Reynold A. Nicholson

English Orientalist, lecturer in Persian and Sir Thomas Adams professor of Arabic at Cambridge university, Reynold A. Nicholson was a foremost scholar in the field of Islamic literature and mysticism. He was born at Keighley, Yorkshire in 1868. He was a renowned author and recognized authority on Islam. His Literary History of the Arabs (1907) remains a standard work on the subject in English, while his many text editions and translations of Sufi writings, culminating in his eight-volume Mathnawi of Jalalu’ddin Rumi, advanced the study of Muslim mystics to an eminent degree. He combined exact scholarship with notable literary gifts; some of his versions of Arabic and Persian poetry qualify him as a poet himself. World Wisdom published his celebrated book, The Mystics of Islam in the Fall of 2002 as part of the Spiritual Classics series.