Otto Spies

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Otto Spies (born April 5, 1901 in Bad Kreuznach , † October 29, 1981 in Bonn ) was a German orientalist , Islamic scholar and medical historian.

Life

Spies studied oriental studies and law in Bonn and Tübingen . He received his doctorate in oriental studies with Enno Littmann in Tübingen in 1923 and in law with Hans Schreuer in Bonn in 1924 . Under Paul Kahle he was an assistant at the Oriental Seminary at Bonn University until 1932 . In 1928 he completed his habilitation in Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies . Between 1932 and 1936 he worked as the director of the Department of Oriental Studies at the Muslim University in Aligarh (India).

In 1936 he took over from Carl Brockelmann in Breslau , where he lost his private library, notes and unfinished manuscripts in the chaos of war. After his military service he managed the chair in Bonn, whose director Rudi Paret was a prisoner of war. In 1951 he succeeded Rudi Paret in Bonn, who accepted a call to Tübingen after his return home, and headed the Oriental Seminar at the University of Bonn until 1970. The re-establishment of the former Berlin Seminar for Oriental Languages in Bonn is closely linked to his name. One of his students and later successor at the Oriental Seminary at the University of Bonn was the German Islamic scholar Wilhelm Hoenerbach .

His language skills - Arabic , Persian , Turkish , Hindustani , Syrian , Hebrew and Ethiopian - were the basis for the variety of his publications and others. a. in the areas of Islamic law , mysticism , the history of literature , lexicology and the history of Arabic medicine ( e.g. dentistry ). Otto Spies was editor of the series Bonn Oriental Studies. New series and articles on the linguistic and cultural studies of the Orient as well as the journals Die Welt des Islams and the journal for comparative law .

literature

  • Wilhelm Hoenerbach (Ed.): The Orient in Research: Festschrift for Otto Spies on April 5, 1966 . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1967.
  • Albrecht Noth : Otto Spies (1901–1981). Obituary. In: Islam. Volume 59, Issue 2 (1982), pp. 185-188 ( DOI: 10.1515 / islm.1982.59.2.185 ).
  • Heinrich Schützinger: Otto Spies (1901–1981). In: ZDMG , Vol. 133, No. 1 (1983), pp. 10-17.
  • Gül Şen: The Orientalist Otto Spies (1901–1981): Professor of Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies . In: Harald Meyer , Christine Schirrmacher , Ulrich Vollmer (Eds.): The Bonn Orient and Asian Studies. A story in 22 portraits (= subject volume 2018 of the magazine Orientierungen ), pre-edition not intended for sale, Ostasien Verlag, Großheirath 2018, pp. 233-252 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gül Şen: The Orientalist Otto Spies (1901–1981): Professor of Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies . In: Harald Meyer , Christine Schirrmacher , Ulrich Vollmer (Eds.): The Bonn Orient and Asian Studies. A story in 22 portraits (= 2018 theme volume of the magazine Orientierungen ), pre-edition not intended for sale, Ostasien Verlag, Großheirath 2018, pp. 233–252, here pp. 234–237 ( digitized version ).
  2. ^ Heinrich Schützinger: Otto Spies (1901-1981). In: ZDMG , Vol. 133, No. 1 (1983), pp. 10-17, here p. 11f.
  3. ^ Gül Şen: The Orientalist Otto Spies (1901–1981): Professor of Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies . In: Harald Meyer , Christine Schirrmacher , Ulrich Vollmer (Eds.): The Bonn Orient and Asian Studies. A story in 22 portraits (= subject volume 2018 of the magazine Orientierungen ), preliminary edition not intended for sale, Ostasien Verlag, Großheirath 2018, pp. 233–252, here pp. 238–241 ( digitized version ).
  4. ^ Heinrich Schützinger: Otto Spies (1901-1981). In: ZDMG , Vol. 133, No. 1 (1983), pp. 10-17, here p. 12f.
  5. ^ Otto Spies: Contributions to the history of Arab dentistry. In: Sudhoff's archive. Volume 46, 1962, pp. 153-177.
  6. ^ Gül Şen: The Orientalist Otto Spies (1901–1981): Professor of Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies . In: Harald Meyer , Christine Schirrmacher , Ulrich Vollmer (Eds.): The Bonn Orient and Asian Studies. A story in 22 portraits (= subject volume 2018 of the magazine Orientierungen ), pre-edition not intended for sale, Ostasien Verlag, Großheirath 2018, pp. 233–252, here p. 245 ( digitized version ).
  7. ^ Heinrich Schützinger: Otto Spies (1901-1981). In: ZDMG , Vol. 133, No. 1 (1983), pp. 10-17, here p. 13f.
personal data
SURNAME Spies, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German orientalist and scholar of Islam
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Kreuznach
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 1981
Place of death Bonn