Georg Jacob

Jacob studied Arabic geography at the Universität Greifswald, achieving his Habilitation in 1892. In 1896 he became an Extraordinary Professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen,[1] and in 1888-90 he was assistant librarian at the Royal Library in Berlin.[2] In 1911 he was made Chair of Oriental Studies at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel,[1] succeeding Georg Hoffmann. As (ordinarius) for 'Semitic and Islamic Philology' at the University, Jacob was the first German professor to have a chair incorporating Islamic studies, reflecting a tentative institutional willingness to allow the field of Semitic language study to expand to include the Islamic world, including the non-Semitic, Turkic-speaking world.[3] In Kiel, Jacob 'was director of the Oriental institute at the university [...], which consisted of one room serving as his office, as classroom and as library. Luckily the room had a high ceiling, thus ample wall space was available for the book shelves'.[4] 1922-23 saw him serving as Rector of the University,[5] and he was the honorand of a Festschrift in 1932.[6]

Though beginning with research on Arabic history and literature, Jacob turned his attention progressively towards Persian and Turkish studies, especially the latter. His work was characterised by its wide-ranging, internationalist outlook, and 'the customs and institutions of the common people'.[7]

In 1892, Jacob attended a shadow puppet performance in Istanbul. That experience led him to a lifetime fascination with, and scholarly research into, the subject of shadow play.[8][7] Jacob was rare in the German academy of his day for specialising in Ottoman-Turkish studies,[9] and was the first translator and editor of modern Turkish literature in the German-speaking world, founding the Türkische Bibliothek series published by Mayer & Müller in Berlin.

• Das Leben der vorislâmischen Beduinen. (Studien in arabischen Dichtern, Heft III) Mayer & Müller, Berlin 1895 (https://archive.org/details/daslebendervori00jacogoog)
• Das türkische Schattentheater. Berlin, 1900
• Die Geschichte des Schattentheaters im Morgen- und Abendland. 1. Auflage 1907, 2. erweiterte Auflage 1925 (1972), ISBN 978-3764804114 (GoogleBooks)
• Arabische Berichte von Gesandten an germanische Fürstenhöfe aus dem 9. und 10. Jahrhundert. Ins Deutsche übertragen und mit Fussnoten versehen von Georg Jacob. Berlin 1927. (http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:1-20154)

• Ernst Dammann: Erinnerungen an Georg Jacob (1862–1937). In: Klaus Kreiser (ed.): Germano-Turcica. Zur Geschichte des Türkisch-Lernens in den deutschsprachigen Ländern, Universitätsbibliothek Bamberg, Bamberg 1987, ISBN 3-923507-06-2, pp. 113–118.
• Norbert Diekmann: Georg Jacob und seine Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der Orientalistik vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert. In: XXX. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Freiburg, 24–28 September 2007. Ausgewählte Vorträge. Ed. in association with the DMG by Rainer Brunner, Jens Peter Laut and Maurus Reinkowski, February 2009 (PDF).
• Klaus Kreiser: Bektaşî-Miszellen (including: 2. Georg Jacob <1862–1937> als Begründer der Bektaşî-Studien). In: Turcica. Revue d'études turques. vols. 21–23, 1991, pp. 115–130; repr. in: Istanbul und das Osmanische Reich. Derwischwesen, Baugeschichte, Inschriftenkunde (=Analecta Isisiana 14). Isis, Istanbul 1995, pp. 243–256.
• Klaus Kreiser: Jacob, Georg (1862–1937). Alman şarkiyatçısı ve Türkologu. In: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 23, Istanbul 2001, pp. 567–568 (online).
• Enno Littmann: Georg Jacob (1862–1937). In: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. vol. 91 (n.F. 16), Nr. 2/3, 1937, pp. 486–500.

• Literature by and about Georg Jacob in the German National Library catalogue
• Works by and about Georg Jacob in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library)
• C. H. Becker: Georg Jacob als Orientalist ULB Sachsen-Anhalt