MUSIL, ALOIS. - Czech Orientalist and explorer, b. at Rychtařov (Moravia) on 30 June 1868, d. at Otryby on 12 Apr. 1946. Ordained priest at Olomouc in 1891, he continued biblical and Oriental studies at Jerusalem (École biblique de St-Étienne) and at Beirut (Université de St-Joseph). Professor of auxiliary Oriental sciences and of modern Arabic dialectology at Olomouc (1900), Vienna (1904), Prague (1920), he undertook numerous exploratory journeys through Syria, Transjordan, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, yielding valuable results in the fields of history, geography, topography and cartography, ethnology and anthropology, and modern Islam.
At Vienna, M. attracted widespread attention with two monumental works: Arabia Petraea (3 vols., Vienna 1907–1908) and Kuseir 'Amra (2 vols., ibid. 1907). The publication of his other scientific researches was largely entrusted to the American Geographical Society of New York: The northern Hejaz. A topographical itinerary (New York 1926); Arabia deserta (ibid. 1927); The middle Euphrates (ibid. 1927); The northern Nejd (ibid. 1928); Palmyrenia (ibid. 1928); The manners and customs of the Rawala bedouins (ibid. 1928).
In 1934 he began at Prague the series Dnešní Orient (Modern Orient; 11 vols. up to 1941) and published many books in Czech to popularize knowledge of the modern Orient, its political, economic, and social problems. As early as 1920 he had also written some 2,000 articles for newspapers with the same aim. Worthy of mention is also his book on the Christian Churches in the contemporary Orient (Olomouc 1939). He was a frequent contributor to the Archiv Orientalni of Prague and to other journals.