Marius Canard FBA (

Dracy-Saint-Loup Dracy-Saint-Loup is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comp ...

, 26 December 1888 – Duingt, Haute-Savoie, 13 September 1982) was a French Orientalist and historian.

Biography

He was born in a small village in the region of

Morvan The Morvan (historically Morvand from the Latin ''Murvinnum'' 590)Pierre-Henri Billy, ''Dictionnaire des noms de lieux de la France'', éditions Errance, 640 pages, 2011 , is a mountainous massif lying just to the west of the Côte d'Or escarp ...

, where his father was a school teacher. Canard studied at the ''Collège Bonaparte'' in Autun and completed his studies in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lyon, where he learned the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

and

Persian language Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and ...

s under the guidance of his coeval

Gaston Wiet Gaston Wiet (18 December 1887, Paris – 20 April 1971, Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a 20th-century French orientalist. Biography Wiet graduated from the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, and with a law degree, was boarder at ...

(1887–1971). His first teaching post was as a high school professor at

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

in 1913. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he served with the 16th Chasseurs à cheval Regiment stationed at Beaune, and was decorated with the ''

Croix de Guerre The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...

'' with a silver star. After the war, he went to

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

, where he perfected his knowledge of Arabic. In 1920 he returned to Lyon, where he taught in the ''Lycée du Parc''. In order to further his language skills, he re-entered the local university's Faculty of Letters to learn

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

. Canard then visited the ''École des Langues Orientales'' (now known as

INALCO Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales ( en, National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French university specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. ...

) in Paris, where he came to know both William Marçais (1872–1956), and

Georges Marçais Georges Marçais ( Rennes, 11 March 1876 – Paris, 20 May 1962) was a French orientalist, historian, and scholar of Islamic art and architecture who specialized in the architecture of North Africa. Biography He initially trained as a painter ...

(1876–1962). The latter convinced Canard to return to the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...

, first as a teacher in the ''Lycée de Tunis'' and then as a professor in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Algiers. It was there that Canard, along with Georges Marçais, founded the ''Institut d'Études Orientales'' and began a journal that soon acquired international prominence among Orientalists: the ''Annales''. After 44 years of teaching in Algiers, Canard retired in 1961 to Paris. He died in Duingt in 1982.

Work

Among Canard's major scholarly achievements are his history of the Hamdanid dynasty, as well as his studies on the

Fatimid Caliphate The Fatimid Caliphate was an Isma'ilism, Ismaili Shia Islam, Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the ea ...

, a field which at the time was otherwise the almost exclusive reserve of

Vladimir Alexeyevich Ivanov Wladimir Alekseevich Ivanow (Влади́мир Алексе́евич Ивано́в; November 3, 1886- June 19, 1970) was a Russian orientalist. He was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia and died in Tehran, Iran. He was a scholar of Islam, with ...

(1886–1970). He also made important contributions on the history of Muslim relations with the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

, and along with the Belgian

Henri Grégoire Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire (; 4 December 1750 – 28 May 1831), often referred to as the Abbé Grégoire, was a French Catholic priest, Constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader. He was an ardent slavery abolitionist and sup ...

(1881–1964) supervised the French edition of Alexander Vasiliev's (1867–1953) monumental ''Byzantium and the Arabs'' (Византия и арабы).

Main publications

*"Les expéditions des Arabes contre Constantinople dans l'histoire et dans la légende", in: '' Journal Asiatique'', 208 (1926), pp. 61–121. *"Les relations diplomatiques entre Byzance et l'Égypte dans le ''Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshā'' de Qalqashandī", ''Atti del XIX Congresso Internazionale degli orientalisti'', Rome, 1935, pp. 579–580. *Noumerous entries for ''The

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published in ...

''. *"Quelques ‘à coté' de l'histoire des relations entre Byzance et les Arabes", in: ''Studi orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida'', Rome, Istituto per l'Oriente, 1956, vol. I, pp. 98–119. *"Les principaux personnages du roman de chevalerie arabe Dhāt al-Himma wa-l-Baṭṭāl", in: ''Arabica'', 8 (1961), pp. 158–173. *''

Sayf al-Daula ʿAlī ibn ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ ʿAbdallāh ibn Ḥamdān ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taghlibī ( ar, علي بن أبو الهيجاء عبد الله بن حمدان بن الحارث التغلبي, 22 June 916 – 9 February 967), more commonly known ...

''. Recueil de textes relatifs à l'émir Sayf al-Daula le Hamdanide, avec annotations, édité par M. Canard (Bibliotheca Arabica, VIII), Algiers, J. Carbonel, 1934, 484 pp. *"Une lettre du calife fāṭimide al-Ḥāfiẓ (524-544/1130-1149) à Roger II", in: ''Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Ruggeriani'', Palermo, 1955, vol. I, pp. 125–146 *"Quelques notes relatives à la Sicile sous les premiers califes fatimides", in: ''Studi medievali in onore di Antonio De Stefano'', Palermo, 1956, vol. I, pp. 125–146. *"La relation du voyage d'Ibn Faḍlān chez les Bulgares de la Volga", in: ''Annales de l'Institut d'Etudes Orientales de l'Université d'Alger'' (AIEO), 16 (1958), pp. 41–146. *"Ibrāhīm b. Yaʿqūb et sa relation de voyage en Europe", in: ''Études d'Orientalisme dédiées à la mémoire de Lévi-Provençal'', Paris, 1962, vol. 2, pp. 503–508. *"Fāṭimides et Būrides à l'époque du calife al-Ḥāfiẓ li-Dīni-llāh", su: ''Revue des Études Islamiques'', 35 (1967), pp. 103–117.

Sources

* F. Daftary "Marius Canard (1888-1982): A Bio-Bibliographical Notice", in: '' Arabica'', XXXIII (1986), 2, pp. 251–262. * M. Lefort, "Index de l'oeuvre historique de M. Canard", in: ''Arabica'' XXII (1975), pp. 180–211. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Canard, Marius 1888 births 1982 deaths People from Saône-et-Loire French orientalists University of Lyon alumni University of Algiers faculty Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France) French military personnel of World War I Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy