Alessandro Bausani

Alessandro Bausani (29 May 1921 – 12 March 1988) was a scholar of Islam, Arab and Persian studies, interlinguistics and the history of religion, translating many works into Italian. He was one of the greatest Italian scholars of Islam, as well as a translator and commentator of one of the most important translations of the Qur'an into the Italian language.

A great polyglot, he spoke more than 30 languages, including Esperanto, African and Native American languages such as Cherokee and several important languages in the islamic world such as Indonesian, Arabic, Persian and Turkish.

Education Bausani first studied Arabic with a neighbour. By 1942, during World War II, he was sufficiently fluent in Persian to deliver radio broadcasts for Radio Roma. In 1943–1944, he learned Turkish under Paul Mulla. He received his doctorate from the Sapienza University of Rome in 1943 for a thesis on Persian syntax. By 1949, Bausani had abandoned his Catholic faith. He flirted with Protestantism before converting to the Baháʼí Faith by 1955.

Academic career From 1956 to 1971 Bausani taught Persian language and literature and Indonesian language as well as Indonesian literature at the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples. There he instituted teaching of the Urdu language and Urdu literature as well as Persian literature of India. He later taught Islamic studies at the Scuola Orientale of the Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia of the Università di Roma "La Sapienza". An obituary published in the Baháʼí Studies Review demonstrates the recognition his work gained in the religious community to which he belonged.

Publications A bibliography of his work up until 1 May 1981 is found in La bisaccia dello sheikh. Omaggio ad Alessandro Bausani islamista nel sessantesimo compleanno, Venezia, Quaderni del Seminario di Iranistica, Uralo-Altaistica e Caucasologia dell'Università degli studi di Venezia, 1981.

Here is a selection of his principal works:

Main translations of religious texts

Il Corano, introduzione, traduzione e commento, Firenze, Sansoni, 1955 (Translation of the Qur'an into Italian) Testi religiosi zoroastriani, Catania, Ed. Paoline, 1962 (Zoroastrian Religious Texts) La bbona notizzia. Vangelo di Matteo nella versione romanesca di Alessandro Bausani, Recco (Ge), Gruppo Editoriale Insieme, 1992 (The Good News, the Gospel of Matthew: a Romanesco Dialect version by Alessandro Bausani)

Translations from Persian

Omar Khayyam, Quartine (Roba'iyyat), Torino, Einaudi, 1956 (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) Avicenna, Opera poetica, Roma, Carucci, 1956 (Poetic Works) Rumi, Poesie mistiche, Milano, Rizzoli-BUR, 1980 (Mystic Poetry) Nezami, Le sette principesse, Milano, Rizzoli-BUR, 1982 (The Seven Princesses) Muhammad Iqbal, Il poema celeste, Bari, Leonardo da Vinci, 1965 (The Heavenly Poem)

Monographs

"Sguardo alle letterature del Pakistan", in Oriente Moderno, XXXVII (1957), pp. 400–424 (An examination of the literature of Pakistan) Storia delle letterature del Pakistan. Urdu, Pangiâbî, Sindhî, Beluci, Pasc'tô, Bengali, Pakistana, Milano, 1958 (History of the Literature of Pakistan) Persia Religiosa, da Zaratustra a Bahá'u'lláh, 1959 (Persian Religion from Zoroaster to Bahá'u'lláh) Storia della Letteratura persiana, 1960 (The History of Persian Literature) I Persiani, Firenze, Sansoni, 1962 (The Persians) L'Islam non arabo, in Storia delle religioni, fondata da P. Tacchi Venturi (ed. interamente rifatta e ampliata), Torino, 1970-1 ("Non-Arab Islam" in "The History of Religions") Le lingue inventate, Roma, 1974 (trad. tedesca abbreviata e anticipata Geheim- und Universalsprachen: Entwicklung und Typologie, Stoccarda, 1973) (Constructed Languages) Buddha, Chiasso, 1973 L'Enciclopedia dei Fratelli della Purità, Napoli, Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1978. (Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity) L'Islam, Milano, Garzanti, 1980 Una rosa d'Oriente: Tahirih, Cosenza, Tipografia Gnisci, 1980 (A Rose of the East) La fede Baháʼí e l'unità del genere umano. (The Baháʼí Faith and the Oneness of Humanity) Saggi sulla fede Baháʼí, Roma, Casa Editrice Baháʼí, 1991 (Studies on the Baháʼí Faith)

Other Can Monotheism Be Taught? (Further Considerations on the Typology of Monotheism). Numen, Vol. 10, Fasc. 3 (Dec., 1963), pp. 167–201. Brill.