Margoliouth

This exhibition is inspired by the life of D. S. Margoliouth, the leading scholar of Arabic and Islamic studies in Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after whom New College’s Arabic fellowship is now named.

Undergraduate, fellow, and professor at New College, Margoliouth was a true polyglot, mastering not only Arabic, but many of the languages of the Levant: Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Persian, Syriac, and Turkish. In this first tab of our exhibition, we explore Margoliouth’s family background, his career, and the impact he left on the collections at New College Library.

Although born an Anglican, Margoliouth had direct Jewish ancestry. His father, Ezekiel Margoliouth, had converted from Judaism to Anglicanism, and thereafter worked in Bethnal Green as a missionary. It is, therefore, no surprise that Margoliouth had an active interest in Jewish religious works—as evidenced by two copies of the Talmud that he donated to New College Library. 

Preserving a comprehensive written version of the Jewish Code of Law and a compilation of subsequent commentaries, the Talmud is a foundational text of Judaism. Below, you can see the two versions of this important text that Margoliouth donated.

On the left, you can see the title-page of our copy of the Talmud Yerushalmi or Talmud of Jerusalem, which dates from 1866 (NB.78.3). It is widely believed that this version of the text was completed around 450 CE. The books on the right are the first three volumes of the Babylonian Talmud. Completed sometime between 450 and 750 CE, it is larger than the Talmud Yerushalmi and is considered to have greater authority. In total, there are twelve volumes in this multi-part printing of the text.

Together, these two versions of the Talmud reveal not only Margoliouth’s generosity, but also his interest in the Hebrew language from an early age. This interest in languages would grow in later life, with Margoliouth gaining a knowledge of not only Hebrew and Arabic, but indeed all the languages highlighted in this polyglot exhibition.

Margoliouth was educated from 1827 at Winchester College, until coming up to New College in 1877 with a scholarship. Elected a New College fellow in 1881, he gave classics tutorials. Somewhat surprisingly in 1889, he was appointed—by a panel including Oxford’s Regius professor of Hebrew, Wykehamist and New College man, Samuel Rolles Driver—to the Laudian professorship of Arabic, a university chair he held until 1937. In the banner image above, you can see a contemporary picture of Margoliouth from his teaching days. Dating from 1921—and now held in New College Archives—this photograph depicts all the fellows in the Cloisters. Margoliouth is sat in the centre (second from the left), with a mortarboard in his lap (NCA SCR/A3/1).

Sceptical approaches and an ironic tone characterised some of Margoliouth’s writings. Notably, his 1925 article on ‘The Origins of Arabic Poetry’ for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, alleging pre-Islamic Arabic poetry was inauthentic (i.e. fabricated or forged) marred his scholarship to a degree, causing contention and scandal especially in the Muslim world. He was, however, lionised by the Royal Asiatic society (RAS), serving as director and later president. Indeed, in 1928 the society awarded him its triennial gold medal, which he later donated to the college. It is still held in the college’s chattels today and is pictured below (NCO403547 and NCO403548). 

The Royal Asiatic Society presented the triennial gold medal to individuals who dedicated their lives to Asian studies. The obverse of the medal bears a Latin motto ‘Quot Rami Tot Abores’, meaning ‘as many branches as there are trees’, this accompanies an intricate depiction of a banyan tree which is native to the Indian subcontinent and symbolises longevity. The triennial gold medal was awarded between 1897 and 1990—it has now been replaced by the The Royal Asiatic Society Award—and was produced by John Pinches Medallists (founded in London c. 1840). The medal awarded to Margoliouth was made when Pinches’s son, John Harvey Pinches (1852–1941), was running the firm.

Margoliouth had first won a clutch of school prizes at Winchester College—Divinity, English, Greek, Latin, Modern Languages—and accolades continued at Oxford: Hertford and Ireland scholarships for Classics, and prizes in Hebrew, Syriac, and Sanskrit. During his lifetime, the American Oriental Society, the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, and the Persia and Central Asia Society honoured him, and his RAS obituary rightly went on to call him ‘the leading Arabic scholar in England’, with ‘an almost legendary reputation amongst non-Orientalists and even in the Islamic countries of the East’. 

Margoliouth’s workload was extraordinarily heavy. He was not only the university’s sole teacher of Arabic, a writer of numerous publications, and fellow at New College—he also ran New College Library for a while. His influence on New College Library's collections can be seen in the book pictured here.

Entitled The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries (RS3940), it was donated to the library by Margoliouth shortly after its publication. This donation was recorded both in the Library’s Benefaction Book and also by Margoliouth’s personal bookplate, which survives to this day on the upper pastedown of this volume—a picture of the bookplate can be seen below.

The text itself was originally written in the 13th century by Abu al-Markarim (d. 1208), a priest of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Today it is considered to be one of the most important sources on the Coptic Church in this period. Christianity has a long history in Egypt—one that began with the founding in 49 CE of the Coptic Church in Alexandria by Saint Mark the Evangelist, only 16 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Although an important text, al-Makirim’s work was unknown in the West until the 17th century. This edition, translated into English by the Coptic scholar B. T. A. Evetts (1858–1929), was therefore a crucial step in bringing this history to a much wider audience.

New College Library has not only benefited from Margoliouth’s generosity. It has also sought to acquire his written works—keeping them for posterity in the Library’s New College alumni collection. In the gallery below, you can see one particularly striking work. 

Entitled Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus, this book was written by Margoliouth as a break from his regular academic work at New College. In the preface, he even describes it as ‘a relief from the labour of editing and translating Arabic texts’. It is a historical description of three of the most important cities in the wider Levant region, which Margoliouth worked on with his wife Jessie Payne Margoliouth (née Smith, 1856–1933). A renowned Syriac scholar, Jessie focused on the architectural paragraphs in this volume, either writing them outright or revising them.

Today, the book is particularly notable for its set of 58 beautiful colour plates of painting by Walter Spencer Stanhope Tyrwhitt (1859–1932), as can be seen in the images in the gallery above. Interestingly, Margoliouth’s text was written after the paintings had already been created, intended to give the reader historical background to the monuments they depict.

Margoliouth had a long and successful career—and made a considerable impact on the study of Arabic both at New College and within the wider university.

Although primarily known today for his in-depth knowledge of Arabic, Margoliouth mastered a range of different languages of the Levant region in his lifetime. In the following tabs of this exhibition, we honour his linguaphilia by exploring the linguistic diversity present across the collections of New College Library. First, though, we highlight some truly beautiful books written in Arabic—start your linguistic journey through our collections below.