Emericus Joannes van Donzel (5 July 1925, in Nieuwstadt − 29 October 2017, in

Wassenaar Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a municipality and town located in the province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands. An affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies north of that city on the N44/A44 highway near the Nort ...

) was a Dutch historian of the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, with particular interests in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

and the interaction between the Islamic world and Christianity. He served as director of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East and editor-in-chief of the ''

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is a reference work that facilitates the Islamic studies, academic study of Islam. It is published by Brill Publishers, Brill and provides information on various aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, Isl ...

''. He received the ''Akademiepenning'' of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

, an honorary doctorate from the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...

and the medal of an Officer in the

Order of Oranje-Nassau The Order of Orange-Nassau () is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands. The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has performed acts of special merits for ...

. The Netherlands Institute for the Near East ( Dutch: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten ) remembers him as one of the managers that has driven NINO through one of the most crucial phases of its existence. He was sent abroad, to Addis Abeba, the capital of

due to his knowledge of Semitics and Sanscrit languages, as well as the Indonesian culture. One of his other approaches was related to the interaction between Christianity and Islam, for which he studied the life and writings of Sayyida Salme and the culture of Arabic people in Africa and Central Asia.

References

1925 births 2017 deaths Dutch orientalists Historians of the Middle East Officers of the Order of Orange-Nassau People from Echt-Susteren Dutch editors {{Netherlands-historian-stub