Horovitz, Josef
HOROVITZ, JOSEF
HOROVITZ, JOSEF (1874–1931), German Orientalist. Horovitz, the son of Marcus *Horovitz, was born in Lauenburg, Germany. He studied at the University of Berlin with Edward Sachau and taught there from 1902. He worked in India from 1907 to 1914, teaching Arabic at the Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College of Aligarh and serving as the curator of Islamic inscriptions for the Indian government. In this capacity he edited the collection Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica (1909–12). Some years after he had left India, Horovitz published Indienunter britischer Herrschaft (1928). Returning to Germany, he taught Semitic languages at the University of Frankfurt from 1914 to his death. As a member of the board of trustees of Hebrew University from its inception, Horovitz created the department of Oriental studies, became its director, and initiated its collective project, the concordance of early Arabic poetry. At first Horovitz devoted himself to the study of Arabic historical literature and then to early Arabic poetry. His major work was a commentary on the Koran, which he did not complete. He translated the poetry miscellany Kumit El ha-Asimiat (1904). In his Koran Studien (1926) he applied his method of detailed analysis of the language used by Muhammad and his disciples and historical insights gained from the study of the early texts themselves. He examined relations between Islam and Judaism in his "Jewish Proper Names and Derivatives in the Koran" (in huca, 2 (1925), 145–227; repr. 1964) and his "Das koranische Paradies" (in Scripta Universitatis atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitanarum, Orientalia et Judaica, 1 (1923); also in Ha-Tekufah, 23 (1925), 276ff.).
bibliography:
S.D. Goitein, in: Islam, 22 (1934), 122–7 (Ger.); G. Weil, in: mgwj, 75 (1931), 321–8; W.J. Fischel and S.D. Goitein, Joseph Horovitz, 1874–1931 (1932), incl. bibl. of his publications. add. bibliography: H. Lazarus-Yafeh, "The Transplantation of Islamic Studies from Europe to the Yishuv and Israel," in: M. Kramer, The Jewish Discovery of Islam (1999), 249–60.
[Encyclopaedia Hebraica /
Bjorn Siegel (2nd ed.)]