Wilferd Ferdinand MadelungFBA (26 December 1930 – 9 May 2023) was a German author and scholar of Islamic history widely recognised for his contributions to the fields of Islamic and Iranian studies.[1] He was appreciated in Iran for his "knowledgeable and fair" treatment of the Shia perspective.[1] In the obituary of the Institute of Ismaili Studies (London) where Madelung worked his last years, it reads:[2]"With particular reference to religious schools and movements in early Islam, his studies, based on a vast array of primary sources, have enriched the discipline’s understanding of almost every major Muslim movement and community – not only early Imami Shi‘ism and the later developments of Twelver, Ismaili and Zaydi Islam but also the lesser known aspects of Sunni, Khariji and the Mu‘tazili schools of theology and philosophy."
Madelung was born in Stuttgart on 26 December 1930.[3][4] After World War II (in 1947[5]), as an adolescent, he accompanied his parents Georg Hans Madelung and Elisabeth Emma Madelung to the US where his father continued his career as an aeronautic engineer specialising in rockets.[6] Wilferd Madelung enrolled at Georgetown UniversityinWashington DC before going to Cairo in 1951 to study Arabic literature and Islamic history;[7] there he was a student of "Muḥammad Kamil Ḥusayn (1901–1961), who edited numerous Ismaili texts of the Fatimid period".[8] From 1958 to 1960, he served as cultural attaché at the West German Embassy in Baghdad, before starting his scientific career.[7] Later, Madelung was apparently also holding British citizenship.[9]
Already 20 years before passing away he had produced some 15 books and edited volumes, 60 book chapters and papers in scientific journals, 130 encyclopaedia entries and about 160 book reviews.[20]
Madelung, W. (editor) - Arabic Texts Concerning The History of The Zaydī Imāms of Tabaristān, Daylamān And Gīlān, collected and edited by Wilferd Madelung. Franz Steiner Verlag, Beirut and Wiesbaden, 1987.[21]
Madelung, W. - Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran. Columbia Letters of Iranian Studies no. 4, The Persian Heritage Foundation, 1988. ISBN 0-88706-700-X / 0-88706-701-8 (pbk.).
Madelung, W. - Religious and Ethnic Movements in Medieval Islam, Ashgate Publishing, 1992. (New editions from 2016 on by Routledge, Oxon and New York, ISBN 978-086078-310-7
Madelung, W. and Walker, P. - An Ismaili Heresiography: The 'Bāb al-Shayṭān' from Abū Tammāms' Kitāb al-shajara, Leiden, 1998.[22]
Madelung, W. and Walker, P. - The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shi'i Witness. An Edition and English Translation of Ibn al-Haytham’s Kitab al-Munazarat, by Wilferd Madelung and Paul E. Walker. I.B. Tauris, London, 2000, ISBN 1-86064-551-8. (Published online by Cambridge University Press in 2016.)
Madelung, W. - Der Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Walter De Gruyter Incorporated, 2002 (first edition 1966), ISBN 9783110826548.
Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balāḏurī: Ansāb al-Ašrāf (Part 2). Edited by Wilferd Madelung. Beirut, 2003.
Muhammad Ibn Umail: Book of the Explanation of the Symbols. Kitāb Ḥall ar-Rumūz (Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum. Vol. I). Edited by Theodor Abt, Wilferd Madelung, Thomas Hofmeier, with Introduction by Theodor Abt. Living Human Heritage Publications, Zurich, 2003; ISBN 3-9522608-1-9.
Madelung, W. (editor) - The Book of the Rank of the Sage. Rutbat al-Ḥakīm by Maslama al-Qurṭubī. Arabic Text edited with an English Introduction by Wilferd Madelung. Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum IV. Living Human Heritage Publications, Zurich 2016.[23]
Muhammad Ibn Umail: The Pure Pearl and other texts by Muhammad Ibn Umail. Ad-Durra an-naqīya, As-Sīra an-naqīya, Al-Qașīda al-Mīmīya, Al-Mabāqil as-sab'a (Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum. Vol. V). Arabic Edition by Wilferd Madelung with an Introduction by Theodor Abt. Translation by Salwa Fuad and Theodor Abt. Living Human Heritage Publications, Zurich, 2019; ISBN 978-3-9524468-3-6.
^"Quarmaten und Fatimiden. Ihre gegenseitigen Beziehungen und ihre Lehre vom Imamat." Doctoral certificate (dated 30th of August, 1957) with the signature: 364-13 Phil Fak Prom 1372 in the State Archives of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
^Custers, Martin H. (2016). Al-Ibāḍiyya: A Bibliography. Vol. 3 (Second revised and enlarged ed.). Hildesheim-London-N.Y.: Olms Publishing. pp. 442–444. ISBN9783487153544.
Institute for Ismaili Studies - Culture and Memory in Early and Medieval Islam: A Festschrift in honour of Wilferd Madelung, ed. F. Daftary and J. Meri. London: I.B. Taurus, 2003.
