Martin Plessner

Martin Plessner (born December 30, 1900 in Posen ; † November 27, 1973 in Jerusalem ) was an orientalist who initially worked in Germany and from 1933 in Palestine and Israel.

He completed his habilitation in 1931 at the Oriental Seminar of Frankfurt under Josef Horovitz in Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies with the text: The history of the sciences in Islam as a task of modern Islamic studies and thus expressed an idea that began in 1982 in the establishment of the Institute for History of the Arab-Islamic Sciences was realized. In 1933 he emigrated with his wife Eva Esther, b. Jeremias, out to Palestine . He translated the lectures on Islam by Ignaz Goldziher into Hebrew, which were published in 1951 with a foreword by him in Israel. In 1967 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Works (selection)

• The OIKONOMIKOC of the New Pythagorean "Bryson" and his influence on Islamic science . Heidelberg 1928.
• The history of the sciences in Islam as a task for modern Islamic studies . 1931.
• The importance of the history of science for understanding the spiritual world of Islam . 1966.

Translations

• Ignaz Goldziher: Hartsaot 'al ha-Islam . ("Lectures on Islam") Bialik Institute, Israel, 1951.

literature

• Amit Levy: A Man of Contention. Martin Plessner (1900-1973) and His Encounters with the Orient. In: Naharaim . 10 (1), 2016, pp. 79-100, doi : 10.1515 / naha-2016-0005 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Martin Plessner in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rudolf Sellheim: Martin Plessner. In: Islam. 52, 1975, pp. 1-5, doi : 10.1515 / islm.1975.52.1.1 .
2. ↑ Hagit Hawke: Before catastrophe: the distinctive path of German Zionism
3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 191.