Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies: Life and Collections of Johann Gottfried Wetzsiein (1815-1905) in Context.

• Author: Hamilton, Alastair

Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies: Life and Collections of Johann Gottfried Wetzsiein (1815-1905) in Context. Edited by BORIS LIEBRENZ and CHRISTOPH RAUCH. Islamic Manuscripts and Books, vol. 19. Leiden: BRILL, 2019. Pp. xxiii + 437, illus. $130, [euro]108.

The frustration felt by Johann Gottfried Wetzstein about his academic career as an Arabist has been shared by posterity when it comes to assessing his scholarly output. In his Die arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts Johann Fiick expressed the widespread regret that the writings of such an outstanding expert on Syria and Palestine never received the attention they deserved since they "appeared in the most remote places." And indeed, to this day one longs for an edition of the short but brilliant articles scattered over some of the more obscure learned journals of the time. The eighteen essays in this volume under review at last do justice to a remarkable scholar.

Born in 1815 Wetzstein studied theology and Semitic languages at the University of Leipzig and obtained his doctorate with one of the greatest German Arabists of his day, Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, who remained a lifelong friend. He continued his studies in Berlin with another outstanding Arabist. Friedrich Riickert. and taught at the university as a Privatdozent. In 1848 he applied for the position of Prussian honorary consul in Damascus, and remained there from 1849 to 1861, assembling his formidable collection of manuscripts, some 3,000 in all, which he sold to the libraries of Leipzig, Tubingen, and Berlin and on which his reputation rests. He also made expeditions into the previously little known areas of the Hauran, eastern Jordan, and northern Arabia which led to some of his most important publications. On his return to Europe, and after being dispatched on a secret mission to Tunis, he continued his research into Arabic popular literature and, from 1867 to 1875, again lectured at the Freie Universitat Berlin but was denied the chair to which he aspired. As the late Holger PreiBler reminds us in the first article in Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies, his pupils included Ignaz Goldziher, who described him as by far the most stimulating teacher at the university.

From the point of view of Arabic studies Wetzstein's principal contribution lies in his manuscript collections, and it is to these, as well as to the more general collection of manuscripts in the second half of the nineteenth century, that the second and third parts of Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies are devoted. First come Wetzstein's own collections. The collection in Tubingen, its content and exploitation by readers, its...