Leading Islamic Scholar Schimmel Dies

In particular, they were angered by Schimmel’s apparent sympathy for Iran’s 1989 death threat against British author Salman Rushdie for his novel "The Satanic Verses." Shortly after being named for the prize, Schimmel said an author "who consciously insults the prophet" was committing sacrilege and accused Rushdie of insulting many Muslims "in a very bad way." She later apologized to Rushdie in a newspaper interview.
Schimmel was born April 7, 1922 in the German city of Erfurt. She completed the first of two doctorates in Berlin during World War II and after the war lectured in Marburg; Ankara, Turkey; Bonn and at Harvard before returning to Germany in 1992. Her books were translated into English and Eastern languages, and she was well-known on the Indian subcontinent, whose Islamic culture she spent much time studying. Schimmel was not married.