David Samuel Margoliouth

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David Samuel Margoliouth (October 17, 1858 in London, England – March 22, 1940) was an orientalist. He was briefly active as a priest in the Church of England. He was professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford from 1889 to 1937. ^[1]

Margoliouth was a scholar whose efforts in Islamic studies are described as "pioneering". He has a near-legendary reputation among Islamic peoples and Oriental scholars of Europe.

He also spent long time traveling in the Middle East. At Baghdad and in the surrounding area, he came to be regarded as more knowledgeable on Islamic matters than most Arab scholars.

Many of his works on the history of Islam became the standard treatises in English, including Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (1905), The Early Development of Mohammedanism (1914), and The Relations Between Arabs and Israelites Prior to the Rise of Islam (1924). They did so for at least a generation.

He is described as particularly brilliant editor and translator of Arabic works, as seen in The Letters of Abu'l-'Ala of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man (1898), Yaqut's Dictionary of Learned Men, 6 vol. (1907–27), and the chronicle of Miskawayh, prepared in collaboration with H. F. Amedroz under the title The Eclipse of the 'Abbasid Caliphate, 7 vol. (1920–21). Some of David Samuel Margoliouth's studies are included in The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book edited by Ibn Warraq.