Middle Eastern Studies in Finland
Jaakko Hammen-Anttila
University of Helsinki

Reprinted from the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, June 2004 (with changes in orthography to HTML standards).
Copyright 2004 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America

The tradition of Middle Eastern studies in Finland is long but rather thin. The chair for Oriental Languages (mainly Hebrew and Aramaic) was established at Turku University in 1640, changing its name (Linguarum Orientalium Professio) several times over the years before becoming Semitic Languages. After the great fire destroyed almost the whole city of Turku, the university was relocated to Helsinki in 1828. In the mid-19th century, the chair was held by G.A. Wallin (d. 1852), an explorer of the Arabian Peninsula (and a visitor to the holy city of Mecca) and one of the first scholars, worldwide, to study Arabic dialects. In the latter part of the 19th century, Assyriology became the most flourishing field of Middle Eastern Studies in Finland, several great Assyriologists, such as Knut Tallqvist (d. 1949), holding the chair of Oriental Languages. Though concentrating on Assyriology, Assyriologists also kept alive Arabic philological studies, which gained additional weight in the 1960s when the Assyriologist and Comparative Semitist Jussi Aro (d. 1983) was appointed as professor. He retrained himself as a dialectologist, working with Lebanese dialects. It was only in 1980 that a chair for Arabic Language was established and another dialectologist, Heikki Palva, was appointed to it in 1982. After the retirement of Professor Palva in 1998, the chair was renamed Arabic and Islamic Studies. The chair, at the Institute for Asian and African Studies (IAAS, University of Helsinki), has been held by the present writer, Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, since 2000.

Traditionally, Middle Eastern studies in Finland have been mainly philological, centering on Assyriology, Comparative Semitistics, Medieval Arabic texts and modern Arabic dialects. It is perhaps the philological orientation of many Finnish scholars that has linked Finnish scholarship more to German than to, e.g., American scholarship. In addition, there have been some anthropologists, even of international fame such as Edvard Westermarck (d. 1939), who have studied the Middle East but their chairs have not been specifically Middle Eastern and they have not been able to initiate a strong tradition of Middle Eastern Anthropology. Only in recent years have the anthropological interest been rekindled in Helsinki as seen in two recent dissertations (Marko Juntunen, IAAS 2002; Susanne Dahlgren, Anthropology, forthcoming 2004). Presently, the only chairs for Middle Eastern studies are situated at the IAAS, which holds chairs for Semitic Languages and Arabic and Islamic Studies, in addition to chairs for African, Chinese and Japanese studies, as well as two extraordinary professors for Indology and Assyriology. There are no chairs for Turkish or Iranian studies. There are no other chairs for any Middle Eastern studies in the various other universities in Finland.

However, Finland has a rather recent Finnish Institute in the Middle East (FIME, founded in 1994) which holds small premises, mainly rented apartments, in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine and is headed by a part-time director, presently Dr. Irmeli Perho (PhD 1995, IAAS). The Institute financially subsidizes studies connected in various ways with the Middle East, organizes courses in the Middle East in collaboration with Finnish universities or societies and, since 2001, publishes a series of booklets (Proceedings of the Finnish Institute in the Middle East) which do not seem to aim at an international level. Although technically independent, the Finnish Oriental Society is on a personal level closely associated with the IAAS; the board of the Society mostly consists of professors at the IAAS. The Society has published since 1925 the journal Studia Orientalia, and much of Finnish Middle Eastern scholarship has been published in this journal, earlier in German, nowadays mainly in English.

