Josef Horovitz

Who was Josef Horovitz?

Josef Horovitz was a Jewish German orientalist.

A son of Markus Horovitz, an Orthodox rabbi, Josef Horovitz studied with Eduard Sachau at the University of Berlin and was there since 1902 as a docent. From 1907 to 1915, he worked in India, in MAO College at Aligarh and taught Arabic at the request of the Indian government curator for Islamic inscriptions. In this role, he prepared the collection Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica. After his return to Germany he was from 1914 until his death professor of Semitic languages at the Oriental Seminar of the University of Frankfurt.

Since the foundation of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Horovitz was a member of its Board of Trustees. He founded there the Department of Oriental Studies, and was its director. He focused his studies initially on Arabic historical literature. Then he published a concordance of earlier Arabic poetry. His main work was a commentary on the Qur'an, which remained unfinished.