Arthur Jeffery

Who was Arthur Jeffery?

Arthur Jeffery was a Protestant Australian professor of Semitic languages from 1921 at the School of Oriental Studies in Cairo, and from 1938 until his death jointly at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the author of extensive historical studies of Middle Eastern manuscripts.

His important works include Materials for the history of the text of the Qur'an: the old codices and The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an, which traces the origins of 318 foreign words found in the Qur'an.

Some of Jeffery's studies are included in The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book, edited by Ibn Warraq. They are also discussed in Mohar Ali's The Qur'an and The Orientalists: