MUSIL, ALOIS. – Czech Orientalist and explorer, born at Rychtárov (Moravia) on 30 June 1868, died at Otryby on 12 April 1946. Ordained a priest at Olomouc in 1891, he continued his biblical and Oriental studies in Jerusalem (Ecole biblique de St-Etienne) and Beirut (Université de St-Joseph). Professor of Oriental auxiliary sciences and modern Arabic dialectology at Olomouc (1900), Vienna (1904), and Prague (1920), he undertook numerous exploratory journeys in Syria, Transjordan, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, producing valuable results in the fields of history, geography, topography and cartography, ethnology and anthropology, and modern Islam.
In Vienna, M. attracted widespread attention with his two monumental works: Arabia Petraea (2 vols., Vienna 1907-1908), and Kuseir 'Amra (2 vols., there 1907). The publication of his other scientific researches was largely due to the American Geographical Society of New York: The northern Hefdz. A topographical itinerary (New York 1926); Arabia deserta (there 1927); The middle Euphrates (there 1927); The northern Nefd (there 1928); Palmyrena (there 1928); The manners and customs of the Rosala bedonins (there 1928).
In 1934 he began in Prague the series Dnešni Orient («Modern Orient»; 11 vols. through 1941) and there published many books in the Czech language to make knowledge of the modern Orient and its political, economic, and social problems more widely accessible. For the same purpose, beginning in 1920, he also wrote approximately 2,000 articles in newspapers. His book on the Christian Churches in the contemporary Orient (Olomouc 1939) also deserves mention. He was a regular contributor to the Archiv Oriental of Prague and to other journals.