Reynold Alleyne Nicholson

Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (born August 19, 1868 in Keighley , West Yorkshire ; died August 27, 1945 in Chester ) was a British Orientalist who focused on Islamic mysticism and edited several key Arabic and Persian texts on Sufism and into English translated, including the Masnawī of the mystical poet Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī (1207–1273).

Life

Family character

Nicholson was the son of Henry Alleyne Nicholson , professor of natural history at the University of Aberdeen (d. 1903). When he was born on August 18, 1868, his father was still a surgeon in Keighley. As a child, Nicholson was mainly influenced by his grandfather John Nicholson, a Bible scholar and Swedenborgian who had learned Arabic, had received a doctorate from the University of Tübingen with a dissertation on the origin of the Fatimid dynasty and owned a collection of Islamic manuscripts.

Education

During his school days in Edinburgh and Aberdeen , Nicholson was particularly interested in the classical languages. In 1887, he came as a pensioner to the Trinity College, Cambridge , where he studying classical philology recorded and in the first year with their own verses to Porson won Prize for Greek poetry. In 1889 he completed the first part of the Classical Tripo with First Class and was appointed a scholar of his college. After that, he switched to studying the oriental languages, so that he could only complete the second part of the Classical Tripo in 1891 in the third grade. In the same year he first met Edward Granville Browne , where he deepened the study of the Persian language. In 1892 he was able to acquire a tripos in Indian languages ​​with first-class distinction. During his studies he played golf with great enthusiasm and competed with Oxford in golf competitions for Cambridge in 1888, 1890 and 1891.

In 1893 Trinity College elected him a Fellow , and he began studying Arabic with William Robertson Smith . However, his great passion remained Persian, and his first publication, the edition and translation of selected poems from Rūmīs Diwān-i Schams-i Tabrīzī in 1898, was based on a Persian text. At times he also stayed in Strasbourg and Leiden to study.

Life and activity as a scientist

Since his fellowship at Trinity College ended in 1901, Nicholson left Cambridge with great regret to take the professorship in Persian at University College London, which was poorly paid for this . However, he returned to Cambridge a year later to follow his former teacher Edward Browne, who had been appointed Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic, as a lecturer in Persian. In 1903 he married his cousin Cecilia Varty of Stagstones and the couple moved to a house on Harvey Road, in close proximity to Fenner's, Cambridge University 's cricket ground .

In the years up to 1926, when he continued to work as a lecturer, he published most of his studies, editions, translations and textbooks. In 1907 he developed the plan for a multi-volume history of Sufism, which should deal in separate chapters with the following topics: 1. the ascetic movement; 2. Beginnings of Sufism; 3. the early Sufis; 4. Theosophy and pantheism; 5. The schools of Sufism and their founders; 6. Sufi asceticism; 7. Sufi mysticism. However, Nicholson never realized this plan, but only published a brief introduction to Islamic mysticism for laypeople (1914) as well as essays (1921) and lectures (1923) on certain individual aspects of Islamic mysticism. In his leisure time, Nicholson wrote poetry which he published in the Cambridge Review and Granta magazines. A collection of these poems appeared in 1911 under the title The Don and the Dervish .

In 1920 Nicholson began collecting material for his main work, the eight-volume edition and commented translation of Rūmīs Masnawī . His career also made progress again during this time. In 1922 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy . And when his teacher Edward Browne died in 1926, he was given the position of Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic. He held this position until his retirement in 1933.

The translation and annotation of the 25,000 double verses of Rūmīs Masnawī took Nicholson until 1940. In 1940 the Nicholsons had to give up their house on Harvey Road. Before the German bombing raids, they fled to the coast of Wales . There Nicholson found the time to write a shorter study on the Persian mystical poet Sanā'ī, which was published in 1943 in the journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society . By March 1945 he was so sick that his wife, who was also in poor health, had to send him to a nursing home in Shrewsbury . He died on August 27, 1945 in a nursing home in Chester .

Nicholson was a gold medalist from the Royal Asiatic Society. Shortly before his death, the Persian Academy in Tehran had accepted him as an honorary member. One of his most important students was the orientalist Arthur John Arberry .

