American missionary and Arabist who published the first English translation of the Īsāghūjī (1933).
Life
Edwin Elliott Calverley (1882–1971) served as a missionary in Arabia from 1909 to 1930. In 1909 he married the physician Eleanor Jane Taylor, and in 1911 the couple went to Kuwait, where they worked for many years with the American mission. After his return to the United States he taught and wrote on Arabic and Islam; his and papers are kept at Hartford International University (formerly Hartford Seminary). He later became a trustee of the American Research Center in Egypt and of the American University in Cairo.
His scholarly work centred on classical Islamic texts. He translated the book on worship from al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn as Worship in Islam (1925; second edition 1957), wrote an introduction to Islam (1958), and prepared, with James W. Pollock, an edition and translation of al-Bayḍāwī’s Ṭawāliʿ al-anwār with al-Iṣfahānī’s , published after his death as Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam (Brill, 2002).
For the his contribution is the article “Al-Abharī’s Īsāghūjī fī ʾl-Manṭiq”, a complete English translation published in The Macdonald Presentation Volume (Princeton, 1933, pp. 75–85), the collection of essays by former students presented to Duncan Black Macdonald on his seventieth birthday. It is still cited in recent English-language scholarship.
Uncertain or disputed
- The Macdonald Presentation Volume is dated 1933 by Encyclopaedia Iranica and by library records (the volume was presented on 9 April 1933); a contemporary review in BSOAS gives the Princeton University Press publication as 1934.
Works
- Al-Abharī’s Īsāghūjī fī ʾl-Manṭiq — on al-AbharīEnglish translation of the Īsāghūjī in The Macdonald Presentation Volume (Princeton, 1933), pp. 75–85; about eight pages.translation
- Worship in Islam — on al-GhazālīTranslation, with commentary and introduction, of al-Ghazālī’s book on worship from the Iḥyāʾ (1925; 2nd ed. Luzac and American University in Cairo, 1957).translation
- Nature, Man and God in Medieval IslamWith James W. Pollock: al-Bayḍāwī’s Ṭawāliʿ al-anwār and Maḥmūd al-Iṣfahānī’s commentary Maṭāliʿ al-anẓār (Brill, 2002).translation
Reception
Encyclopaedia Iranica and the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi list his translation in their bibliographies on al-Abharī, and Khaled El-Rouayheb cites it in his description of the .
Sources (8)
- Indiana University, Lilly Library, Calverley collection (LMC 2432): biographical note
- Wikipedia, “Eleanor Jane Taylor Calverley”
- CiNii Research, “Calverley, Edwin Elliott” (list of works)
- Hartford International University archives, Calverley, Edwin Elliott (finding aid)
- G. C. Anawati, “Abharī, Aṯīr-al-Dīn”, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1982)
- Texas A&M Libraries, record of The Macdonald Presentation Volume (reprint 1968)
- Review of The Macdonald Presentation Volume, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Cambridge Core)
- Khaled El-Rouayheb, “The New Īsāghūjī of Dāwūd Qārṣī”, Nazariyat 9/2 (2023)