Johann Jakob Reiske was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 scholar and physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

. He was a pioneer in the fields of Arabic and Byzantine philology as well as Islamic numismatics.

Biography

Reiske was born at Zörbig

Zörbig

' is a town in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approx. 15 km west of Bitterfeld, and 20 km northeast of Halle . Zörbig is well-known for its molasses made from sugar beets....

, in Electoral Saxony.

From the Orphanage

Orphanage

An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...

 in Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

 he passed in 1733 to the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

, and there spent five years. He tried to find his own way in middle Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 literature, to which German schools then gave little attention; but, as he had not mastered the grammar

Grammar

In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

, he soon found this a sore task and took up Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

. He was poor, having almost nothing beyond his allowance, which for the five years was only two hundred thaler

Thaler

The Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...

s. But everything of which he could cheat his appetite was spent on Arabic books, and when he had read all that was then printed he thirsted for manuscripts, and in March 1738 started on foot for Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, joyous though totally unprovided, on his way to Leiden and the treasures of the Warnerianum

Leiden University Library

Leiden University Library is a library founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. It is regarded as a significant place in the development of European culture: it is a part of a small number of cultural centres that gave direction to the development and spread of knowledge during the Enlightenment...

.

At Hamburg he got some money and letters of recommendation from the Hebraist Friedrich August Wolf

Friedrich August Wolf

Friedrich August Wolf was a German philologist and critic.He was born at Hainrode, a village not far from Nordhausen, Germany. His father was the village schoolmaster and organist...

, and took ship to Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. Here d'Orville, to whom he had an introduction, proposed to retain him as his amanuensis at a salary of six hundred guilders. Reiske refused, though he thought the offer very generous; he did not want money, he wanted manuscripts. When he reached Leiden (June 6, 1738) he found that the lectures were over for the term and that the manuscripts were not open to him.

But d'Orville and Albert Schultens

Albert Schultens

-Biography:He was born at Groningen, where he studied for the church. He went on to the University of Leiden, applying himself specially to Hebrew and the cognate tongues. His dissertation on The Use of Arabic in the Interpretation of Scripture appeared in 1706...

 helped him to private teaching and reading for the press, by which he was able to live. He heard the lectures of A. Schultens, and practised himself in Arabic with his son J.J. Schultens. Through Schultens too he got at Arabic manuscripts, and was even allowed sub rosa to take them home with him. Ultimately he seems to have got free access to the collection, which he catalogued—the work of almost a whole summer, for which the curators rewarded him with nine guilders.

Reiske's first years in Leiden were not unhappy, until he got into serious trouble by introducing emendations of his own into the second edition of Burmann's Petronius, which he had to see through the press. His patrons withdrew from him, and his chance of perhaps becoming professor was gone; d'Orville indeed soon came round, for he could not do without Reiske, who did work of which his patron, after dressing it up in his own style, took the credit. But A. Schultens was never the same as before to him; Reiske indeed was too independent, and hurt him by his open criticisms of his master's way of making Arabic mainly a handmaid of Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

. Reiske himself, however, admitted that Schultens always behaved honourably to him. In 1742 by Schultens' advice Reiske took up medicine as a study by which he might hope to live if he could not do so by philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

. In 1746 he graduated as M.D., the fees being remitted at Schultens' intercession. It was Schultens too who conquered the difficulties opposed to his graduation at the last moment by the faculty of theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 on the ground that some of his theses had a materialistic ring.

On June 10, 1746 he left the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 and settled in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, where he hoped to get medical practice. But his shy, proud nature was not fitted to gain patients, and the Leipzig doctors would not recommend one who was not a Leipzig graduate. In 1747 an Arabic dedication to the electoral prince of Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 got him the title of professor, but neither the faculty of arts nor that of medicine was willing to admit him among them, and he never delivered a course of lectures. He had still to go on doing literary task-work, but his labour was much worse paid in Leipzig than in Leiden. Still he could have lived and sent his old mother, as his custom was, a yearly present of a piece of leather to be sold in retail if he had been a better manager. But, careless for the morrow, he was always printing at his own cost great books which found no buyers. In his autobiography "Lebensbeschreibung" he depicted his academical colleagues as hostile; and suspected Ernesti

Johann August Ernesti

Johann August Ernesti was a German Rationalist theologian and philologist.He was born at Bad Tennstedt in Thuringia, where his father, Johann Christoph Ernesti, was pastor, besides being superintendent of the electoral dioceses of Thuringia, Salz and Sangerhausen...

, under a show of friendship, secretly hindered his promotion. On the other hand his unsparing reviews made bad blood with the pillars of the university.

In 1755 to 1756 he draw his attention to Oriental coins. The custodian at the Royal Coin Cabinet in Dresden, Richter, invitated him to study the coins with Arabic inscriptions. Richter asked him to explain the texts on the coins. His resulting "letters on Arabic coinage (Briefe über das arabische Münzwesen)" were posthumously published by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn

Johann Gottfried Eichhorn

Johann Gottfried Eichhorn was a German Protestant theologian of Enlightenment and early orientalist.-Education and early career:...

. He did it very eagerly with the hope to find a suitable bread job in Dresden. However, the Seven Years' War

Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...

 ended all hopes to find anything in Oriental studies. His "letters on Arabic coinage" were the first serious attempt to compare the historical information gathered from the Islamic coins - bearing up to 150 words - with the information from chronicles, to achieve new insights in medieval Islamic history. Among the Orientalists at his time he was now known as someone knowledgeable on Islamic coins. He was later approached by Carsten Niebuhr

Carsten Niebuhr

Carsten Niebuhr or Karsten Niebuhr , a German mathematician, cartographer, and explorer in the service of Denmark, is renowned for his travels on the Arabian peninsula.-Biography:...

 to identify the coins which he brought with him from his travels. But Reiske never came back seriously to this topic.

At length in 1758 the magistrates of Leipzig rescued him from his misery by giving him the rectorate of St. Nicolai, and, though he still made no way with the leading men of the university and suffered from the hostility of men like Ruhnken

David Ruhnken

David Ruhnken was a Dutch classical scholar of German origin.-Origins:Ruhnken was born in Bedlin near Stolp, Pomerania Province,...

 and J.D. Michaelis

Johann David Michaelis

Johann David Michaelis , a famous and eloquent German biblical scholar and teacher, was a member of a family which had the chief part in maintaining that solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages which distinguished the University of Halle in the period of Pietism.-Life and work:J. D...

, he was compensated for this by the esteem of Frederick the Great, of Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...

, Carsten Niebuhr

Carsten Niebuhr

Carsten Niebuhr or Karsten Niebuhr , a German mathematician, cartographer, and explorer in the service of Denmark, is renowned for his travels on the Arabian peninsula.-Biography:...

, and many foreign scholars.

The last decade of his life was made cheerful by his marriage with Ernestine Müller, who shared all his interests and learned Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 to help him with collations. In proof of his gratitude her portrait stands beside his in the first volume of the Oratores Graeci. Reiske died in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 on 14 August 1774, and his manuscript remains passed, through Lessing's mediation, to the Danish historian P.F. Suhm

Peter Frederik Suhm

Peter Frederik Suhm , was a Danish-Norwegian historian and Councillor of State.Suhm studied at the University of Copenhagen in 1746-1751, and one of his teacher was Ludvig Holberg...

, and are now in the Royal Library, Copenhagen.

Achievements

Reiske certainly surpassed all his predecessors in the range and quality of his knowledge of Arabic literature

Arabic literature

Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....

. It was the history, the realia of the literature, that always interested him; he did not care for Arabic poetry as such, and the then much praised Hariri seemed to him a grammatical pedant. He read the poets less for their verses than for such scholia as supplied historical notices. Thus for example the scholia on Jarir furnished him with a remarkable notice of the prevalence of Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 doctrine and asceticism

Asceticism

Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...

 in Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 under the Omayyads. In the Adnotationes historicae to his Abulfeda (Abuif. Annales Moslemici, 5 vols., Copenhagen, 1789-91), he collected a veritable treasure of sound and original research; he knew the Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 writers as thoroughly as the Arabic authors, and was alike at home in modern works of travel in all languages and in ancient and medieval authorities. He was interested too in numismatics

Numismatics

Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...

.

To comprehensive knowledge and very wide reading he added a sound historical judgment. He was not, like Schultens, deceived by the pretended antiquity of the Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

ite Kasidas. Errors no doubt he made, as in the attempt to ascertain the date of the breach of the dam of Ma'rib

Ma'rib

Ma'rib or Marib is the capital town of the Ma'rib Governorate, Yemen and was the capital of the Sabaean kingdom, which some scholars believe to be the ancient Sheba of biblical fame. It is located at , approximately 120 kilometers east of Yemen's modern capital, Sana'a...

.

Though Abulfeda as a late epitomator did not afford a starting point for methodical study of the sources, Reiske's edition with his version and notes certainly laid the foundation for research in Arabic history, and a historical criticism of Oriental numismatics with his letters on Arabic coinage (in Eichhorn's Repertorium, vols. ix.-xi.). The foundation of Arabic philology, however, was laid not by him but by De Sacy. Reiske's linguistic knowledge was great, but he used it only to understand his authors; he had no feeling for form, for language as language, or for metre.

In Leipzig Reiske worked mainly at Greek, though he continued to draw on his Arabic stores accumulated in Leiden. Yet his merit as an Arabist was sooner recognized than the value of his Greek work. Reiske the Greek scholar has been rightly valued only in recent years, and it is now recognized that he was the first German since Sylburg

Friedrich Sylburg

Friedrich Sylburg was a German classical scholar.The son of a farmer, he was born at Wetter near Marburg. He studied at Marburg, Jena, Geneva, and, lastly, Paris, where his teacher was Henry Estienne , to whose great Greek Thesaurus Sylburg afterwards made important contributions.Returning to...

who had a living knowledge of the Greek tongue. His reputation does not rest on his numerous editions, often hasty or even made to booksellers' orders, but in his remarks, especially his conjectures. He himself designates the Animadversiones in scriptores Graecos as flos ingenii sui, and in truth these thin booklets outweigh his big editions.

Closely following the author's thought he removes obstacles whenever he meets them, but he is so steeped in the language and thinks so truly like a Greek that the difficulties he feels often seem to us to lie in mere points of style. His criticism is empirical and unmethodical, based on immense and careful reading, and applied only when he feels a difficulty; and he is most successful when he has a large mass of tolerably homogeneous literature to lean on, whilst on isolated points he is often at a loss. His corrections are often hasty and false, but a surprisingly large proportion of them have since received confirmation from manuscripts And, though his merits as a Grecian lie mainly in his conjectures, his realism is felt in this sphere also; his German translations especially show more freedom and practical insight, more feeling for actual life, than is common with the scholars of that age.

Arabic Philology

• Abulfedae annales Moslemici. Latinos ex arabicis fecit Io. Iacobus Reiske. (Leipzig, 1754).

Islamic Numismatics

• Briefe über das arabische Münzwesen von Johann Jacob Reiske mit Anmerkungen und Zusätzen von Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. In: Repertorium für Biblische und Morgenländische Litteratur 9 (1781), pp. 199-268; 10 (1782), pp. 165-240; 11 (1782), pp. 1-44.

Greek Philology

• Constantini Porphyrogeniti libri II. de ceremoniis aulae Byzant. (Leipzig, 1751-66), vol. iii. (Bonn, 1829)
• Animadv. ad Graecos auctores (5 vols., Leipzig, 1751-66) (the rest lies unprinted at Copenhagen)
• Oratorum Graec. quae supersunt (8 vols, Leipzig, 1770-73)
• App. crit. ad Demosthenem (5 vols., Leipzig, 1774-75)
• Maximus Tyr. (Leipzig, 1774)'
• Plutarchus (Leipzig, 1774-79)
• Dionys. Halic. (6 vols., Leipzig, 1774-77)
• Libanius (4 vols., Altenburg, 1784-97).