dr. r.r. walzer (1900-1975)

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British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Dr. R.R. Walzer (1900-1975) Author(s): Fritz W. Zimmermann Source: Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies), Vol. 3, No. 1 (1976), pp. 65-66 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/195141 . Accessed: 08/05/2014 10:31 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and British Society for Middle Eastern Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies). http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 10:31:45 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Dr. R.R. Walzer (1900-1975)

British Society for Middle Eastern Studies

Dr. R.R. Walzer (1900-1975)Author(s): Fritz W. ZimmermannSource: Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies), Vol. 3, No. 1 (1976), pp. 65-66Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/195141 .

Accessed: 08/05/2014 10:31

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and British Society for Middle Eastern Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 10:31:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Dr. R.R. Walzer (1900-1975)

OBITUARIES

Dr R.R. Walzer (1900-1975)

Richard Walzer, F.B.A., Emeritus Reader in Late Greek and Medieval Arabic Philosophy in the University of Oxford and Fellow of St. Catherine's College, died on 16 April 1975, at the age of 74. He was one of the Society's first Fellows.

Richard Walzer began his academic career as a classical scholar, with studies on Aristotle and Herodotus, in his home town of Berlin. He belonged to a generation of classicists who, inspired by men like W. Jaeger, his teacher, sought to extend the accomplishments of classi- cal scholarship to the post-classical periods of antiquity and beyond. He took up Arabic and Islamic studies, and soon began to make pioneer- ing contributions to the history of Greek-Arabic thought: Neoplatonism, the Galenic and Aristotelian traditions, the PZato Arabus, al-Kindi and al-Fra-bi. As an exile in Rome (1933-38), he gained the friendship of some of the outstanding Orientalists of the time. Forced once more to leave, he turned to Oxford, which was to become his second home. He soon established a reputation as one of the few outstanding experts in medieval Islamic philosophy, and eventually became a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

He never ceased to be a classical scholar at heart, but as his work began to centre on things Islamic his interests underwent a subtle shift of emphasis. Having set out to trace the continuity of the Greek tradition in the world of Islam and to use Arabic literature as a source for the civilization of antiquity--the most impressive document of this line of approach is no doubt his Galen on Jews and Christians (Oxford, 1949)--his attention was drawn to the purely Islamic elements in Muslim philosophy. For many years he studied the creative synthesis of ancient and Islamic ideas in the work of al-Fgra-b. Before he died, he had the satisfaction of seeing his most mature work--a critical edition, with translation and commentary, of al-Fara-bi's, Ara' ah mad- na aZ- fadiZa--go to press.

As a person no less than a scholar he was deeply committed to the best traditions of European humanism. In the years of persecution he experienced with profound gratitude the help of colleagues abroad and ever since promoted the cause of solidarity among scholars of all nations. The wide range of his interdisciplinary and international re- lationships is impressively reflected in the Festschrift dedicated to him on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.1

He was always ready to do everything he could for his pupils, col- leagues, friends or total strangers. He was repeatedly honoured in Germany for his helpful attitude after the war. He helped countless people, particularly among the young, through every kind of crisis. His pupils found him not only a keen teacher but also a dedicated friend. He was happiest in the presence of friends, whose good fortunes and disappointments he made his own. He never got over the loss, in 1969, of Samuel Stern, who had shared his house for many years.

His erudition, shrewd wisdom, good humour, inexhaustible sympathy, ready advice, enthusiasm and, above all, his friendship, will be missed by all who knew him.

Fritz Zimmermann

Note 1. Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, ed. S.M. Stern,

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Page 3: Dr. R.R. Walzer (1900-1975)

A. Hourani, V. Brown, Oxford 1972. This books contains a list of R. Walzer's publications, and a biographical account by Sir Alan Bullock.

Professor R.C. Zaehner (1913-197h)

Editor's Note: Professor Robert Charles Zaehner, F.B.A., died suddenly on 24 November 1974. At the time of his death he was a FeZZow of AZl Souls College and Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics in the University of Oxford. In his 1975 Presidential Address Mr Hourani devoted some space to an appreciation of both Professor Zaehner and Dr Walzer (preceding obituary), whose deaths occurred during his period of office (see this Bulletin II, 2 (1975), pp.65 f.: of. p.68).

The interests of the late Robin Zaehner extended far beyond the bounds of the Middle East. It is true that, at the time of his election to the Spalding Chair in Eastern Religion and Ethics, he was known only as a specialist in later Zoroastrianism and that, of the other great religions, he was then reasonably familiar only with Islam. But all this changed with his appointment to the Spalding Professorship. 'It would have been easy', so he tells us in the first of his Gifford Lectures, 'to have plodded along in the old Zoroastrian-Islamic rut without paying more than a nodding attention to the great religions of India. It would have been easy; but it would have been dishonest'. And so he 'proceeded to delve deep into the Hindu classics and discovered a whole new world....' with the result that we know from the stream of works that continued to flow from his pen until his ultimate death.

