Heinz Halm (born 21 February 1942 inAndernach,Rhine Province) is a German scholar ofIslamic Studies, with a particular expertise on earlyShia history, theIsmailites and other Shia sects.
Born and raised in Andernach, Halm studied Islamic and Semitic studies, and medieval and modern history at theUniversity of Bonn, where he was a scholar ofAnnemarie Schimmel. Following his Ph.D. and a traineeship in journalism atHessischer Rundfunk, he joined the scholarly project of theTübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients [de] (Tuebingen Atlas of the Near & Middle East), a bilingual (German/English) collection of geographical and historical maps. In 1980, he was appointed Professor for Islamic Studies at theUniversity of Tübingen.
Halm's bookThe Shiites was reviewed in theInternational Journal of Middle East Studies bySaid Amir Arjomand who remarked that "Halm’s historical perspective is a welcome corrective to the ahistorical shallowness of the vast majority of the accounts of the Islamic Revolution." Arjomand recommends the book as "a short historical introduction to Shi`ism, it is serviceable to the general public and has no rival or substitute.”[1]