A Brill Calendar: November 24

Hurgronje's Achievement

Few Leyden Professors enjoy the fame of the Arabist and Islamogist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (Oosterhout, 1857 – Leyden, 1936).

Curiously enough, the calendar day of his birth coincides with the ‘Dies Natalis’ of Leyden University: February 8. In the Humanities proper – philosophy, mathematics and physical science excepted – only Desiderius Erasmus and Johan Huizinga fall within his league. Snouck was 32 years of age when Martinus Nijhoff - then a gentleman publisher - published his ‘magnum opus’: ‘Mekka’, a three-volume work in German, including a splendid photographic portfolio, taken by the author himself during his visit to the Holy City from February to August 1885. Snouck was a superb photographer.

It is seldom that a first work caused such a sensation world-wide; and in this case not a short-lived one. The book keeps surviving his maker, once again in print; it is as timeless as a classic book can get.

Obeying the law that scholarly innovation rests on shoulders of earlier giants, Snouck Hurgronje’s stature rests on his appreciation of the generations of Arabists preceding him at Leyden University. He became a fully-fledged member of that illustrious club - encompassing as it did three centuries of scholarly distinction - on November 24, 1880, when he obtained his doctorate with honours, ‘cum laude’. Written in Dutch and entitled ‘Het Mekkaanse feest’ – ‘The Feast in Mecca’- he also found in the Brill company of those days the proper printer for an obligatory publication.

On top of a flawless philological interpretation of classical texts in the University Library, a library well-stocked on his subject; he superimposed unheard-of and provocative ideas on Islamic pilgrimage and on the Prophet Abraham, recognized as such by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Not bad, for a 23-year old.

Snouck’s burst into the realm of celebrity, initiated by leaving at considerable personal risk the academic reading-chair so dear to his Promotor, Professor de Goeje, opened up a new and different perspective on Islam and on Islamic studies.