Adriaan Reland

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Adriaan Reland (also known as Adriaen Reeland/Reelant, Hadrianus Relandus) (July 17, 1676, De Rijp - February 5, 1718, Utrecht ^[1]) was a Dutch scholar, cartographer and philologist.

Reland was the son of Johannes Reland, a Protestant minister, and Aagje Prins in the small North Holland village of De Rijp. Adriaan's brother, Peter (1678-1714) would become an influential lawyer in Haarlem^[1]. Reeland first studied in Amsterdam and enrolled at University of Utrecht in 1693. After obtaining his PhD in Utrecht he moved to Leiden where he was chosen to tutor the son of Hans Wilem Bentinck who would become the 1st Earl of Portland. The latter invited him to move to England, but Reland declined because of the declining health of his father^[1].

One of the early orientalists^[2], Reland instead became professor of philosophy at the University of Harderwijk that same year (1699) ^[3] and from 1701 onwards he was professor of Oriental languages at the University of Utrecht, where from 1713 he also taught Hebrew antiquities. He became well-respected for his thorough and (for those days) objective studies of the Islam and for his knowledge of languages. Among others he was able to correctly suggest an eastward extension of Malay-like languages into the western Pacific.

Reland died in 1718 in Utrecht of small pox^[1].

Among his most notable works are:

Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata - a detailed geographical survey of Palestine written in Latin and published by Trajecti Batavorum, Utrecht, in 1714.^[4]
De religione Mohammedica libri duo - the first European work to attempt to describe the Islamic religion in a relatively objective way. Published in 1705.^[5]
Antiquitates sacrae veterum Hebraeorum
Poemata quae hactenus reperiri potuerunt curante Abrahamo Perrenot - A bundle of Latin poetry (published with the pseudonym Abraham Perrenot in 1701, under his own name in 1745)