Armin Geus

Geus received his academic education in zoology with a specialisation in parasitology.[1] In 1964, he obtained his PhD for a work on the gregarinasina of Central European arthropods.[2] In 1973, he became professor for history of medicine at the University of Marburg, a post he held until his retirement.[3] In 1976, Geus founded the Basilisken-Presse, a publishing house specialized in the history of science, particularly the history of biology.[4] In 1991, he established the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie ("German society for the history and theory of biology"). In 1998, the society was developed into the Biohistoricum, a biology museum with a research archive that is considered the only institution of its kind in Germany.[1]

In 2008, Geus published a collection of essays critical of Islam entitled Gegen die feige Neutralität ("Against coward neutrality") with contributions by a number of German academics and journalists, including Karl Doehring, Ralph Giordano, Michael Miersch and Tilman Nagel.[5]

In 2011, Geus published his work Die Krankheit des Propheten ("The sickness of the prophet") which he said examined the pathography of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, from a medical point of view. Geus attests Muhammad a "paranoid-hallucinatory schizophrenia with defined delusional imaginings and characteristic sensual deceptions".[6][7] The book ranked in the top ten non-fiction list of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Norddeutscher Rundfunk in June 2011, receiving a number of reviews from colleagues and in the press.[7][8][9] A subsequent lawsuit by the Saudi-financed King Fahd Academy in Bonn with reference to the German blasphemy law was dismissed by the Marburg state prosecutor in October 2010,[10][11] after Geus' defence team had invoked the academic freedom guaranteed by the German constitution. In September 2012, the anti-Islam organisation Citizens' Movement Pax Europa had brought the case, which it said was an attempt at "silencing" critical scholars, to an OSCE human rights conference at Warsaw.[12]

• Festschrift der Naturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft Bayreuth, 1889-1964, Bayreuth: Naturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, 1964
• Krankheit und Kranksein in der Gegenwartskunst, Marburg an der Lahn: Basilisken-Presse, 1985, ISBN 3-9800020-9-8
• Johannes Ranke (1836-1916): Physiologe, Anthropologe u. Prähistoriker, Marburg an der Lahn: Basilisken-Presse, 1987, ISBN 3-925347-01-1
• Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft: 1890-1990, Stuttgart: Fischer Verlag, 1990 (co-author), ISBN 3-437-30648-0
• Miscellen zur Geschichte der Biologie, Frankfurt am Main: Kramer, 1994 (editor), ISBN 3-7829-1134-2
• Natur im Druck. Eine Ausstellung zur Geschichte und Technik des Naturselbstdrucks, Marburg an der Lahn: Basilisken-Presse, 1995 (co-author), ISBN 3-925347-36-4
• Repräsentationsformen in den biologischen Wissenschaften, Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 1999 (editor), ISBN 3-86135-383-0
• Evolution durch Kooperation und Integration: zur Entstehung der Endosymbiosetheorie in der Zellbiologie, Marburg an der Lahn: Basilisken-Presse, 2007, ISBN 978-3-925347-83-2
• Gegen die feige Neutralität: Beiträge zur Islamkritik, Marburg an der Lahn: Basilisken-Presse, 2008 (co-editor), ISBN 978-3-925347-98-6
• Die Krankheit des Propheten, Marburg an der Lahn: Basilisken-Presse, 2011, ISBN 978-3-941365-15-5