Wilferd Madelung

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Wilferd Ferdinand Madelung (born 26 December 1930) is a scholar of Islam. He was born in Stuttgart, Germany, where he completed his early education at Eberhard-Ludwig-Gymnasium.

His family moved to the United States after in 1947. He studied at Georgetown. Madelung went to Egypt in 1952 and stayed there for a year. During his stay in Egypt the Coup d'État of 1952 by the Free Officers occurred. He also met Ihsan Abbas, the famous scholar of Islamic History, there. After his stay in Egypt he went back to Germany and completed his Ph.d in 1957. He worked with Spuler. In 1958 he was sent to Iraq by the German government to work at the embassy. Shortly after his arrival to Baghdad, Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew the regime in a bloody military coup. Madelung stayed in Iraq two more years. Madelung then taught at the University of Chicago.

Madelung is the Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford. He has written extensively on the early history of Islam, as well as on Islamic sects such as the Shi'a and the Ismailis.

[edit] Works

Madelung, W. (editor) - Arabic Texts Concerning The History of The Zaydi Imams of Tabaristan, Daylaman And Gilan, Franz Steiner, 1987
Madelung, W. - Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 1988
Madelung, W. - Religious and Ethnic Movements in Medieval Islam, 1992
Madelung, W. - The Succession to Muhammad, Cambridge University Press, 1997
Madelung, W. and Walker, P. - An Ismaili Heresiography, Leiden, 1998
Madelung, W. and Walker, P. - The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shi'i Witness, I.B. Tauris, 2000
Madelung, W. - Der Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Walter De Gruyter Incorporated, 2002
Madelung, W. - religious school and sects in medival islam