Reynold Alleyne Nicholson

Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, FBA (18 August 1868 – 27 August 1945), or R. A. Nicholson, was an eminent English orientalist, scholar of both Islamic literature and Islamic mysticism, and widely regarded as one of the greatest Rumi (Mevlana or Mawlana) scholars and translators in the English language.

Life

The son of Henry Alleyne Nicholson, he was born at Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England and died at Chester, Cheshire. He was educated at University of Aberdeen and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the Porson Prize twice.

Nicholson was professor of Persian at University College London from 1901 to June 1902, then lecturer in Persian at the University of Cambridge from 1902 to 1926, and Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge from 1926 to 1933. He is considered a leading scholar in Islamic literature and Islamic mysticism who exercised a lasting influence on Islamic studies. He was able to study and translate major Sufi texts in Arabic, Persian, Punjabi and Ottoman Turkish into English. Nicholson wrote two influential books: Literary History of The Arabs (1907) and The Mystics of Islam (1914).

He was one of the original trustees of the Gibb Memorial Trust.