Guest guest Posted February 6, 2003 Report Share Posted February 6, 2003 Dear Indologists, Here's an article from the NY Times on the life & work of Professor Schimmel. best, Tim Cahill ---------------------------- Annemarie Schimmel, 80, Influential Scholar of Islam, Is Dead February 2, 2003 By STEPHEN KINZER Annemarie Schimmel, who became fascinated with the Muslim world after hearing Arabian tales as a child and went on to become one of the 20th century's most influential scholars of Islam, died last Sunday in Bonn. She was 80. Ms. Schimmel taught generations of students in a breathtaking style that included lecturing with her eyes closed and reciting long passages of mystical poetry from memory. She spoke Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Urdu and Punjabi. She wrote more than 50 books and hundreds of articles published around the world. In some Muslim countries she was treated as a celebrity and showered with honors. Her eagerness to delve into Islamic cultures led to friendships with repressive rulers that sometimes propelled her into public controversies. Some intellectuals attacked her for painting too gentle a picture of Islam and for failing to denounce evils committed in its name. Ms. Schimmel's interests ranged across the Muslim landscape. She wrote a book about the role of cats in Islamic literature and another, "The Mystery of Numbers" (Oxford University Press, 1993), that compared numerical symbolism in various cultures. Her consuming passion, however, was Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Even prominent Sufis acknowledged her as one of the foremost experts on their history and tradition. Annemarie Schimmel was born on April 7, 1922, in Erfurt, Germany. She finished high school at 15 and earned a doctorate in Arabic and Islamic studies at 19. She had a nearly photographic memory. For years she was a consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she was legendary for her ability to identify scraps of ancient text. After earning her second doctorate, in comparative religion, Ms. Schimmel began teaching Persian and Arabic poetry at the University of Marburg in Germany. For several years she taught theology at the University of Ankara in Turkey, the first woman and the first non-Muslim to do so. In 1967 she inaugurated the Indo-Muslim studies program at Harvard, and remained on the faculty for the next quarter-century. She returned to Bonn in 1992. Leaders of Islamic countries revered her, and she readily accepted their hospitality. Friends admitted that Ms. Schimmel often seemed naÔve about politics. "That is not my world," she once said. "I'm interested in culture, religion, the daily life of Islam, the foundation, not the politics of the day." In 1995 Ms. Schimmel was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, an award also given to Albert Schweitzer, Martin Buber and Vaclav Havel. The citation praised her lifelong search for "a synthesis of Islam and the modern." Several dozen German intellectuals, among them Gunter Grass and Jurgen Habermas, issued a statement condemning the award. "This German Orientalist is a welcome guest in totalitarian Islamic states like Iran, but in her entire work there is not a single reference to human rights violations in those countries," they said. In awarding the prize, Roman Herzog, then president of Germany, called Ms. Schimmel "one of the few Western scholars who is able and ready to think herself totally into the mental world of this different culture." She declared, "I have never seen anything in the Koran or in the traditional writings that called for or even allowed terrorism or hostage-taking." Ms. Schimmel was briefly married in the 1950's. Despite her fascination with Islam, she remained Lutheran her entire life. She recently completed work on an autobiography. "Corporeal death is necessary," she said once in a lecture about Sufism. "How else do you get in close touch with the Divine Beloved?" http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/obituaries/02SCHI.html?ex=1045200185&ei=1&en=7\ cf6ac441c635df1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 6, 2003 Report Share Posted February 6, 2003 INDOLOGY, "Timothy C. Cahill" <tccahill@l...> wrote: > > Dear Indologists, > > Here's an article from the NY Times on the life & work of Professor > Schimmel. > > best, > Tim Cahill The following report from The Dawn, a Pakistani daily (founded by Jinnah) says "However her conversion to Islam - her Islamic name being Jamila - has been a much talked about event." http://www.dawn.com/2003/02/05/fea.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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