Wilferd Madelung

{{Short description|German-American scholar of Islamic history (1930–2023)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Wilferd Madelung

| image = Wilferd Madelung 2006 May.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Madelung in 2006

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1930|12|26}}

| birth_place = Stuttgart, Germany

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2023|05|09|1930|12|26|df=yes}}

| death_place =

| nationality = German-American

| other_names =

| occupation = Author, scholar

| alma_mater = Georgetown University, University of Hamburg

| years_active =

| known_for =

| notable_works =

}}

Wilferd Ferdinand Madelung FBA (26 December 1930 – 9 May 2023) was a German author and scholar of Islamic history widely recognised for his contributions to the fields of Islamic and Iranian studies.{{cite news |url=https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/473371/Tehran-meeting-to-commemorate-Islamic-scholar-Wilferd-Madelung |title=Tehran meeting to commemorate Islamic scholar Wilferd Madelung |work=Tehran Times}} He was appreciated in Iran for his "knowledgeable and fair" treatment of the Shia perspective. In the obituary of the Institute of Ismaili Studies (London) where Madelung worked his last years, it reads:https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2023/may/in-memoriam-professor-wilferd-madelung-1930-2023/, retrieved on July 21, 2023 "With particular reference to religious schools and movements in early Islam, his studies, based on a vast array of primary sources, have enriched the discipline’s understanding of almost every major Muslim movement and community – not only early Imami Shi‘ism and the later developments of Twelver, Ismaili and Zaydi Islam but also the lesser known aspects of Sunni, Khariji and the Mu‘tazili schools of theology and philosophy."

Early life and career

Madelung was born in Stuttgart on 26 December 1930.{{cite web | url=https://www.hpk.uni-hamburg.de/resolve/id/cph_person_00001194 | title=Madelung, Wilferd @ HPK }}{{Cite book| publisher = BRILL| isbn = 978-90-04-46071-3| title = Dinars and Dirhams: Festschrift in Honor of Michael L. Bates| date = 2021-02-01|page=13}} After World War II (in 1947http://hadith.net/en/post/49669/wilferd-madelung, retrieved on July 21, 2023), as an adolescent, he accompanied his parents Georg Hans Madelung and Elisabeth Emma Madelung to the US where his father continued his career as an aeronautic engineer specialising in rockets.{{cite web |title=Wilferd Madelung |url=https://geneee.org/wilferd/madelung?lang=de |access-date=2022-07-25 |archive-date=2022-07-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220725144426/https://geneee.org/wilferd/madelung?lang=de |url-status=live }} Wilferd Madelung enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington DC before going to Cairo in 1951 to study Arabic literature and Islamic history;{{cite web | url=https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2004/march/the-institute-s-latest-publication-honours-wilferd-madelung-s-contributions-to-islamic-studies/ | title=The Institute's Latest Publication Honours Wilferd Madelung's Contributions to Islamic Studies | access-date=2022-07-25 | archive-date=2022-07-25 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220725144427/https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2004/march/the-institute-s-latest-publication-honours-wilferd-madelung-s-contributions-to-islamic-studies/ | url-status=live }} there he was a student of "Muḥammad Kamil Ḥusayn (1901–1961), who edited numerous Ismaili texts of the Fatimid period".Farhad Daftary and Josef Meri (2003): Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam. Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung. London: Tauris. p. 5. From 1958 to 1960, he served as cultural attaché at the West German Embassy in Baghdad, before starting his scientific career. Later, Madelung was apparently also holding British citizenship.http://www.eslam.de/begriffe/m/madelung_wilferd.htm, retrieved on July 21, 2023

Academic career

Madelung received his doctorate and habilitation at the University of Hamburg in Germany (lecturer for Islamic studies 1963–1966).{{cite web|url=https://www.hpk.uni-hamburg.de/resolve/id/cph_person_00001194|date=12 July 2022|publisher=University of Hamburg|title=Madelung, Wilferd|language=de}} His PhD thesis from 1957 was titled "The Qarmatians and the Fatimids. Their mutual relations and their teachings on the Imamate"."Quarmaten und Fatimiden. Ihre gegenseitigen Beziehungen und ihre Lehre vom Imamat." Doctoral certificate (dated 30th of August, 1957) with the signature: 364-13 Phil Fak Prom 1372 in the State Archives of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. He was a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1963, and assistant professor (1964–65), associate professor (1966–68) and professor of Islamic History from 1969 until 1978 at the University of Chicago.{{cite web | url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/wilferd-madelung-FBA | title=Professor Wilferd Madelung FBA | access-date=2022-07-17 | archive-date=2022-07-17 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717200317/https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/wilferd-madelung-FBA/ | url-status=live }} He was the Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St John’s College there from 1978 to 1998.{{cite web | url=https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/people/wilferd-madelung/ | title=Wilferd Madelung | access-date=2022-07-17 | archive-date=2022-07-03 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220703141749/https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/people/wilferd-madelung/ | url-status=live }}

During this time, his 1997 book The Succession to Muhammad was celebrated as a landmark work in the equitable depiction of Shia views on the Islamic succession process following the death of Muhammad. Madelung also wrote academic journal articles and lectures about Ibadism.{{Cite book|title=Al-Ibāḍiyya: A Bibliography|last=Custers|first=Martin H.|publisher=Olms Publishing|year=2016|isbn=9783487153544|edition= Second revised and enlarged |volume=3|location=Hildesheim-London-N.Y.|pages=442–444}} From 1999, he was a member of the British Academy,{{cite web | url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/wilferd-madelung-FBA/ | title=Professor Wilferd Madelung FBA | access-date=2022-07-17 | archive-date=2021-01-15 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210115183736/https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/wilferd-madelung-FBA/ | url-status=live }} and a senior research fellow at the Institute for Ismaili Studies in London.{{cite web | url=https://www.iis.ac.uk/our-people/departments/academic-publications-and-research/professor-wilferd-madelung/ | title=Our people | access-date=2022-07-17 | archive-date=2022-07-17 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717200318/https://www.iis.ac.uk/our-people/departments/academic-publications-and-research/professor-wilferd-madelung/ | url-status=live }}

In 2013, he was awarded the Farabi International Award by the Iranian Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture for his significant contributions to the fields of Islamic and Iranian studies.{{Cite web| title = IIS Senior Research Fellow Receives Farabi Award| url = https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2013/july/iis-senior-research-fellow-receives-farabi-award/| date = 3 Jul 2013| access-date = 10 February 2023| archive-date = 10 February 2023| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230210110940/https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2013/july/iis-senior-research-fellow-receives-farabi-award/| url-status = live}} Later, Madelung was also involved in publishing early Arabic writings of spiritually oriented alchemy (see list of publications).

Personal life

He was married to Margaret Madelung.Farhad Daftary and Josef Meri (2003): Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam. Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung. London: Tauris. p. 3.

Death

Madelung died on 9 May 2023 at the age of 92.{{cite news |title=ویلفرد مادلونگ دار فانی را وداع گفت |url=https://vista.ir/n/en35f3n |access-date=10 May 2023 |publisher=Vista.ir}}

Works

Already 20 years before passing away he had produced some 15 books and edited volumes, 60 book chapters and papers in scientific journals, 130 encyclopaedia entries and about 160 book reviews.Farhad Daftary and Josef Meri (2003): Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam. Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung. London: Tauris. p. 6.

