August Fischer (14 February 1865 inHalle an der Saale – 14 February 1949 inLeipzig) was a Germanorientalist.
From 1883 to 1889 he studiedtheology andOriental philology at the universities ofBerlin,Marburg andHalle, receiving his doctorate with a thesis on the source biographies ofIbn Ishaq,Biographien von Gewährsmännern des Ibn Ishaq. In 1890 he obtained hishabilitation for Oriental philology at theUniversity of Halle, and several years later became an associate professor in Berlin. From 1900 to 1930 he was a full professor of Oriental philology at theUniversity of Leipzig, where in 1914/15 he served as dean to the faculty of philosophy. For several years he was secretary of the philological-history group at theSaxon Academy of Sciences of Leipzig (1926–32).[1][2]
He was a member of theAcademy of the Arabic Language in Cairo and he contributed his notes for the development ofAl-Mu'jam al-Kabir, the academy's project for ahistorical dictionary of Arabic.[3]
With Rudolf Ernst Brünnow, he was author of the highly acclaimedArabische Chrestomathie aus Prosaschriftstellern (6h edition, 1953), an Arabchrestomathy translated into English and published with the titleChrestomathy of classical Arabic prose literature (2008).[4] He was also an editor of the periodicalsZeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Journal of theGerman Oriental Society) andIslamica (1925–35; a journal for the study of languages and cultures of Islamic peoples). Among his other numerous writings wereDie indirekte Rede im Altfranzösischen (Indirect speech inOld French, 1900) and the necrology for orientalistChristoph Ludolf Ehrenfried Krehl (Nekrolog auf Ludolf Krehl, 1901).[2][5]
