August Ferdinand Mehren

August Ferdinand Michael van Mehren (April 6, 1822 – 14 November 1907 ) was a Danish Orientalist and philologist.[1]

Biography

Mehren was a native of Helsingør, Denmark. He studied at the Universities of Copenhagen, Leipzig and Kiel, obtaining his doctorate in 1845. In Leipzig he was a student of Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer (1801-1888), and in Kiel he studied under Justus Olshausen (1800-1882). In 1854, he became a professor of Semitic languages at the University of Copenhagen. In 1854 he became professor of Semitic-Eastern philology, from which position he retired in 1898. [2]

In his academic work, Mehren largely focused on Arabic poetry and prose. In 1853, he published a major work on Arab rhetoric and linguistics titled Die Rhetorik der Araber, and two decades later (1874), translated into French the cosmography of the Syrian geographer Muhammed al-Dimashqi (1256-1327) in Manuel de la cosmographie du moyen âge. He also published Cosmographie de Schem's Eddin Dimasqui (1866; with French translation in 1874),[3] [4][5]

During the winter of 1867-68 he resided in Egypt where he predominantly cultivated the Arabic language. With professor Justus Olshausen and philologist Niels Ludvig Westergaard (1815-1878), he was responsible for cataloging Avestan manuscripts into a collection called Codices Orientales Bibliothecae Regiae Havniensis. Towards the end of his career, Mehren published a handful of books involving the philosophical and mystical writings of Avicenna. . [6][7]

He became a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog in 1869, Dannebrogsmand in 1887, Commander of the 2nd degree in 1892 and of the 1st degree in 1898. He spend his last years in Fredensborg, where he died in 1907. He was buried in Elsinore.

References

1. "Mehren, August Ferdinand, dansk Orientalist". Salmonsens konversationsleksikon. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
2. "Fleischer, Heinrich Leberecht". Salmonsens konversationsleksikon. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
3. "Die Rhetorik der Araber". WorldCat. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
4. "Codices orientales Bibliothecae Regiae Havniensis". University of Toronto. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
5. "Manuel de la cosmographie du Moyen Âge". WorldCat. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
6. "Olshausen, Justus". Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
7. "Westergaard, Niels Ludvig Dansk Orientalist". Salmonsens konversationsleksikon. Retrieved August 1, 2020.

Other sources

• The Arabic studies in the Nordic countries, from 1850 to 1900 (translated from Danish)
• Project Runeberg (biographical information)

See also

• August Ferdinand M. Mehren (1853): Die Rhetorik der Araber nach den Wichtigsten quellen Dargestellt:

• Al-Dimashqi (1862). Syrien og Palestina, Studie efter en arabisk Geograph [Shams al-Dîn Dimashḳî] (in Danish). Translated by A. F. Mehren. Copenhagen: G.E.C.Gad.

• Al-Dimashqi (1866). Cosmographie (in Arabic). Translated by A. F. Mehren. Saint-Pétersbourg: l'Académie Impriale des Sciences.

• Al-Dimashqi (1874). Manuel de la cosmographie du moyen āge (in French). Translated by A. F. Mehren. C. A. Reitzel.