Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, FBA (18 August 1868 – 27 August 1945), or R. A. Nicholson, was an eminent

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

orientalist, scholar of both

Islamic literature Islamic literature is literature written by Muslim people, influenced by an Islamic cultural perspective, or literature that portrays Islam. It can be written in any language and portray any country or region. It includes many literary forms incl ...

and

Islamic mysticism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

and widely regarded as one of the greatest Rumi (Mevlana or Mawlana) scholars and translators in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

Life

The son of

Henry Alleyne Nicholson Henry Alleyne Nicholson FRS FRSE FGS FLS (11 September 1844 – 19 January 1899) was a British palaeontologist and zoologist. Life The son of John Nicholson (1809–1886), a biblical scholar, and his wife Annie Elizabeth Waring, he was born ...

, he was born at

Keighley Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford. Keighley is north-west of Bradford city centre, north-west of ...

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and died at Chester, Cheshire. He was educated at

Aberdeen University , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where he won the

Porson Prize The Porson Prize is an award for Greek verse composition at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in honor of classical scholar Richard Porson and was first awarded in 1817. Winners are known as "Porson prizemen". Winners of the Porson Pri ...

twice. Nicholson was professor of

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

from 1901 to June 1902, then lecturer in Persian at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

from 1902 to 1926, and

Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic is a title used at Cambridge University for the holder of a professorship of Arabic; Sir Thomas Adams, 1st Baronet (1586–1668), Lord Mayor of London in 1645, gave to Cambridge University the money needed t ...

at the

from 1926 to 1933. He is considered a leading scholar in

and

who exercised a lasting influence on

Islamic studies Islamic studies refers to the academic study of Islam, and generally to academic multidisciplinary "studies" programs—programs similar to others that focus on the history, texts and theologies of other religious traditions, such as Easter ...

. He was able to study and translate major Sufi texts in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, Punjabi and Ottoman Turkish to English. Nicholson wrote two very influential books: ''Literary History of The Arabs'' (1907) and ''The Mystics of Islam'' (1914). He was one of the original trustees of the Gibb Memorial Trust.

Works

* ''Studies in Islamic Mysticism'', Cambridge University Press, 1921.

Works on Rumi

Nicholson's

magnum opus A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...

was his work on Rumi's '' Masnavi'', published in eight volumes between 1925 and 1940. He produced the first critical Persian edition of the Masnavi, the first full translation of it into English, and the first commentary on the entire work in English. This work has been highly influential in the field of Rumi studies worldwide.

Work on Ali Hujwiri Daata Ganj Bakhsh

Nicholson translated the famous

book on sufism ''

Kashf ul Mahjoob The ( fa, کشف المحجوب , lit=Revelation of the Hidden) was the first formal treatise on Sufism, compiled in the 11th-century by the Persian scholar Ali al-Hujwiri. The work contains a complete system of Sufism with its doctrines and pra ...

'' in English written by famous saint of Subcontinent

Ali Hujwiri Abu 'l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī al-Ghaznawī al-Jullābī al-Hujwīrī (c. 1009-1072/77), known as ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī or al-Hujwīrī (also spelt Hajweri, Hajveri, or Hajvery) for short, or reverentially as Shaykh Syed ʿAlī al- ...

Daata Ganj Bakhsh

Works on Iqbal

Being a teacher of the then

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n scholar and poet

Muhammad Iqbal Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philos ...

, Nicholson translated Iqbal's first philosophical Persian poetry book ''

Asrar-i-Khudi ''Asrar-i-Khudi'' ( fa, , ''The Secrets of the Self''; published in Persian, 1915) was the first philosophical poetry book of Allama Iqbal, the great poet-philosopher of British India. This book deals mainly with the individual, while his second ...

'' into English as '' The Secrets of the Self''.

Other significant translations

* The Sufi treatise of Hujviri * Rumi's ''

Mathnawi Mathnawi ( ar, مثنوي ''mathnawī'') or masnavi ( fa, مثنوی) is a kind of poem written in rhyming couplets, or more specifically "a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines". Most mathnawī poems follow a meter of eleven, or o ...

'' and '' Divan e Shams'' *

Ibn Arabi Ibn ʿArabī ( ar, ابن عربي, ; full name: , ; 1165–1240), nicknamed al-Qushayrī (, ) and Sulṭān al-ʿĀrifīn (, , ' Sultan of the Knowers'), was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influen ...

's ''Tarjuman al-Aswaq'' (1911) * Poetry by the

Sindhi language Sindhi ( ; , ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 30 million people in the Pakistani province of Sindh, where it has official status. It is also spoken by a further 1.7 million people in India, where it is a scheduled language, withou ...

poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai *Poetry by the

Punjabi language Punjabi (; ; , ), sometimes spelled Panjabi, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. It has approximately 113 million native speakers. Punjabi is the most widely-spoken first language in Pakistan, with 80.5 ...

poet

Bulleh Shah Syed Abdullah Shah Qadri ( pa, ; ; 1680–1757), known popularly as Bulleh Shah ( pa, ; ) and Bulleya, was a Punjabi philosopher and Sufi poet during 17th-century Punjab. His ancestors had migrated from Bukhara (modern-day Uzbekistan) ...

Students

Among Nicholson's students was A. J. Arberry, a translator of Rumi and the Quran. Another student,

was the famous poet and has been called the "Spiritual Father of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

References

External links

* * *
''A Literary History of the Arabs'' (1907)
at Google Books
''The Mystics of Islam'' (1914)
at Google Books
''Encyclopædia Britannicas entry for Reynold Nicholson
*

from Iqbal Academy {{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholson, Reynold 1868 births 1945 deaths People from Keighley English orientalists Iranologists British Arabists Iqbal scholars British scholars of Islam Rumi scholars Sir Thomas Adams's Professors of Arabic Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge British translators