His election to the Spalding Chair seems to have had a catalytic effect enabling him to 'shake off the tyranny of his books' and join the happy band of 'pure readers who read for the sake of reading, not to educate themselves, not to work...' The very vastness of his subject released him from the restrictions imposed upon the narrow specialist; for the subject covered the whole world and there was a limit to the number of books that a single individual could read. The task is indeed a formidable, if not an impossible one: 'for each of the great world religions, treated as a historical study alone, would fully occupy the lifetime of any one man, however long-lived'. Working in such a field the 'teacher of the comparative study of religions is bound to be ac- cused of being at many points superficial and to that extent a charla- tan'. Another difficulty that confronted Zaehner at the time of his appointment was the third function of the Chair as foreseen by Spalding, viz. to bring the great religious systems of the world together in closer understanding, harmony, and friendship. This objective seemed to him at the time 'absurdly starry-eyed', and in his inaugural lecture he protested against it in words which gave rise to some criticism: 'Nor do I think that it can be a legitimate function of a university pro- fessor to attempt to induce harmony among elements as disparate as the great religions of mankind appear to be, if, as seems inevitable, the resultant harmony is only to be apparent, verbal, and therefore fic- titious. Such a procedure may well be commendable in a statesman. In a profession that concerns itself with the pursuit of truth it is damn- able'. He was afterwards willing to modify the tone of this statement, but stuck to his main position, viz. 'that the basic principles of Eastern and Western...thought are, I will not say irreconcilably op- posed; they are simply not starting from the same premisses... The great religions are talking at cross purposes'. In time, however, he

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A. Hourani, V. Brown, Oxford 1972. This books contains a list of R. Walzer's publications, and a biographical account by Sir Alan Bullock.

Professor R.C. Zaehner (1913-197h)

Editor's Note: Professor Robert Charles Zaehner, F.B.A., died suddenly on 24 November 1974. At the time of his death he was a FeZZow of AZl Souls College and Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics in the University of Oxford. In his 1975 Presidential Address Mr Hourani devoted some space to an appreciation of both Professor Zaehner and Dr Walzer (preceding obituary), whose deaths occurred during his period of office (see this Bulletin II, 2 (1975), pp.65 f.: of. p.68).

The interests of the late Robin Zaehner extended far beyond the bounds of the Middle East. It is true that, at the time of his election to the Spalding Chair in Eastern Religion and Ethics, he was known only as a specialist in later Zoroastrianism and that, of the other great religions, he was then reasonably familiar only with Islam. But all this changed with his appointment to the Spalding Professorship. 'It would have been easy', so he tells us in the first of his Gifford Lectures, 'to have plodded along in the old Zoroastrian-Islamic rut without paying more than a nodding attention to the great religions of India. It would have been easy; but it would have been dishonest'. And so he 'proceeded to delve deep into the Hindu classics and discovered a whole new world....' with the result that we know from the stream of works that continued to flow from his pen until his ultimate death.

His election to the Spalding Chair seems to have had a catalytic effect enabling him to 'shake off the tyranny of his books' and join the happy band of 'pure readers who read for the sake of reading, not to educate themselves, not to work...' The very vastness of his subject released him from the restrictions imposed upon the narrow specialist; for the subject covered the whole world and there was a limit to the number of books that a single individual could read. The task is indeed a formidable, if not an impossible one: 'for each of the great world religions, treated as a historical study alone, would fully occupy the lifetime of any one man, however long-lived'. Working in such a field the 'teacher of the comparative study of religions is bound to be ac- cused of being at many points superficial and to that extent a charla- tan'. Another difficulty that confronted Zaehner at the time of his appointment was the third function of the Chair as foreseen by Spalding, viz. to bring the great religious systems of the world together in closer understanding, harmony, and friendship. This objective seemed to him at the time 'absurdly starry-eyed', and in his inaugural lecture he protested against it in words which gave rise to some criticism: 'Nor do I think that it can be a legitimate function of a university pro- fessor to attempt to induce harmony among elements as disparate as the great religions of mankind appear to be, if, as seems inevitable, the resultant harmony is only to be apparent, verbal, and therefore fic- titious. Such a procedure may well be commendable in a statesman. In a profession that concerns itself with the pursuit of truth it is damn- able'. He was afterwards willing to modify the tone of this statement, but stuck to his main position, viz. 'that the basic principles of Eastern and Western...thought are, I will not say irreconcilably op- posed; they are simply not starting from the same premisses... The great religions are talking at cross purposes'. In time, however, he

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This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 10:31:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions