Georg Graf


Georg Graf was a German Orientalist. One of the most important scholars of Christian-Arabic literature, his 5-volume Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur is the foundational text in the field.

Life

Georg Graf was born in Münsingen, Germany, in 1875. He entered the seminary of Dillingen, where he studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew, while privately he also studied Syriac and Arabic. In 1902-1903 he completed his studies at Munich, studying ancient Egyptian, Coptic, modern Greek and later Georgian.
In 1903 he obtained a doctorate of philology with his thesis on Arabic-Christian literature up to the 11th century, which was published in 1905. This brought him to the attention of the founder of the journal al-Machriq, Louis Cheikhô, for whom Graf held a high regard. From 1910 - 1911 he studied Christian literature at monasteries, while living in Jerusalem. He also visited Beirut for a short stay.
In 1918 Graf obtained a doctorate of theology from the University of Freiburg with a monograph on Marqus Ibn al-Qunbar, published in 1923. Further research visits to Egypt, Syria and Palestine followed. In 1930 he was named Honorary Professor for Christian Oriental literature at the theology faculty of the university of Munich. In 1946 he was appointed a papal chaplain.
He died in Dillingen an der Donau in 1955.
The tennis star Steffi Graf is a distant relative.

Legacy

Graf's Nachlass, is housed in Munich.
The Centre for Christian Arabic Literature and Research in Beirut CEDRAC continues his work in the field of research.

Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur

Five Volumes; 2,384 pages.
Literaray encyclopedia of Arab-Christian authors, with related biographic and bibliographic material, summary of their works, editions, translations and studies, and index to the manuscripts sources. Many works listed remain unpublished and untranslated.

Other Works

Graf published over 270 books, articles and essays on the Christian orient. At the time much of the literature in Arabic remained unpublished. He was a long-term contributor to the Arabic series of the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium and the journal Oriens Christianus.
He translatied a number of Arabic texts into German, including the works of Theodore Abu-Qurrah.

Literature