Historical and Cultural Perspectives

ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE phenomena of Goethe’s life was his relationship with Islam and its founder, Muhammad (569–632). Quite evidently, he developed an exceptional empathy for the Muslim religion. Except for the Bible, Goethe was more familiar with the Qur’an than with any other religious book. He expressed interest in Islam at various times of his life. At twenty-three, Goethe composed a marvelous ode in praise of Muhammad, and at seventy he confessed frankly that he was contemplating “celebrating in awe that holy night, when the Qur’an, in its entirety, was presented to the Prophet from on high.” During his long life, the poet paid tribute to Islam in the most varied ways, above all in the work that we regard today, together with Faust, as one of his most significant legacies, the West-Eastern Divan. Goethe’s prospectus for the work states, amazingly, that the book’s author does not “reject the suspicion that he himself is a Muslim.”

The causes for this extraordinarily positive attitude toward Islam lie in Goethe’s fascination with religious phenomena of every kind. His life’s work is founded, ultimately, on religious impulses and convictions. In regard to Islam, Goethe was influenced, too, by the aspirations of his age. A major purpose of the Enlightenment, inspired by the ideal of tolerance, lay in acknowledging the positive values of other, non-Christian religions. Islam, the most familiar of these to Europeans, presently received greater attention. The religions of India and the Far East were barely known or understood.

From early in life, Goethe shared the open-mindedness and liberal convictions of leading spirits of the Enlightenment. This alone, however, does not suffice to explain his attitude toward Islam, much less the warmth of his poetic tributes to it. To assess how exceptional, personal, and daring they are, we must understand in broad terms what Goethe’s contemporaries knew and believed about Islam, attempting to determine, too, how historical antecedents and his own temperament shaped Goethe’s convictions.

For one thousand years, from the end of the seventh century onward, the West was, in general, hostile toward Islam.