Reland, Adriaan

Adriaan Reland (July 17, 1676 - February 5, 1718) was a Dutch orientalist scholar, cartographer and Philologist. Despite never having personally traveled beyond the Netherlands, Reland's work contributed materially to European understanding of Asian linguistics and cartography. His father was a minister; his elder brother a Haarlem lawyer. At 17 he began study of theology and philosophy at University of Utrecht; an early interest in Biblical languages led to a study in Arabic. By the time of his gaining a professorship in 1699 he was fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and other Semitic languages, and would become Professor of Oriental Languages in 1701. He became famous for his early work in the field of comparative linguistics, and the comparative study of Persian myths with respecrt to the Old Testament. He was the only important scholar of the Persian language during his lifetime. By 1708, his linguistic work had reached beyond comparative Biblical languages, to embrace the study of Malay language and the languages of the Western Pacific as recorded by Schouten and Le Maire. Reland produced in 1705 De religione Mohammedica libri duo , the first objective survey of Islamic belefs and practices.

Reland's cartographic output included a 1705 map of Persia, a 1715 map of Japan, a 1715 map of Palestine. He was notable for his reliance on cartographic sources native to the regions depicted, Persian sources informing his Persia map, Japanese sources informing his Japan. He died young, of smallpox in 1718, at the age of 41.