A Brill Calendar: December 17

Kramers and the Koran

Few scholarly traditions in Leyden University equal – let alone surpass – the study of the Arabic language, both in duration and consistency.

The contributions to these studies by Johannes Hendrik Kramers typify scholarly attitudes from the first half of the 20th century. His short career – Professor Kramers died December 17, 1951, aged 60 – embodies an important stage in that tradition; one starting with his doctoral dissertation (1915). It dealt with an extraordinary subject: the legal position of his compatriots under the Turkish penal law of the waning of the Ottoman Empire.

It is seldom that a thesis dovetails with praxis so rapidly. Kramers acted at the Netherlands Consulate in Istanbul as translator and ‘Dragoman’ for the next six years until 1921, while Kemal Pasha was rising to the revolutionary stature of ‘Atatürk’, Father of all Turks. Next, Kramers returned to his Alma Mater, lecturing on classical Turkish and Persian literatures and languages, as junior member of a Faculty basking in the awe-inspiring sun of Professor Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, Emir of Western Orientalists. Kramers succeeded him in 1939.

His ‘chef d’oeuvre’, a Koran translation in his mother tongue – the first integrally translated straight from the Arabic – appeared posthumously in an edition prepared for publication by one of his students, the diplomat Van Diffelen. Kramers’ contributions to the continuing evolution of the world-wide authoritative ‘Encyclopaedia of Islam’ - first published in four volumes and a supplement (Leyden, 1911 – ’38) – demonstrate the enduring commitment of his University to the study of Islam as well; a discipline that is coeval with the birth of European universities.

Incidentally, the first Koran translation in Latin by Robert of Ketton dates from the 12th century. Scholarly Western interest in Muslim religion & culture marches in step with Crusades, inspired and sanctioned by the Pope of Rome to secure a safe place for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem; after Mecca the holiest place for the youngest monotheist tradition among three.