Voice of Arabic Network
Search
William McGuckin de Slane
Image: Charles Reutlinger, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

William McGuckin de Slane

وليم ماك غوكين دي سلان

Notable figure 1801–1878 · Source: Yahya Murad, Muʿjam asmaʾ al-mustashriqin (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2004), p. 540 (no al-Aqiqi page matched) · Second source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record: Mac Guckin de Slane, William (1801-1878)

From Ireland; worked in France and Algeria

Field: Text editing

Affiliation

Editor of Imruʾ al-Qays's Diwan (1837) and Ibn Khallikan

Biography

Of Irish origin, he settled in France and studied Arabic under Silvestre de Sacy, then served as an interpreter with the French army in Algeria and taught Arabic at the École des langues orientales in Paris. He published the Diwan of Imruʾ al-Qays with translation, notes and introduction (Paris, 1837), edited Ibn Khallikan's Wafayat al-aʿyan and translated it into English in four volumes (1843–1871), translated Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima into French, and catalogued the Arabic manuscripts of the Bibliothèque nationale.