Wolfhart P. Heinrichs (3 October 1941 – 23 January 2014) was a German-born scholar ofArabic. He was James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic atHarvard University, and a co-editor of the second edition of theEncyclopaedia of Islam. He taughtClassical Arabic language andliterature, particularlyArabic literary theory and criticism.[1]
Wolfhart Heinrichs was born inCologne into an academic family: his father, H. Matthias Heinrichs, was professor of ancient Germanic studies at theUniversity of Giessen and theFree University of Berlin; his mother, Anne Heinrichs, a lecturer onOld Norse, was made a professor at the Free University at the age of 80.[2]
He was educated at theFriedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne before studyingIslamic studies at theUniversity of Cologne. After a year at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies inLondon, he continued studying at the Universities ofFrankfurt andGiessen. He gained his PhD in 1967 for a thesis onHazim al-Qartajanni's reception ofAristotelian poetics, and spent a year at theOrient-Institut Beirut.[2]
Heinrichs taught at Giessen from 1968 to 1977, when he went toHarvard University as a visiting lecturer, and in 1978 took up a permanent position there.[1] In 1980 he married Alma Giese, an independent scholar and translator fromArabic. In 1989 he became a co-editor of the new edition of theEncyclopaedia of Islam, for which he also wrote fifty articles himself.[2] In 1996 he succeededMuhsin Mahdi as the James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic at Harvard.[1] AFestschrift was published in 2008.[2]
