Margoliouth, David Samuel

David Samuel Margoliouth, (born Oct. 17, 1858, London, Eng.—died March 22, 1940, London), English scholar whose pioneering efforts in Islamic studies won him a near-legendary reputation among Islamic peoples and Oriental scholars of Europe.

Margoliouth was professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford (1889–1937) and was briefly active as a minister of the Church of England. He spent considerable 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.

His works on the history of Islam, which became the standard treatises in English for at least a generation, include 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). Particularly brilliant as an editor and translator of Arabic works, he made use of his remarkable talents in The Letters of Abuʾl-ʿAlā of Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān (1898), Yāqūt’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 ʿAbbasid Caliphate, 7 vol. (1920–21).