This biography of Johann Ernst Gerhard (1621-1668) offers a study of a forgotten yet unusually well documented early modern orientalist. Gerhard is not a towering figure but a fascinating representative of the academic culture of his day. His extant Nachlass allows a close study of the life and work of a seventeenth-century scholar, in many respects typical of the academic and intellectual culture of his day. This book aims to shed light on the broad and understudied field of oriental studies in seventeenth-century Germany.