MOHL, Jules (1800-1876), Orientalist, was born at Stuttgart 25tlι October 1800, and educated for the Lutheran Church at Tübingen; but his inclinations carried him from theology through Hebrew to Oriental studies, and in 1823 he betook himself to Paris, at that time under De Sacy the great European school of Eastern letters. He soon acquired reputation, and from 1826 to 1833 was nominally professor at Tubingen, with permission to continue his studies in France, but he never entered on the duties of this office, Paris having become his second home. In 1826 he was charged by the French Government with the preparation of an edition of the Slι<↑h Nâmeh, the first volume of which appeared in 1838, while the seventh and last was left unfinished at his death; in 1844 he was nominated to the Institut, and in 1847 he became professor of Persian at the Collège de France. But his knowledge and interest extended to all departments of Oriental learning, and this catholicity of taste, united to a singular impartiality of judgment and breadth of view, gave him a quite remarkable personal influence on the course of Eastern learning in France. The chief sphere of this influence was the Société Asiatique, which he served for many years as secretary-adjunct, as secretary, and finally as president. His annual reports on Oriental science, presented to the society from 1840 to 1867, and collected after his death (4th January 1876, at Paris) under the title Vingt-sept Ans des Études Orientales (Paris, 1879), are an admirable history of the progress of Eastern learning during these years, and justify the high esteem in which he was held by scholars.
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