Madelung, W. (editor) - Arabic Texts Concerning The History of The Zaydī Imāms of Tabaristān, Daylamān And Gīlān, collected and edited by Wilferd Madelung. Franz Steiner Verlag, Beirut and Wiesbaden, 1987.{{Cite journal |last=Staif |first=Abdul-Nabi |date=1994 |title=Book Review of Arabic Texts Concerning the History of the Zaydī Imāms of Tabaristān, Daylamān and Gīlān |url=https://academic.oup.com/jis/article-abstract/5/1/125/659177?redirectedFrom=fulltext |journal=Journal of Islamic Studies |volume=5 |issue=1 |doi=10.1093/jis/5.1.125 |via=Oxford University Press |access-date=2023-05-10 |archive-date=2018-06-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180605043458/https://academic.oup.com/jis/article-abstract/5/1/125/659177?redirectedFrom=fulltext |url-status=live }}
Madelung, W. - Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran. Columbia Letters of Iranian Studies no. 4, The Persian Heritage Foundation, 1988. ISBN 0-88706-700-X / 0-88706-701-8 (pbk.).
Madelung, W. - Religious and Ethnic Movements in Medieval Islam, Ashgate Publishing, 1992. (New editions from 2016 on by Routledge, Oxon and New York, ISBN 978-086078-310-7
Madelung, W. - The Succession to Muhammad, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0521646960.
Madelung, W. and Walker, P. - An Ismaili Heresiography: The 'Bāb al-Shayṭān' from Abū Tammāms' Kitāb al-shajara, Leiden, 1998.{{Cite book |last1=Madelung |first1=Wilferd |url=https://brill.com/display/title/1379 |title=An Ismaili Heresiography: The 'Bāb al-Shayṭān' from Abū Tammāms' Kitāb al-shajara |last2=Walker |first2=Paul |date=1998 |publisher=Brill Publishers |isbn=978-90-04-45098-1 |language=en}}
Madelung, W. and Walker, P. - The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shi'i Witness. An Edition and English Translation of Ibn al-Haytham’s Kitab al-Munazarat, by Wilferd Madelung and Paul E. Walker. I.B. Tauris, London, 2000, ISBN 1-86064-551-8. (Published online by Cambridge University Press in 2016.)
Madelung, W. - Der Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Walter De Gruyter Incorporated, 2002 (first edition 1966), ISBN 9783110826548.
Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balāḏurī: [http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/download/pdf/735907?name=Qism%202 Ansāb al-Ašrāf] (Part 2). Edited by Wilferd Madelung. Beirut, 2003.
Muhammad Ibn Umail: Book of the Explanation of the Symbols. Kitāb Ḥall ar-Rumūz (Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum. Vol. I). Edited by Theodor Abt, Wilferd Madelung, Thomas Hofmeier, with Introduction by Theodor Abt. Living Human Heritage Publications, Zurich, 2003; ISBN 3-9522608-1-9.
Madelung, W. - [https://books.google.com/books/about/Religious_Schools_and_Sects_in_Medieval.html?id=A__XAAAAMAAJ&source=kp_book_description Religious schools and sects in medieval Islam], Variorum Reprints, 1985.
Madelung, W. (editor) - The Book of the Rank of the Sage. Rutbat al-Ḥakīm by Maslama al-Qurṭubī. Arabic Text edited with an English Introduction by Wilferd Madelung. Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum IV. Living Human Heritage Publications, Zurich 2016.{{Cite journal |last=Madelung |first=Wilferd |date=2017 |title=Maslama al-Qurṭubī's Kitāb Rutbat al-ḥakīm and the History of Chemistry |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/ihiw/5/1/article-p118_5.xml |journal=Intellectual History of the Islamicate World |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=118–126 |doi=10.1163/2212943X-00501005 |issn=2212-9421 |via=Brill Publishers |access-date=2023-05-10 |archive-date=2022-09-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922093729/https://brill.com/view/journals/ihiw/5/1/article-p118_5.xml |url-status=live }}
[https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/33863?language=en Ibāḍī Texts from the 2nd/8th Century]
Muhammad Ibn Umail: The Pure Pearl and other texts by Muhammad Ibn Umail. Ad-Durra an-naqīya, As-Sīra an-naqīya, Al-Qașīda al-Mīmīya, Al-Mabāqil as-sab'a (Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum. Vol. V). Arabic Edition by Wilferd Madelung with an Introduction by Theodor Abt. Translation by Salwa Fuad and Theodor Abt. Living Human Heritage Publications, Zurich, 2019; ISBN 978-3-9524468-3-6.

Award

Farabi International Award (2013){{Cite web| title = IIS Senior Research Fellow Receives Farabi Award| url = https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2013/july/iis-senior-research-fellow-receives-farabi-award/| date = 3 Jul 2013| access-date = 10 February 2023| archive-date = 10 February 2023| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230210110940/https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2013/july/iis-senior-research-fellow-receives-farabi-award/| url-status = live}}

References

External links

[https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/2004/march/the-institute-s-latest-publication-honours-wilferd-madelung-s-contributions-to-islamic-studies/ Institute for Ismaili Studies] - Culture and Memory in Early and Medieval Islam: A Festschrift in honour of Wilferd Madelung, ed. F. Daftary and J. Meri. London: I.B. Taurus, 2003.

Category:1930 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:German Islamic studies scholars

Category:German Arabists

Category:Laudian Professors of Arabic

Category:Fellows of St John's College, Oxford

Category:Fellows of the British Academy

Category:Ismailism

Category:Ibadi studies

Category:Cairo University alumni

Category:University of Hamburg alumni

Category:Georgetown University alumni