Works

Studies

• "A historical inquiry concerning the origin and development of Ṣūfism, with a list of definitions of the term Ṣūfī and Taṣawwuf arranged chronologically" in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1906) 303-348.
• A Literary History of The Arabs (1907), an Arabic literary history that Nicholson created as a companion volume to Browne's Literary History of Persia . In his preface to the book, he said that the literary side of the subject interests him more than the historical one. Digitized
• The Mystics of Islam (1914), introduction to Islamic mysticism for a wider audience, in which Nicholson processed some of the textual material he had collected over the previous 20 years. Digitized
• Studies in Islamic Mysticism (1921), collection of essays on Abū Saʿīd-i Abū l-Chair , the idea of ​​the perfect human in ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī and the Tāʾīya of Ibn al-Fārid . Digitized
• Studies in Islamic Poetry (1921). In the first, shorter part, Nicholson provides a summary of the Persian anthology Lubāb al-Albāb by ʿAufī (d. 1230), in the second part he deals with the poems of the blind Syrian philosopher-poet Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (973-1057) ). Digitized
• The Idea of ​​Personality in Sufism: three lectures delivered in the University of London (1923), lectures, the second of which includes an eyewitness account of the execution of al-Hallāj (d. 922). Digitized

Editions and translations

• Selected poems from the Dīvāni Shamsi Tabrīz (1898), Edition and annotated translation of selected poems from Rūmīs Diwān-i Schams-i Tabrīzī .
• The Tadhkiratu ʾl-awliyá (Memoirs of the saints) (1905/1907), two-volume edition of the Sufi biographical collection Taḏkirat al-auliyāʾ by the Persian poet Fariduddin Attar , written around 1200 . Digitized version of the first volume , digitized version of the second volume
• The Kashf al-maḥjúb, the oldest Persian treatise on ṣufism by ʿAlí B. ʿUthmán al-Jullábí al-Hujwírí (1911), EJW Gibb Memorial Series 17, English translation of the main work of the Persian mystic Hudschwīrī . Digitized
• The Tarjumán al-ashwáq: a collection of mystical odes (1911), edition and English summary of the poem Tarǧumān al-ašwāq by Muhyī d-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240). Digitized
• The Kitab al-Luma, an Arabic treatise on mysticism (1915), critical edition of the Arabic Sufi manual Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī t-taṣauwuf by Abū Nasr as-Sarrādsch (d. 988-89) with an English summary of its contents. Digitized
• The Secrets of the Self Asrár-i-khudi: a philosophical poem (1920), translation of the Persian poem Asrār-i chudī by Muhammad Iqbal , in which the latter develops his religious and political philosophy. Digitized
• Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose (1922) Anthology of Arabic and Persian poetry and prose in English translation. Digitized
• The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí (1925–1940), critical edition and annotated English translation of the Masnawī by Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī in eight volumes with a total of 4,000 pages.
• Tales of mystic meaning being selections from the Mathnawī of Jalal-ud-Din Rumi (1931), translated excerpts from Rūmīs Masnawī.

Arabic textbook

Together with Frederic Du Pre Thornton, Nicholson brought out a four-volume Arabic textbook:

• Elementary Arabic, a Grammar (1905), Arabic grammar; Digitized version of the 1919 edition
• Elementary Arabic, First Reading Book (1907); Digitized
• Elementary Arabic, Second Reading Book (1909); Digitized
• Elementary Arabic, Third Reading-Book (1911). Digitized

Manuscript catalogs

• A descriptive catalog of the oriental mss. belonging to the late EG Browne (1932), catalog of the posthumous oriental manuscripts by Edward Granville Browne .

literature

• AJ Arberry : Oriental Essays. Portraits of Seven Scholars . Allen & Unwin, London, 1960. pp. 197-232.
• Reuben Levy: "Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, 1868-1945" in Proceedings of the British Academy 31 (1945) 399-406.

Web links

• Portrait photo from 1926

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 399.
2. ↑ The work was published in 1840 under the title An account of the establishment of the Fatemite dynasty in Africa , cf. the digitized version of SB Munich
3. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 198.
4. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 198.
5. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 399f.
6. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 201.
7. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 202.
8. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 404.
9. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 401.
10. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 220.
11. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 223.
12. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 400.
13. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 406.
14. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 227.
15. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 228.
16. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 229.
17. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 229.
18. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 204.
19. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 402.
20. ↑ See Levy: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson . 1945, p. 403f.
21. ↑ See Arberry: Oriental Essays. 1960, p. 220.