Gernot Rotter (* May 14th 1941 in Opava , † June 9 2010 in Stade ) was a German Orientalist , Islamic scholar , journalist and politician.
Rotter was the son of the journalist Walter Rotter (1905-1978) born, the editor of the Main-Echo was. His brother is the medieval historian Ekkehart Rotter, with whom he's 1999 book Venus, Maria, Fatima. How the hell did the desire wrote that with the sexuality and misogyny of Islamic and Christian traditions is concerned.
Gernot Rotter received his Ph.D. from the University of Bonn on the position of the Negro in the Islamic Arab society to the XVI. Century . His teacher in Bonn was Gustav Mensching . Habilitation in 1977 at the University of Tübingen with a dissertation on the Umayyads . His teacher in Tübingen was Josef van Ess .
1980 to 1984 he was director of the German Orient Institute in Beirut . He then became professor of contemporary Orient Science at the Oriental Institute of the University of Hamburg . In 2005 he retired. Rotter gave the library Arabic classics out.
From 1987 to 1991 he was MP for the Greens in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament . In 1988 he presented in Parliament the request, the text of the state constitution to abolish the death penalty. [1] After the Gulf War of 1991, he criticized the German media, because it considers a distorted image of Islam hawked after. Rotter 2001 was the first signatories of the Berlin call. [2]
Rotter was a member of the Council for Migration . Rotter, described herself as an atheist. He felt that theology is not science and had no business of the University of [3]
Unconventional Orientalist of the old school
The Islamic scholar Gernot Rotter saw himself as a politically engaged intellectual who anschrieb as tenaciously against Islam and against Western stereotypes of the Orient. At the same time it has encouraged a new generation of Islamic scholars who are also committed to strengthen the media. An obituary by Christian Meier
; "Gernot Rotter; Foto: Palmyra Verlag")
The
Islamic scholar Gernot Rotter from 1980 to 1984 Director of the German Orient
Institute in Beirut. He then taught until 2003 the contemporary Orient and
Sciences at the University of Hamburg.Many take claim for themselves, long
dusty German Oriental themes for modern and open political relevance given it
to have. Few are likely to set pulses have, however, so this area as
sustainable Gernot Rotter - the way this peculiar but always an Orientalist of
the old school was on. As has become known now, the Islamic scholar and
publicist, died on 9 June. He was only 69 years old.In 1941 in Opava (Silesia), born Rotter was a war child, and about the war he came to criticism: After a classic Orientalist training in Bonn, Cologne and Tübingen Rotter 1980 Director of the Beirut Oriental Institute - in the Lebanese civil war. Its worst phase with the entry of Israeli troops and the massacres of Sabra and Shatila, he experienced first hand.
Rotter later told often humorous tone in stories from this period - as at night in a car accident the "mirror" correspondent on a dark street or picked up once again struck like a grenade into his house and demolished the whole living room décor. But the years have marked him deeply. One of her two adopted sons Rotter and his wife in Lebanon.
Beirut bombing and German peace policy
Even the decision to engage in politics, be killed in a bombing in Beirut, he once said in an interview: "I sat with my wife in the cellar, and there was a crash and gescheppert As we have said to us. If we get out of here safely , then one would expect us really active in politics. "
Back in Germany, concluded the researchers in the peace movement and took over in 1984 the newly created Chair of the contemporary Orient science in Hamburg.
A long-term, from 1987 1991, he served as a member of the Greens in Rhineland-Palatinate, where he was once a mini-scandal when he dressed as Salier occurred in the state parliament to hold a "deckle speech."
Generally, he considered it, but more with the Saracens. In which he founded the Library of Arabic classics translated Rotter many standard works of Arab literature into German with the explicit aim of making them accessible to a broad audience.
A politically committed intellectual
The fact that some colleagues accused him afar theory bothered him, and anyway such criticism missed the point. The grumpy Rotter, until a few years always looked with a cigarette in hand, to be politically engaged intellectuals of anschrieb as tenaciously against Islam and against Western stereotype of the Orient. He repeatedly attacked Samuel Huntington, whose thesis of clash of cultures, it is a dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy "was.
; "Buchcover 'Allahs Plagiator'; Foto: Palmyra Verlag")
Rotter
was known above all with his 1992 book "Allah plagiarist. In it he pointed to
that Gerhard Konzelmann, the renowned Middle East correspondent for the ARD,
publications from scientific work of other authors had written off in his.Many students today are of Rotter's work for German media, and the Orient magazine "zenith" is based on the affinity media atmosphere at his institute out.
Off the beaten path
Gernot Rotter was always good for a surprise. When we asked him again to contribute to "zenith" asked, he sent an article about the love of the Arabs to the garlic. He has always moved with passion beyond the beaten track: His doctoral thesis from 1967 was titled "The position of the Negro in the Muslim-Arab society", later he studied the history of the Comoros.
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Rotters'
Middle East Encyclopedia ": a reference work in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict as a whole represents. Lexikon Form AIn the reception room of the Orient-Institut Beirut hangs a portrait gallery of black and white photographs of large German orientalists. Now is also taking Gernot Rotter his place among them - in a circle of teachers and colleagues and in the heart of the ravaged city of Beirut, the worst he has seen hours.
Christian Meier
© Qantara.de 2010
Christian Meier, Islamic scholar and editor of the magazine Orient "zenith".
