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Gustav Weil
Image: F. Langbein & Co., Heidelberg; HeidICON, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Gustav Weil

غوستاف فايل

Notable figure 1808–1889 · Source: Johann Fück, Tarikh harakat al-istishraq (Die arabischen Studien in Europa), trans. ʿUmar Lutfi al-ʿAlim, 2nd ed., Dar al-Madar al-Islami, Beirut 2001, p. ١٧٦–١٧٧ · Second source: Deutsche Biographie (NDB 27, 2020, pp. 616–618, by Gregor Pelger; ADB 41, 1896, pp. 486–488, by Merx): Weil, Gustav (1808–1889), GND 117251208

Field: Literary translation

Affiliation

German translator of the Arabian Nights and al-Zamakhshari

Biography

Born at Sulzburg, he studied Arabic at Heidelberg and then Paris, and spent five years in Algiers, Cairo and Istanbul. He corrected Hammer's version of al-Zamakhshari's Atwaq al-dhahab with a new translation (1836) and wrote Die poetische Literatur der Araber (1837). He translated the Arabian Nights into German from the Arabic (1838–1841; complete 1865), and Ibn Hisham's Life of Muhammad (1864). He was professor of Oriental languages at Heidelberg.