Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer (21 February 1801 – 10 February 1888) was a German Orientalist.

Biography

He was born at Schandau,

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

. From 1819 to 1824, he studied

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and Oriental languages at

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, subsequently continuing his studies in Paris, where he continued his studies of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian languages under de Sacy. From 1831 to 1835, he taught at one of the

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

high schools. In 1836, he was appointed professor of oriental languages at Leipzig University, and retained this post till his death,Prof. Dr. theol. et phil. Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer
Professorenkatalog der Universität Leipzig in spite of invitations to accept similar positions in Saint Petersburg and Berlin. Fleischer was one of the eight foreign members of the French Academy of Inscriptions and a knight of the German Ordre ''

Pour le Mérite The ' (; , ) is an order of merit (german: Verdienstorden) established in 1740 by King Frederick II of Prussia. The was awarded as both a military and civil honour and ranked, along with the Order of the Black Eagle, the Order of the Red Eag ...

'' (1868). He was a member of many German and foreign scientific societies, possessor of honorary degrees from the universities of Königsberg, Prague, Saint Petersburg, Dorpat and Edinburgh, and one of the founders of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft. Medaille Brockhaus, Fleischer, Pott, Roediger 1870

Medaille Brockhaus, Fleischer, Pott, Roediger 1870

In 1870 he received a combined medal (together with Brockhaus, Pott and Rödiger) in occasion of the 25th anniversary of the DMG.http://hdl.handle.net/10900/100742 S. Krmnicek und M. Gaidys, ''Gelehrtenbilder. Altertumswissenschaftler auf Medaillen des 19. Jahrhunderts.'' Begleitband zu
online-Ausstellung im Digitalen Münzkabinett des Instituts für Klassische Archäologie der Universität Tübingen
in: S. Krmnicek (Hrsg.), ''Von Krösus bis zu König Wilhelm.'' Neue Serie Bd. 3 (Tübingen 2020), pp. 35–37. He died at Leipzig.

Writings

His most important works were editions of Abu'l-Fida's ''Historia ante-Islamica'' (1831—1834),

Al-Zamakhshari Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari (; 1074 –1143) was a medieval Muslim scholar of Iranian peoples, Iranian descent. He travelled to Mecca, Makkah and settled there for five years and has been known since then as Jar Allah ‘God's Ne ...

's ''Golden Necklaces'' (Leipzig, 1835), and of

Al-Baydawi Qadi Baydawi (also known as Naṣir ad-Din al-Bayḍawi, also spelled Baidawi, Bayzawi and Beyzavi; d. June 1319, Tabriz) was a Persian jurist, theologian, and Quran commentator. He lived during the post- Seljuk and early Mongol era. Many commen ...

's ''Commentary on the Koran'' (1846–1848). He compiled a catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts in the royal library at

(1831); published an edition and German translation of ''Ali's Hundred Sayings'' (1837); the continuation of Christian Maxmilian Habicht's edition of ''

The Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'' (vols. ix-xii, 1842–1843); and an edition of

Mirza Muhammed Ibrahim Mirza Muhammed Ibrahim or Mirza Mohammad Ibrahim ( fa, میرزا محمد ابراهیم; 1800 – July, 1857) was an educator who traveled from his native Persia (now Iran) to Britain in 1826. There, he took up a permanent appointment to te ...

's ''Persian Grammar'' (1847). He also wrote ''Hermes Trismegistus an die Menschliche Seele'' (Leipzig, 1870), ''Kleinere Schriften'' (3 vols., Leipzig, 1885–88), and an account of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts at the town library in

Fleischer on the Nature of Arabic Language

"Die Frage ist für uns nicht: was ist das reinste, correcteste und schönste, sondern was ist überhaupt Arabisch?" (in: Kleinere Schriften, Leipzig, 1888, Vol. iii, p. 156). i.e. "The question for us is not: What is the purest, the most beautiful and correct Arabic, but what is Arabic in general?"

Notes

References

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Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer
de.Wikisource

In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, , S. 231 f. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fleischer, Heinrich Leberecht 1801 births 1888 deaths People from Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge People from the Electorate of Saxony German orientalists German Arabists German scholars of Islam Leipzig University alumni Leipzig University faculty Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Members of the Société Asiatique Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters