Eduard Sachau


Carl Eduard Sachau was a German orientalist. He taught Josef Horovitz and Eugen Mittwoch.

Biography

He studied oriental languages at the Universities of Kiel and Leipzig, obtaining his PhD at Halle in 1867. Sachau became a professor extraordinary of Semitic philology and a full professor at the University of Vienna, and in 1876, a professor at the University of Berlin, where he was appointed director of the new Seminar of Oriental languages.
Sachau travelled to the Near East on several occasions and became known for his work on Syriac and other Aramaic dialects. He was an expert on polymath Al-Biruni and wrote a translation of Kitab ta'rikh al-Hind, Al-Biruni's encyclopedic work on India. Sachau also wrote papers on Ibadi Islam.
While a student at Kiel, he became part of the fraternity Teutonia Kiel. He was a member of the Vienna and the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society in London and the American Oriental Society. He worked as a consultant in the planning and construction of the Baghdad Railway. Among his better known students was Eugen Mittwoch, a founder of modern Islamic studies in Germany.
He received the honorary degree Doctor of Letters from the University of Oxford in October 1902, in connection with the tercentenary of the Bodleian Library.

Papers related to Ibadism

  • Sachau, Eduard: Muhammedanisches Erbrecht nach der Lehre der ibaditischen Araber von Zanzibar und Ostafrika. Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der ''Wissenschaften zu Berlin, VIII, 159–210.
  • Sachau, Eduard: Das Gutachten eines muhammedanischen Juristen über die muhammedanischen Rechtsverhältnisse in Ost-Afrika. Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen an der königlichen Friedrich Wilhelms- Universität zu Berlin, Jahrgang I, Abt. III, 1–8.
  • Sachau, Eduard: Über eine arabische Chronik aus Zanzibar. Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen an der königlichen Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, Westasiatische Studien, I. Band, Abtheilung 2, 1-19.
  • Sachau, Eduard: Über die religiösen Anschauungen der ibadhitischen Muhammedaner in Oman und Ostafrika. Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen an der königlichen Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, Westasiatische Studien'', Band II, 2. Abtheilung 47–82.