From Yeshiva to Cairo: How Gustav Weil became a Pioneer in the Study of the Qur’an

A pioneering Jewish scholar in the study of the Qur’an and early Islamic texts, Gustav Weil was born in a small village outside Freiburg in 1808 and spent eight years studying at the yeshiva in Metz, France, before studying Arabic at the University of Heidelberg and in Cairo, where he lived for five years. Upon returning to Germany, he worked as librarian at the University of Heidelberg from 1838 until appointed to a professorship in 1861.

Renowned throughout Europe, Britain, and the United States for his biography of the prophet Muhammad, his five-volume history of the caliphate, and his study of the chronology of the Qur’an, Weil brought modern philological analyses to the study of early Islamic texts. Unlike his Christian colleagues who engaged in missionary work and disparaged Islam, Weil’s work sought an enlightened, rational religion and reflects the intellectual milieu of the nahda (the Arab renaissance) that was flourishing during his lifetime. He died in 1888.

The lecture series The Imagined Orient introduces ways of understanding German-Jewish and Israeli perspectives on the term “Orient” and explores its contradictory fantasies and realities within the spectrum of modern Jewish experiences. The series takes us from the 18th century to the present over the course of six events as it presents various biographies, films, photographs, texts and art pieces.

Susannah Heschel

Susannah Heschel is Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor and chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany, and Jüdischer Islam: Islam und jüdisch-deutsche Selbst­bestimmung, and a forthcoming book, written with Sarah Imhoff, Jewish Studies and the Woman Question, as well as numerous articles. She is a Guggen­heim Fellow and has received five honorary doctorates from universities in the United States, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland, and fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Wissen­schafts­kolleg zu Berlin.