Martin Hartmann (9 December 1851, Breslau – 5 December 1918,

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) was a German orientalist, who specialized in

Islamic studies Islamic studies is the academic study of Islam, which is analogous to related fields such as Jewish studies and Quranic studies. Islamic studies seeks to understand the past and the potential future of the Islamic world. In this multidiscipli ...

. In 1875, he received his doctorate at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

as a student of Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer. From 1876 to 1887 he served as a

dragoman A dragoman was an Interpreter (communication), interpreter, translator, and official guide between Turkish language, Turkish-, Arabic language, Arabic-, and Persian language, Persian-speaking countries and polity, polities of the Middle East and ...

at the German General Consulate in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

. From 1887 until his death in 1918 he taught classes at the Department of Oriental Languages in

.Hartmann, Martin
in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 7 (1966), S. 745 f. As a professor in Berlin he strove hard for the recognition of Islamic studies as an independent discipline. His numerous contributions to the field of Islamic studies were based on a sociological standpoint. Many of these works were published in the journal "'' Die Welt des Islams''" (The World of Islam), a publication of the "''Deutsche Gesellschaft für Islamkunde''", an organization that Hartmann was a co-founder of in 1912.

Reception of views

In his translation and commentary of Lothrop Stoddard's ''The New World of Islam'' (1922), the

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

aristocrat and author Shakib Arslan took issue with Hartmann's criticism of

Abdulhamid II Abdulhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 184210 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a Decline and modernizati ...

's dealings with China and ridiculed the view that Hartmann had expressed about a supposed

Hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

which recommended not fighting the Turks, and which Hartmann considered to be an obvious forgery aiming to religiously discourage rebellion against the Turks. Hartmann, who mastered both the Turkish and Arabic languages, had expressed a strong dislike for the Turks whom he considered to be a "dumb race" and had recommended that Arabs should ally with intellectually-similar races, namely the Greeks, Armenians, and some Albanians, in order to overthrow the rule of the Turks. Several orientalists had identified the primacy of Turks over Arabs, which gradually began first in Baghdad in the late 9th century with the reign of the half-Turkic caliph

al-Mutawakkil Ja'far ibn al-Mu'tasim, Muḥammad ibn Harun al-Rashid, Hārūn al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh (); March 82211 December 861, commonly known by his laqab, regnal name al-Mutawwakil ala Allah (), was the tenth Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid caliph, rul ...

and culminated with the

Seljuk Seljuk (, ''Selcuk'') or Saljuq (, ''Saljūq'') may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * S ...

invasions which placed various Turkic

Atabeg Atabeg, Atabek, or Atabey is a hereditary title of nobility of Turkic language, Turkic origin, indicating a governor of a nation or province who was subordinate to a monarch and charged with raising the crown prince. The first instance of the ti ...

s ruling virtually everywhere in the Islamic world, as the beginning of the intellectual and civilizational decline of Islam. A view which was espoused by Hartmann as well who saw the rule of the Turks over Arabs as coinciding precisely with the beginning of the intellectual decline of Arabs. During WWI however, Hartmann completely muted his previous criticism of the Turks and started supporting the direction that the Young Turk party took during the war and the unification of the cause of Islam against imperial threats. His anti-Turkish views however impeded his career advancement as appointing him in preeminent university positions became embarrassing for the rather Turcophile Prussian authorities of the time.

Selected works

* * ''Metrum und Rhythmus: Die Entstehung der arabischen Vermasse'', 1896. * ''Lieder der libyschen Wüste'', 1899.
"The Arabic press of Egypt"
published in English in 1899. * ''Der islamische Orient; Berichte und Forschungen'' (3 volumes, 1905–10). * ''Chinesisch-Turkestan: Geschichte, Verwaltung, Geistesleben, und Wirtschaft'', 1907. * ''Der Islam: Geschichte -- Glaube -- Recht. Ein Handbuch'', 1909. * ''Islam, Mission, Politik'', 1911. * ''Zur Geschichte des Islam in China'', 1921.Most widely held works about Martin Hartmann
WorldCat Identities

References

1851 births 1918 deaths Writers from Wrocław Leipzig University alumni German orientalists {{Germany-academic-bio-stub