Wolfhart Heinrichs´ Essays and Articles on Arabic Literature

Wolfhart Heinrichs’ Essays and Articles on Arabic Literature: General Issues, Terms is the first of two volumes that showcase a great number of Heinrichsʼ writings on his central field of research: Arabic literature. This volume specifically looks at poetry and rhetoric, and their indigenous theories and terminologies.

Wolfhart Heinrichs (1941-2014) was James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic at Harvard University. He is remembered as a significant adviser to Fuat Sezginʼs fundamental Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums; as an editor of and contributor to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second edition; and, most importantly, as an author of many independent studies on Arabic literature, many which were groundbreaking in the history of Arabic philology. He is also known for his studies on Semitic linguistics and Islamic jurisprudence.

This volume collects relevant bibliographical data, offers an introductory essay on the author by his distinguished student Michael Cooperson (UCLA), and provides a selection of Wolfhart Heinrichs’ essays. The articles in this volume deal with general issues in the field that are central to pre-modern Arab and Islamic culture, and their concepts and terminologies. An index of classical authors, book titles, and technical terms concludes the volume.

This volume and the accompanying volume will appeal to students and researchers in the field of Arabic and Islamic Studies, and particularly to those interested in Arabic literature.

Hinrich Biesterfeldt is a retired Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. He received his PhD in 1970 in Göttingen. He is the author of books and articles on Arabic literature and the history of the sciences in Islam. Together with Sebastian Günther, he is the editor of the series Islamic History and Civilization.

Alma Giese is an Arabist who received her PhD in 1980 in Giessen, Germany; a translator of numerous works from classical Arabic literature into German; and the widow of Wolfhart Heinrichs.