Subhi Labib

Subhi Yanni Labib ( Arabic صبحي يني لبيب, DMG Ṣubḥī Yannī Labīb ; * March 27, 1924 in Tanta / Egypt ; † March 22, 1987 in Hamburg ) was an Egyptian - German orientalist .

Life

Egypt (1927–1954)

Subhi Labib was the son of the Coptic landowner and high school director Yanni Labib. After attending a Coptic and secondary school in Tanta, where he graduated from high school in 1941, he began his studies at the University of Alexandria . In 1945 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree , after which he received a two-year research grant. He then worked from 1947 to 1950 as a librarian at the Alexandria University Library. Labib obtained his Master of Arts in 1950 with the thesis "Trade history of Alexandria in the 14th century", for which he was awarded the price of the Chamber of Commerce of Alexandria.

In 1950 Labib and his doctoral supervisor Aziz Suryal Atiyah took part in the American-Egyptian Mount Sinai expedition, which dealt with the collection of manuscripts at St. Catherine's Monastery . In his new role as head of the cataloging department of the Alexandrian University Library, Labib dealt with the cataloging and microfilming of these manuscripts until 1952. For the next two years he worked on a Ford Foundation project to study the social problems of Alexandria. He received his doctorate with distinction in 1953 with the thesis "The trading history of Egypt during the Crusades" .

Europe and USA (1954–1987)

In order to deepen his studies in commercial history, Labib received a one-year grant from the French government in 1954 , which allowed him to consult scholars like Fernand Braudel and to visit French libraries. In the same year he came to the University of Hamburg , where he became lecturer for the Arabic language on the recommendation of the Basel orientalist Fritz Meier .

In Hamburg , Labib completed his habilitation in 1961 with the support of Otto Brunner with “The history of trade in Egypt in the late Middle Ages”, for which he did not have the knowledge of ancient Greek that was necessary in Hamburg . Until 1965, Labib stayed as a private lecturer at the history seminar of the University of Hamburg and received funding for special research projects from the DFG . He decided against an offer from the Ruhr University Bochum , where he should build the library, and switched to the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel because of the better research conditions . After a year as a guest lecturer , Labib worked as a permanent lecturer in Kiel from 1966 .

For two months, Labib was a visiting professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City , where he accepted the full professorship in 1970, succeeding his doctoral supervisor Atiyah , during which he was given leave of absence from Kiel University. In 1972, the application for a further leave of absence was rejected and Labib's attempt to obtain a double professorship in Kiel and Utah also failed. His decision between Kiel and Utah fell on Kiel because of the better educational opportunities for the children and the higher pension entitlements. So Labib returned there for the 1973 summer semester.

He acquired German citizenship in 1974 . In 1979 Labib was appointed adjunct professor for the Middle and Modern History of the Near East in Kiel. He held this office until his death in 1987.

In Hamburg, Labib was chairman of the local Coptic parish.

Services

Labib did research mainly on the history of the Arab region, but he did not habilitation in oriental studies, but in history, as he did not speak any language of the Middle East other than Arabic. His language skills were still considered particularly valuable in German oriental studies because he was one of the few native speakers. His focus was on medieval economic and social history, for which he was the only significant representative in oriental studies at the time. He wrote articles on this subject in the Lexicon of the Middle Ages .

Labib's habilitation thesis is considered a standard work. He was the first scientist to shed light on Egypt's trading history with the help of Arabic sources and was thus able to correct the previous research image. However, he did not use any non-Arabic sources, which, according to the orientalist Eli Ashtor , led to some false results. For Ulrich Haarmann, however , the source work was "exhaustive". With regard to the search for sources, Labib was known for his "bee diligence". The majority of his contemporaries valued the new ideas with which he advanced research, but Eli Ashtor doubted that Labib could lead the way. Labib was able to inspire his students for his interests, because despite the exotic area within German history, Labib's courses were well attended.

In addition to his research focus, Labib dealt with the editing of previously unpublished works by Arab authors. In addition, especially in his last years, he dealt with the history of his religious community, which resulted in the three-volume work “Die Kopten”, for which he was co-editor and wrote many articles himself.

In Egypt, many years after his move to Europe, Labib was still considered one of the country's most important historians and he enjoyed international recognition, which he was able to gain on lecture tours that took him to many European countries, the USA and India. His fluent language skills in Arabic, German, English and French were of use to him. Due to his connection between two cultures, he was considered a “global citizen of the classical style”.

Fonts

Monographs

• The trading history of Egypt in the late Middle Ages (1171–1517). Wiesbaden 1965 [Supplement to the quarterly journal for social and economic history 46].

Editorships

• The Copts. 3 vols. Hamburg 1980–1983.
• Idrīs b. Baidakīn b. ˁAbdallāh at-Turkumānī al-Ḥanafī: Kitāb al-Lumaˁ fī l-ḥawādīṯ wal-bidaˁ . A pamphlet against inadmissible innovations. Wiesbaden 1986 [Sources on the history of Islamic Egypt 3].
• Ğalāl ad-Dīn as-Suyūţī: Risāla fī Ğawāz Iqţāˁ as-Sulţān aš-Šāriˁ . Texts on the economic history of Egypt in the Middle Ages. In: Der Islam 35 (1960).

literature

• Behn, Wolfgang: Labib, Subhi Yanni. In: Ders .: Concise Biographical Companion to Index Islamicus. Vol. 2. Leiden / Boston 2006 [Handbook of Oriental Studies 1: The Near an Middle East 76.2], p. 333.
• Rebas, Hain: In memoriam Subhi Y. Labib. In: Christiana Albertina 25 (1987), p. 457.
• Spuler, Bertold: Subhi Yanni Labib. In: Der Islam 65 (1988), pp. 1-4.
• Schleswig-Holstein State Archives, Section 811, No. 16 137, No. 16 138.

Web links

• Literature by and about Subhi Labib in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait of Subhi Labib on the page of the historical seminar of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
• Personnel and course directories of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

Individual evidence

1. ^ Letter from Labib to Karl Dietrich Erdmann dated May 16, 1972 (LAS, Section 811, No. 16 137).
2. ^ Opinion on Labib by Eli Ashtor of November 11, 1978 (LAS, Dept. 811, No. 16 137).
3. ^ Opinion on Labib by Ulrich Haarmann from August 15, 1978 (LAS, Dept. 811, No. 137).
4. ^ Opinion on Labib by Eli Ashtor of November 11, 1978 (LAS, Dept. 811, No. 16 137).
5. ↑ Ibid.
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from February 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.