Education
He studied classical and Oriental philology, obtaining his habilitation for both subjects in 1898 at Heidelberg.
He studied classical and Oriental philology, obtaining his habilitation for both subjects in 1898 at Heidelberg.
His main area of study was Oriental liturgical history, its development and its influence on literature, culture and art In 1899, he relocated to Rome, where in 1901, he became an editor of the academic journal Oriens Christianus. Later on, he worked for 15 years as an instructor at a Roman Catholic secondary school in Sasbach, Baden.
In 1921 he became an honorary professor in Bonn, then served as a professor of Semitic studies and comparative liturgal science at Nijmegen (from 1923), followed by a professorship of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Utrecht (from 1926).
From 1930 to 1935, he was a professor of Oriental studies at the University of Münster.