The Hebrew University of Jerusalem presented a prestigious honorary doctorate degree to renowned Islamic History researcher Prof. Sabine Schmidtke during the 89th Board of Governors Meeting on October 19 in Jerusalem, Israel.

Schmidtke is a professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She has published extensively on Islamic and Jewish intellectual history. Her pioneering research has transformed perspectives on the interrelations and connections among different strands of intellectual inquiry, across time, place, religions, and philosophical schools. She has played a central role in the exploration of heretofore unedited and unknown theological and philosophical writings.

Prof. Schmidtke has also been a trailblazer in other areas, including the study of the Muslim reception of the Bible, and the history of orientalism, especially in Germany and Hungary, and its relation to Wissenschaft des Judentums.

She enjoys warm ties with researchers worldwide and collaborates with Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Turkish, and Iranian scholars. Her work and research bridge political divides and bring people from different nations together through the pursuit of knowledge. Schmidtke and her work have been recognized by numerous awards, including the Humboldt Research Award (2019). She is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Accademia Ambrosiana, and a corresponding member of the British Academy, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. She also has held many overseas fellowships at institutions such as the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Tel Aviv University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the Scaliger Institute, and the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

President of the Hebrew University Prof. Tamir Sheafer conferred the Degree of Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa upon Prof. Schmidtke, "in recognition of her distinguished academic career, which began at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has reshaped the study of medieval Islamic intellectual history; in tribute to her methodology and philological precision, and for training young researchers to work with manuscripts; with immense appreciation of her ability to demonstrate, both historically and through her own academic work, the connections and exchanges between people of different religions and nations—in pursuit of knowledge.”

"My academic path began at the Hebrew University some forty years ago, and the education I received there shaped my subsequent career," said Schmidtke. "It is therefore an extraordinary privilege to return to my alma mater as the recipient of its honorary doctorate — an honor that means a great deal to me, both personally and professionally. Over the years, my former teachers have become valued colleagues, and I continue to collaborate closely with them, with many of my former fellow students, and with a new generation of scholars — their own students — making my bond with the Hebrew University a truly living one."

Schmidtke received her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, an M.A. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a B.A. (summa cum laude) from Hebrew University.