Georg Graf

Georg Graf (15 March 1875 – 18 September 1955) was a German Orientalist. He was one of the most important scholars of the study of the Christian orient, and his 5-volume Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur remains the basis of all subsequent work.

Georg Graf was born in Munzingen, Germany, in 1875.

He entered the seminary of Dillingen, where he learned Greek, Latin and Hebrew. During this period he also learned Syriac and Arabic privately. In 1902-1903 he finished his studies at Munich, learning ancient Egyptian, Coptic and modern Greek. He also learned Georgian. In 1903 he obtained a doctorate of philology with a study on Arabic Christian literature up to the 11th century.

His doctoral thesis was published in 1905. This brought him into contact with the journal al-Machriq, which had been founded by Louis Cheikhô, and for whom he showed a great regard all his life. In 1910 and 1911 he lived in Jerusalem and studied Christian literature in the monasteries there, with a short stay in Beirut.

In 1918 he obtained a doctorate of theology at the University of Freiburg with a work on Marqus Ibn al-Qunbar (Ein Reformversuch innerhalb der Koptischen Kirche im zwölften Jahrhundert), published in 1923. Further research visits to Egypt, Syria and Palestine followed. In 1930 he was named Honorary Professor for Christian Oriental literature at the theology faculty of the university of Munich. In 1946 he was appointed a papal chaplain. He died in Dillingen an der Donau in 1955.

His work is continued today by the Centre for Christian Arabic Literature and Research in Beirut CEDRAC.

Georg is a distant relative of tennis star Steffi Graf.

His most important work was the Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur (History of Christian Arabic Literature), sometimes abbreviated as GCAL. This appeared in 5 volumes (Vatican City 1944-53). It covers all Arabic Christian literature to the end of the 19th century.

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