Theodor Nöldeke

Biography

In 1859 his history of the Qur'an won for him the prize of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and in the following year he rewrote it in German (Geschichte des Qorâns) and published it with additions at Göttingen. In 1861 he began to lecture at the university of this town, where three years later he was appointed extraordinary professor. In 1868 he became ordinary professor at Kiel, and in 1872 was appointed to the chair of Oriental Languages at Strassburg, which he resigned in 1906.

Nöldeke’s range of studies were wide and varied, but the main focus of his work has followed the two lines indicated by his prize essay, Semitic languages, and the history and civilization of Islam. While a great deal of his work (e.g. his Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache, 1868, his Mandäische Grammatik, 1874, and his translations from the Arabic of Tabari, 1881–1882) is meant for specialists, many of his books are of interest to the general reader.

Some of Nöldeke's studies are included in The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book edited by Ibn Warraq.

Several of his essays first appeared in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and his article on the Qur'an, with some others, was republished in a volume called Oriental Sketches. The articles dealing with Persia were republished in a German volume, Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887).

Nöldeke died in Karlsruhe. Charles Cutler Torrey and Friedrich Zacharias Schwally were his students.

Nöldeke Chronology

The Nöldeke Chronology is a modern application of Qur'anic organization. Presented by Theodor Nöldeke in the middle of the nineteenth century, this perspective considers the sequence of revelation with the development of content and the origination of new linguistic styles. Using this approach, the suras can be more closely ordered to match their true historical occurrence. For example, Sura 21: “The Prophets,” although it is featured as the 21st chapter of a total 114 in the text of the Qur'an, is number 65 according to the Nöldeke Chronology. From here, Nöldeke then divided the suras into two periods: The Meccan, broken into three phases, and the Medinan

According to the Nöldeke Chronology, the 114 Suras of the Qur'an are divided into four groupings:

The Egyptian Edition, which was crafted 1924, is an adaptation of Nöldeke's work.

The Nöldeke Chronology institutes a sort of "canonical order" that comes to systematize the sequence of revelation in a more coherent and comprehensive arrangement, thus aiding in the scholarly (theological, literary, and historical) interpretation of the Qur'an. Although it does not have universal acceptance, the Nöldeke Chronology is used as a general guide within current scholarship.

First Meccan Period

96, 74, 111, 106, 108, 104, 107, 102, 105, 92,

90, 94, 93, 97, 86, 91, 80, 68, 87, 95,

103, 85, 73, 101, 99, 82, 81, 53, 84, 100,

79, 77, 78, 88, 89, 75, 83, 69, 51, 52,

56, 70, 55, 112, 109, 113, 114, 1

Second Meccan Period

54, 37, 71, 76, 44, 50, 20, 26, 15, 19,

38, 36, 43, 72, 67, 23, 21, 25, 17, 27, 18

Third Meccan Period

32, 41, 45, 16, 30, 11, 14, 12, 40, 28,

39, 29, 31, 42, 10, 34, 35, 7, 46, 6, 13

Medinan Period

2, 98, 64, 62, 8, 47, 3, 61, 57, 4, 65, 59, 33,

63, 24, 58, 22, 48, 66, 60, 110, 49, 9, 5