The dervish's disciple: on the personality and intellectual milieu of the young Ignaz Goldziher

When the Tagebuch of Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921) was published in 1978, it was widely expected that the work would prove to be a mine of information on the life and career of its celebrated author. What was not expected was that so much of this information should consist of bitter criticism and empassioned invective directed against leading personalities in the social and intellectual circles of Budapest and Hungary, particularly in the Jewish community of which Goldziher himself was a leading member. The contrast between the image of the dispassionate and meticulous researcher presented to the public in so many of Goldziher's seminal studies on the religion and culture of Islam, and that of the outraged and sorrowing diarist manifest in the Tagebuch, was most striking.