Franz Rosenthal’s Followers (24)

Franz Rosenthal

Born

in Berlin, Germany

August 31, 1914

Died

April 08, 2008

Genre

Nonfiction

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Rosenthal was born in Berlin, Germany into a Jewish family, on August 31, 1914, and was the second son of Kurt W. Rosenthal, a flour merchant, and Elsa Rosenthal (née Kirschstein). He entered the University of Berlin in 1932, where he studied classics and oriental languages and civilizations. His teachers were Carl Becker (1876–1933), Richard Walzer (1900–75), and Hans Heinrich Schaeder (1896–1957). He received his Ph.D. in 1935 with a dissertation, supervised by Schaeder, on Palmyrenian inscriptions (Die Sprache der Palmyränischen Inschriften).

After teaching for a year in Florence, Italy, he became instructor at the Lehranstalt (formerly Hochschule) für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, a rabbinical seminary in Berlin. In 1938, he completed Rosenthal was born in Berlin, Germany into a Jewish family, on August 31, 1914, and was the second son of Kurt W. Rosenthal, a flour merchant, and Elsa Rosenthal (née Kirschstein). He entered the University of Berlin in 1932, where he studied classics and oriental languages and civilizations. His teachers were Carl Becker (1876–1933), Richard Walzer (1900–75), and Hans Heinrich Schaeder (1896–1957). He received his Ph.D. in 1935 with a dissertation, supervised by Schaeder, on Palmyrenian inscriptions (Die Sprache der Palmyränischen Inschriften).

After teaching for a year in Florence, Italy, he became instructor at the Lehranstalt (formerly Hochschule) für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, a rabbinical seminary in Berlin. In 1938, he completed his history of Aramaic studies, which was awarded the Lidzbarski Medal and Prize from the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft. The prize money was withheld from him because he was Jewish, yet on Schaeder's initiative, he was given a prize medal in gold to compensate him for the loss.

Shortly after the infamous Kristallnacht, Rosenthal left Germany in December 1938 and went to Sweden, where he was invited through the offices of the Swedish historian of religions H.S. Nyberg (1889–1974). From there he went to England, where he arrived in April 1939, and eventually came to the United States in 1940, having received an invitation to join the faculty of the Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He became a US citizen in 1943 and during the war worked on translations from Arabic for the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C. Following the war, he returned to academia, first at HUC and then in 1948 moved to the University of Pennsylvania. In 1956, he was appointed the Louis M. Rabinowitz Professor of Semitic Languages at Yale. He became a Sterling Professor in 1967 and emeritus in 1985.

Professor Rosenthal was a prolific and highly accomplished scholar who contributed much to the development of source-critical studies in Arabic in the US. His publications range from a monograph on Humor in Early Islam to a three-volume annotated translation of the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun to a Grammar of Biblical Aramaic. For his translation of the Muqaddimah, he traveled to Istanbul and studied the manuscript there, among them Ibn Khaldun's autograph copy. His 1952 History of Muslim Historiography was the first study of this enormous subject. He wrote extensively on Islamic civilization, including The Muslim Concept of Freedom, The Classical Heritage in Islam, The Herb: Hashish versus Medieval Muslim Society, Gambling in Islam, On Suicide in Islam and Sweeter Than Hope: Complaint and Hope in Medieval Islam, as well as three volumes of collected essays and two volumes of translations from the history of the medieval Persian historian al-Tabari, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1970). Rosenthal continued to publish in German and in English. His books have been translated into Arabic, Russian, and Turkish. ...more

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Franz Rosenthal’s books

Average rating: 4.14 · 1,630 ratings · 190 reviews · 60 distinct works

	Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam 4.30 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 2006 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic: With an Index of Biblical Citations Compiled by Daniel M. Gurtner (Porta Linguarum Orientalium) (Porta Linguarum Orientalium, 5) 3.89 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 1995 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	علم التاريخ عند المسلمين by Franz Rosenthal, أحمد صالح العلي (ترجمة), فرانز روزنتال 3.72 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 1952 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	مناهج العلماء المسلمين في البحث العلمي by Franz Rosenthal, فرانتز روزنتال, أنيس فريحة (ترجمة) 3.94 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1983	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	مفهوم الحرية في الإسلام 3.18 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2007	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Classical Heritage in Islam by Franz Rosenthal, Emile Marmorstein (Translator), Jenny Marmorstein (Translator) 3.58 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 1975 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Herb: Hashish Versus Medieval Muslim Society really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1971 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Humor in Early Islam 3.50 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1976 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	الطبري: حياته وآثاره by Franz Rosenthal, فرانز روزنثال, أحمد العدوي (نقله إلى العربية) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1989	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	مقدمة المقدمة: في سيرة ابن خلدون والتعريف بمقدمته by Franz Rosenthal, فرانز روزنثال, أحمد العدوي (نقله إلى العربية وعلق عليه) 4.14 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2023	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Franz Rosenthal (?)

“Socrates “was asked why seawater had become salty. He
replied: If you can indicate to me the use that will come to you from
knowing the answer to this question, I shall give you the reason.”
And Diogenes, “seeing a youth with a lamp, said to him: Do you know
where this - fire comes from? The youth replied: If you can tell me where
it goes to, I shall tell you where it comes from, thus effectively silencing
Diogenes, something nobody else had been able to do.”
― Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam

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“Knowledge is that which the soul desires.”136
8. “Knowledge is the falling of the soul (’s sight)137 upon that which is
concealed deep inside it ( fî sirrihâ), and its stopping there and not com-
ing out from it and leaving it.”138
9. “Knowledge, is a secret (sirr) that is thrust into the soul. If it is
applied to the discernment (tamyîz) of the existing things, the careful
searcher of the object sought, who controls a thing entirely and com-
prehends the newly arising object of perception, its essence, and its
substance absolutely, finds it . . .”
― Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam

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“God’s love is earned by a man through being a scholar and at the
same time behaving as inconspicuously and modestly as if he were an
ignoramus.”
― Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam

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The History Book ...: MEDIEVAL LITERATURE	53	275	Dec 04, 2022 05:32AM

Franz Rosenthal’s Followers (24)

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