Martin Hartmann (9 December 1851, Breslau – 5 December 1918, Berlin) was a German orientalist, who specialized in Islamic studies.

In 1875, he received his doctorate at the University of Leipzig as a student of Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer. From 1876 to 1887 he served as a dragoman at the German General Consulate in Beirut. From 1887 until his death in 1918 he taught classes at the Department of Oriental Languages in Berlin.^[1]

As a professor in Berlin he strove hard for the recognition of Islamic studies as an independent discipline. His numerous contributions to the field of Islamic studies were based on a sociological standpoint. Many of these works were published in the journal "Die Welt des Islams" (The World of Islam), a publication of the "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Islamkunde", an organization that Hartmann was a co-founder of in 1912.^[2][1]

The Arab author Shakib Arslan strongly criticized and pushed back against Hartmann for his views on Islam and his writings on the Muslims of China.^[3]

Selected works[edit]

• Hartmann, M. (1883). "Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem türkischen Staatskalender für Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 6: 102–149.
• Metrum und Rhythmus: Die Entstehung der arabischen Vermasse, 1896.
• Lieder der libyschen Wüste, 1899.
• "The Arabic press of Egypt", published in English in 1899.
• Der islamische Orient; Berichte und Forschungen (3 volumes, 1905–10).
• Chinesisch-Turkestan: Geschichte, Verwaltung, Geistesleben, und Wirtschaft, 1907.
• Der Islam: Geschichte -- Glaube -- Recht. Ein Handbuch, 1909.
• Islam, Mission, Politik, 1911.
• Zur Geschichte des Islam in China, 1921.^[4]

References[edit]