Christoph Marcinkowski: Encyclopedia II - Christoph Marcinkowski - Early Life and Education

Christoph Marcinkowski - Early Life and Education

Dr. Marcinkowski was born in the former Western part of Berlin, Germany. He is of German-Polish Catholic parentage, the Polish part of his family (herbu Gryf, Polish heraldry) dating back to the second half of the 13th century and the area of Poland's old royal capital of Kraków. His formal primary education began in 1970 at the age of 6, when he entered Spreewald Grundschule [2] in Berlin-Schöneberg. In 1976, his secondary education started when he entered Rückert Gymnasium [3] (see Gymnasium (school) and also Friedrich Rückert), also in Berlin-Schöneberg. In 1983, he obtained his graduation (Abitur).

Early in 1984, he enrolled at Freie Universität Berlin, choosing the subjects Islamic Studies (major), as well as Political Sciences and Journalism. Among his teachers in Islamic Studies were Professors Fritz Steppat [4] and Baber Johansen [5]. In October 1984, he went for Persian language studies to Iran (upon recommendation of his professors in Berlin), where he stayed until April 1986. Upon his return to Germany, he decided to change the combination of his subjects to Iranian Studies (major), Islamic Studies and Political Science. His teacher in Iranian Studies had been Professor Bert Fragner [6], who became later Professor at the University of Bamberg, as well as president of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft [7] (German Oriental Society) and who is now Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences [8], Vienna. Fragner was also the supervisor of Marcinkowski´s masters thesis entitled Taqiya versus Wilayat al-Faqih: Die schiitischen Theologen Iraks und ihr Verhältnis zur Staatsmacht (Iraq's Shiite Clerics and their Relations with the State). An enlarged English translation of it was published in 2004 (see below). Marcinkowski´s Masters degree was granted in 1993.

In March 1995, Marcinkowski left Germany, first for Singapore, a city for which he has since then maintained always the deepest admiration, and from there in May to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Marcinkowski was to stay more than 9 years in Southeast Asia. At Kuala Lumpur, he enrolled in a PhD programme in Islamic Civilization at the renowned International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), of which Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, one of the leading philosophers and scholars of the contemporary Islamic world, is the Founder Director. Al-Attas´s encouragement and his human qualities, such as open-mindedness and tolerance, but also his resoluteness, shaped Marcinkowski as a scholar.

Moreover, at ISTAC it has been in particular the fascinating and (for a Southeast Asian country as Malaysia) surprisingly rich library which magnetized Marcinkowski. It was this library (where he often delved in the classical works of Western, Islamic, and Asian philosophies, particularly Theravada Buddhism, as well as Sufism and Christian mysticism), which had the strongest influence in Marcinkowski´s interdisciplinary approach as a scholar. In this regard, he was particularly fascinated by Safavid Iran, with its symbiosis of "orthodox" Twelver Shiite scholarship, "heterodox" Kizilbash Sufism, and its mixture of Turkish, Persian and Mongolian cultural elements. This interest culminated in his doctoral dissertation entitled Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk: A Manual of Later Safavid Administration (supervised by the Canadian-Iranian scholar Professor Ahmad Kazemi-Moussavi and published in 2002, see below), which he defended successfully, resulting in the granting of the PhD degree in August 1998.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early Life and Education", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki