigita riesaminati alla luce di fonti ibāḍite. Rome 1953.
  • Traduzione di passi riguardanti il ​​conflitto ʿAlī-Muʿāwiya e la secessione khārigita . Rome 1954.
  • L'Islam da Maometto al secolo XVI . Milan 1963.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Martin Kramer: Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congress. New York 1986. p. 151.
personal data
SURNAME Veccia Vaglieri, Laura
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian scholar of Islam and university lecturer
DATE OF BIRTH 1893
DATE OF DEATH 1989