Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (August 18, 1868 - August 27, 1945)
He was an eminent English orientalist, scholar of both Islamic literature and Islamic mysticism, and widely regarded as one of the greatest Rumi scholars and translators in the English language.
He was a lecturer in Persian and Sir Thomas Adams professor of Arabic at Cambridge university. He was born in Keighley, Yorkshire and son of paleontologist Henry Alleyne Nicholson. He exercised a lasting influence on Islamic studies in the West.
He was able to study and translate major Sufi texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish to English.
Works
A. two very influential books:
a1. "Literary History of The Arabs" (1907),
a2. "The Mystics of Islam" (1914)
B. Works on Rumi
b1. magnum opus: Rumi's "Masnavi", published in 8 volumes between 1925 and 1940;
- the first critical Persian edition of the "Masnavi",
- the first full translation of it into English, and
- the first commentary on the entire work in English.
This work has been highly influential in the field of Rumi studies worldwide.
b2. "Selected Poems from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz", 48 poems, (1898) http://hojja-nusreddin.livejournal.com/2947107.html
C. Other Translations:
c1. Muhammad Iqbal's first philosophical Persian poetry book "Asrar-i-Khudi" into English as "The Secrets of the Self".
c2. Hujviri's "The Sufi treatise"
c3. Ibn Arabi's "Tarjuman al-Aswaq"
c3. the Sindi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's Poetry
His Famous Students:
1. Arthur Arberry, a translator of Rumi and Quran.
2. Muhammad Iqbal, an ex-indian, later pakistani scholar and poet
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http://sufibooks.co.uk/r-a-nicholson-m144.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynold_A._Nicholson