AUB Libraries Online Exhibits

Early Arabic Printing in Germany

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© British Library Board (219.k.14 (2), pp. 1, 100).

Promtuarium; sive, Bibliotheca orientalis: exhibens catalogum, sive, centurias aliquot, tam authorum, quàm librorum hebraicorum, syriacorum, arabicorum, ægyptiacorum, æthiopicorum, &c. Addita mantissa bibliothecarum aliquot Europæarum, tam publicarum, quàm privatarum; ex quibus, quid deinceps etiam præstari possit ab alijs, luculenter monstratur. Scriptum, quod theologorum, iurisconsultorum, medicorum, & philosophorum accommodatum est studijs

Hottinger, Johann Heinrich (1658). Heidelbergæ:  typis & impensis Adriani Wyngaerden

From early on, there was a strong interest at German universities in studying Oriental languages. After Hebrew, the Arabic language attracted the largest number of German scholars and theologians. Several universities set up chairs for Arabic departments in the mid-sixteenth century even before publishing Arabic books, which they began to do in 1583 in Heidelberg. Orientalist professors succeeded in making Arabic type characters at their own expense, and such characters were named after the professor who created them, rather than being named for a typographic center.

 

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© British Library Board (C.82.h.12), p. 4

At-tani min Qanun al-Qanun id est: Liber secundus de Canone Canonis studio ... Petri Kirsten ... arabice per partes editus ... et in latinum translatus, notisque illustratus. =كتاب الثاني من قانون القانون لابن سينا

Ibn Sīnā, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAbd Allāh [1610]. Edited and translated by Peter Kirsten, Breslæ: [s.n.]

One such scholar who manufactured Arabic characters, a physician, Peter Kirsten, originally from Sweden published an Arabic grammar in 1608, and the following year published the second book of the Canon of Avicenna at his own expense; he later became court physician to Queen Christina of Sweden and professor of medicine at Uppsala.

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© British Library Board (279.d.30, pp. 4, 35).

Historia orientalis quæ ex variis orientalium monumentis collecta: agit de Muhammedismo ..., de Saracenismo ..., de Chaldaismo ..., de statu Christianorum & Judaeorum tempore orti & nati Muhammedismi

Hottinger, Johann Heinrich (1660).Tiguri [zurich]: Typis Joh. Jacobi Bodmeri

Hottinger was professor of Oriental languages and biblical criticism at the University of Heidelberg, but also a Reformed Church historian and orientalist. He published various books including the following two books:

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This image was designed for the exhibit. It is not the original title page of the book.

Apxaio [lambda] o [gamma] ia orientalis : exhibens I. Compendium theatri orientalis, de Arabum, Persarum, Turcarum ... II. Topographiam ecclesiasticam orientalem ...

Hottinger, Johann Heinrich (1662). Heidelbergae : Typis Samuelis Broun

Few years after publishing the Historia Orientalis, Johann Heinrich Hottinger drowned in the river Limmat in 1667 in the southern part of the city of Zurich. His death was a loss for the entire Reformed world. His student Johann Heinrich Heidegger (1633–98) succeeded him[10]

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Arjan van Dijk, “Early Printed Qurʾans: The Dissemination of the Qurʾan in the West,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 7, no. 2 (2005): 136.

القرآن وهو شرعة محمّد ابن عبد الله الاسلاميّة 

Al-Coranus S. [Sive] Lex Islamatica Muhammedis.

[Prophet Mohammad], Abraham Hinkelmann (1694). Hamburg:Ex officina Schultzio-Schilleriana.

The Qurʾan was published for the first time in its entirety in Hamburg in 1694 by Abraham Hinckelmann. The original copy is held by Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany.