Goldziher Ignác: Az arabok és az iszlám / The Arabs and Islam. 1. köt. Szerk. Ormos István. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. A 7.)
Előszó
As it is well known, Goldziher wrote his fundamental works in German. 9 The works written in Hungarian can in part be regarded as preparatory studies for the great fundamental works, but in part they deal with topics that Goldziher never addressed again. To quote Bernard Heller: „Many truths of Islamic studies and many a new statement in the history of Arabic literature were enunciated in Hungarian for the first time. The great German works incorporate the results of research into a systematic order. On the other hand, the Hungarian studies are remarkable for their pulsating strength of fresh discoveries and their buoyant spontaneity. The Hungarian essays carry the germs of the great synthetic works: contain them in potentia. The Question of Nationality among the Arabs prefigures certain chapters of Muhammedanische Studien and even of Vorlesungen über den Islam ; The Poet in the Conception of the Ancient Arabs and The Tradition of the Poetry of the Heathen Arabs prefigure the first volume of Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie, which deals with the magic force attributed to poets and poetry. The Csorna de Kőrös commemorative lecture The Various Trends in Quranic Exegesis prefigures Goldziher's last major work: Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung. Numerous important papers are extant only in Hungarian, e.g.: On Muhammadan Travellers, The Place of the Spanish Arabs in the History of the Evolution of Islam, On the History of Grammar among the Arabs, On the Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Historiography in Arabic Literature (eminently significant), The Influence of Buddhism upon Islam, a number of essays on mythology and the history of Oriental studies as well as commemorative addresses in memory of the deceased members of the Academy". 1 0 The fact that a considerable portion of Goldziher's scholarly output can be read only in Hungarian and is therefore not accessible to scholarship in general, 1 1 has filled the scholarly public with indignation. In 1881 August Study Trip to the Near East (1873 — 74). In: Golden Roads. Migration, Pilgrimage and Travel in Mediaeval and Modern Islam. Richmond, 1993, 110—159. 9 A number of these — apart from Vorlesungen über den Islam, which came out in Hungary in Heller's translation in Goldziher's lifetime in 1912 — are now accessible in Hungarian translation in Goldziher Ignác: Az iszlám kultúrája. Művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok [The Culture of Islam. Studies in Cultural History. Selection, edition, introductory essays, commentaries and revision of the translations by Róbert Simon], Budapest, 1981 (two volumes). 1 0 Heller Bernát: Goldziher Ignác. In: Emlékkönyv a Ferenc József Orsz. Rabbiképző Intézet ötven éves jubileumára 1877—1927, II. kötet. Kiadják: Blau Lajos stb. [Jubilee Volume for the Fifty Years anniversary of the National Franz Joseph Rabbinical School 1877—1927., Vol. 2. Ed. by Ludwig Blau et al.]. Budapest, 1927, 49 (abridged). Cf. also Simon: Ignác Goldziher. His Life..., 88ff.; Conrad: The Pilgrim..., 146. 1 1 A rare exception is Schacht, who cites Goldziher's Hungarian paper „ On the Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence" and we are even told who translated it for him, see Joseph Schacht: The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford, 1950, VII, 83 (fn. 3). Recently Conrad has been citing Hungarian works; see the papers referred to under Nos. 2 and 8 above. XXIV
