Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer (21 February 1801 – 10 February 1888) was a German Orientalist.

Biography

He was born at

Schandau Bad Schandau (; hsb, Žandow) is a spa town in Germany, in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district of Saxony. It is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, at the mouth of the valley of the Kirnitzsch and in the area often described as S ...

, Saxony. From 1819 to 1824, he studied theology and Oriental languages at Leipzig, subsequently continuing his studies in Paris, where he continued his studies of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian languages under

de Sacy Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy (; 21 September 175821 February 1838), was a French nobleman, linguist and orientalist. His son, Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy, became a journalist. Life and works Early life Silvestre de Sacy was born in Pa ...

. From 1831 to 1835, he taught at one of the Dresden high schools. In 1836, he was appointed professor of oriental languages at Leipzig University, and retained this post till his death,Prof. Dr. theol. et phil. Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer
Professorenkatalog der Universität Leipzig in spite of invitations to accept similar positions in Saint Petersburg and Berlin. Fleischer was one of the eight foreign members of the French Academy of Inscriptions and a knight of the German Ordre '' Pour le Mérite'' (1868). He was a member of many German and foreign scientific societies, possessor of honorary degrees from the universities of Königsberg, Prague, Saint Petersburg, Dorpat and Edinburgh, and one of the founders of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft. Medaille Brockhaus, Fleischer, Pott, Roediger 1870

Medaille Brockhaus, Fleischer, Pott, Roediger 1870

In 1870 he received a combined medal (together with Brockhaus, Pott and Rödiger) in occasion of the 25th anniversary of the

DMG DMG may refer to: Organizations Entertainment * Dames Making Games, a Canadian non-profit organization that encourages the participation of women, non-binary, femme and queer people in the creation of video games * Davidson Media Group, an American ...

.http://hdl.handle.net/10900/100742 S. Krmnicek und M. Gaidys, ''Gelehrtenbilder. Altertumswissenschaftler auf Medaillen des 19. Jahrhunderts.'' Begleitband zu
online-Ausstellung im Digitalen Münzkabinett des Instituts für Klassische Archäologie der Universität Tübingen
in: S. Krmnicek (Hrsg.), ''Von Krösus bis zu König Wilhelm.'' Neue Serie Bd. 3 (Tübingen 2020), pp. 35–37. He died at Leipzig.

Writings

His most important works were editions of

Abu'l-Fida Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shāhanshāh b. Ayyūb b. Shādī b. Marwān ( ar, إسماعيل بن علي بن محمود بن محمد بن عمر بن شاهنشاه بن أيوب بن شادي بن مروان ...

's ''Historia ante-Islamica'' (1831—1834),

Al-Zamakhshari Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari (; 1074 –1143) was a medieval Muslim scholar of Iranian descent. He travelled to Makkah and settled there for five years and has been known since then as Jar Allah ‘God's Neighbor’. He was a Mu't ...

's ''Golden Necklaces'' (Leipzig, 1835), and of Al-Baydawi's ''Commentary on the Koran'' (1846–1848). He compiled a catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts in the royal library at Dresden (1831); published an edition and German translation of ''Ali's Hundred Sayings'' (1837); the continuation of Christian Maxmilian Habicht's edition of '' The Thousand and One Nights'' (vols. ix-xii, 1842–1843); and an edition of Mirza Muhammed Ibrahim's ''Persian Grammar'' (1847). He also wrote ''Hermes Trismegistus an die Menschliche Seele'' (Leipzig, 1870), ''Kleinere Schriften'' (3 vols., Leipzig, 1885–88), and an account of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts at the town library in Leipzig.

Fleischer on the Nature of Arabic Language

"Die Frage ist für uns nicht: was ist das reinste, correcteste und schönste, sondern was ist überhaupt Arabisch?" (in: Kleinere Schriften, Leipzig, 1888, Vol. iii, p. 156). i.e. "The question for us is not: What is the purest, the most beautiful and correct Arabic, but what is Arabic in general?"

Notes

References

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Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer
de.Wikisource

In:

Neue Deutsche Biographie ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (''NDB''; literally ''New German Biography'') is a biographical reference work. It is the successor to the ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, Universal German Biography). The 26 volumes published thus far cover ...

(NDB). Band 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, , S. 231 f. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fleischer, Heinrich Leberecht 1801 births 1888 deaths People from Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge People from the Electorate of Saxony German orientalists German Arabists German scholars of Islam Leipzig University alumni Leipzig University faculty Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Members of the Société Asiatique Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters