Martijn Theodoor Houtsma

[3] He attended the Latin school at Dokkum before enrolling at the University of Leiden for a degree in theology in 1868 which he soon combined with the study of Eastern languages.

[4] Among his tutors at Leiden were Antonie Rutgers, Reinhart Dozy, Michael Jan de Goeje and Abraham Kuenen.

[7] In 1890, he was appointed the professor of Hebrew and Israelite antiquities at the University of Utrecht and elected as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

[8][9] At Utrecht, Houtsma used his position mainly for the organisation of Islamic research, though his abiding interest with the study of the Old Testament continued.

[10] In 1898, he was appointed Chief Editor of the project initiated by the International Orientalist Congress to produce an encyclopaedia of Islam.