Scholars in the field have been and still are few and far between. There are some scholars working on the Middle East from political or social viewpoints. Thus, Dr. Pertti Multanen (PhD 1978) from the Institute of Development Studies (Helsinki), has been keeping alive the study of the modern history of the Middle East. The Moroccan-born M’hammed Sabour (PhD 1988) is currently professor of Sociology (Joensuu) and has published on Middle Eastern themes. There have been some dissertations on the Middle East, based on Western-language sources only, in Tampere University (e.g., Anssi Männistö 1999; Tuomo Melasuo 1999; Kirsi Henriksson forthcoming 2004). The older history of the Islamic world has been expertly represented in Helsinki by Mr. Kaj Öhrnberg, Phil.lic. (IAAS), whose main field of interest has since the 1970s been the conquest of Egypt, but who has also widely lectured on Arab history and has kept several generations of students updated on recent developments in the field, especially from the revisionist point of view. The history of Islamic Africa has been studied in two dissertations (Holger Weiss, History, Helsinki 1997; Pekka Masonen, Tampere 2000), both based on Western-language sources. Holger Weiss in particular has published extensively on the subject

Islamic studies are clearly under-represented in Finland, the chair of the present writer being the only one in the country. There have been a few dissertations in the last years in different faculties and universities (Aini Linjakumpu, University of Lapland 1999; Helena Hallenberg, IAAS 1997; Soila Judén-Tupakka, Faculty of Education, Helsinki 2000; Marjo Tiilikainen, Comparative Religion, Helsinki 2003), but most of these have not lead to a scholarly career. Recently, Dr. Tuula Sakaranaho, whose interests include Turkish Islam (PhD 1998), has been appointed lecturer in the Department of Comparative Religion (Helsinki). My own field of studies ranges from Classical Arabic literature to early Islamic studies as well as non-Sunni Islam. In the faculties of theology, some theologians have shown considerable interest in Islamic studies. Dr. Seppo Rissanen published his dissertation (Turku 1993) on Abbasid Muslim-Christian dialogue, based on both Syriac and Arabic sources, and in Helsinki, the internationally acknowledged Biblical scholar, Prof. Heikki Räisänen has repeatedly returned to Islamic themes, since his Das koranische Jesusbild (1971). Recently, some promising young theologians in Helsinki seem to be orienting themselves towards Islamic themes (e.g., MA, MTheol. Heidi Hirvonen). Islamic philosophy has found an excellent advocate in Taneli Kukkonen (MA, IAAS, DTheol. Helsinki 2002) whose studies on Averroes and Islamic philosophy show a keen philosophical mind and his career seems most promising, although, from a Finnish viewpoint unfortunately, he was appointed in 2003 to a chair in Victoria, Canada. It is to be hoped, though, that in the future Islamic philosophy will find new advocates (esp. Mr. Janne Mattila, IAAS). At present, it seems that the rather thin tradition of Middle Eastern studies will be developing in Finland, as several dissertations, both at the IAAS (e.g. Mrs. Sylvia Akar on hadith; Mrs. Minna Saarnivaara on the ideology of Hamas; Mrs. Tuija Rinne on Spoken Egyptian Arabic) and elsewhere are under way.

The main weakness of Finnish scholarship has been, and unfortunately remains to be, that practically only at the IAAS and, to some extent in the faculties for theology, have Middle Eastern studies been based on original, mainly Arabic source material, whereas elsewhere studies have mainly been based on Western-language sources. In the last fifteen years, the gravity point of studies has clearly been moving from Arabic philology to Islamic studies, although the older philological tradition is still strong (continued mainly by Mr. Öhrnberg and myself). This change towards Islamic studies was also acknowledged by the University as was signaled by the renaming of the chair of Arabic Studies in 1999 as Arabic and Islamic Studies, and it will obviously continue in the years to come, as can be seen from the MA theses under progress.

Selected Works of Interest
Aalto, Pentti (1971), Oriental Studies in Finland 1828-1918. The History of  Learning and Science in Finland 1828-1918. Vol. 10b. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica.

Öhrnberg, Kaj (1993), “Arab and Islamic Studies in Finland,” in Nils G. Holm, ed., Teaching Islam in Finland. Religionsvetenskapliga skrifter (Åbo: Åbo Akademi) 21: 19-43.

Palva, Heikki (2001), “Arab Studies in Finland since the Seventeenth Century,”  Proceedings of the Finnish Institute in the Middle East 1. Vantaa: The Finnish Institute in the Middle East.

Sakaranaho, Tuula (2003), Des déserts d’Arabie aux faubourgs d’Helsinki.   Ethnologie française 33: 271-279.