Charles Pierre Henri Rieu (June 8, 1820 – March 19, 1902) was a Swiss orientalist and Professor of

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

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and

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Biography

Rieu was born in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, the son of soldier and politician Jean-Louis Rieu. He studied at

Bonn University The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Will ...

, where he studied Arabic under

Georg Freytag Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Freytag (19 September 1788 – 16 November 1861) was a German philologist. Background Freytag was born in Lüneburg. He studied philology and theology at the University of Göttingen, where from 1811 to 1813 he worke ...

and Johann Gildemeister, and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

with Christian Lassen. He received his doctorate in 1843. He entered the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in 1847, and after twenty years of service, a new post, that of Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts, was created for him. He was a Professor of

and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. In 1895 he was made professor of

in the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, with the full title "

Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic is a title used at Cambridge University for the holder of a professorship of Arabic; Sir Thomas Adams, 1st Baronet (1586–1668), Lord Mayor of London in 1645, gave to Cambridge University the money needed t ...

", in succession to Robertson Smith. Rieu died in

on 19 March 1902. He was the father of E. V. Rieu and of Sir Louis Rieu.

Publications

Rieu completed in 1871 the second part, dealing with Arabic manuscripts, of the ''Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum orientalium'', which had been begun by William Cureton, and he issued a supplementary volume in 1894. He also drew up a ''Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts'' (1888) and a ''Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts'' (4 vols, 1879–95),Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British museum (1879)
/ref> the latter being a storehouse of information on the books and their authors.

References

* 1820 births 1902 deaths Swiss Arabists University of Bonn alumni Swiss orientalists Sir Thomas Adams's Professors of Arabic Writers from Geneva Employees of the British Museum Academics of University College London {{switzerland-linguist-stub