Rückert was born in Schweinfurt and was the eldest son of a lawyer. He was educated at the local "Gymnasium" and at the universities of Würzburg and Heidelberg. From 1816–1817, he worked on the editorial staff of the "Morgenblatt" at Stuttgart. Nearly the whole of the year 1818 he spent in Rome, and afterwards he lived for several years at Coburg (1820–1826). Rückert married Luise Wiethaus-Fischer there in 1821. He was appointed a professor of Oriental languages at the University of Erlangen in 1826, and, in 1841, he was called to a similar position in Berlin, where he was also made a privy councillor. In 1849 he resigned his professorship at Berlin, and went to live full-time in his "Gut" (estate) at Neuses (now a part of Coburg).