JANUARY, 1967 THE MUSLIM

p ubllshed by "Ehe Federation of the Students Islamle Soeietles In the Unlted KIngdom and Elr. (FOtls).

VOLUME FOUR NUMBER THREE Goethe's Relationship to Islam DR. KATHARINA MOMMSEN

The relationship of Goethe to Islam and to the older religion. Furthermore, the Christian its founder is one of the most astonishing countries of Europe had feH seriously mena­ phenomena, not only within Göethe's own ced, ever since the Arab invasion of the life, but within the historical epoch in which Spanish peninsula in 711 , when their vic­ he lived. torious advance from the South-West seemed Goethe was only 23 years old when he irresistable. Then, South-Eastern Europe wrote a wonderful hymn in praise of the was threatened by the Islamic Turks who prophet Muhammad. But even when he was laid siege to Vienna (for the last time) in the 70 years old, the poet declared quite publicly year 1683. In all the hostilities between Islam that he was considering "devoutly celebrat­ and Christianity lasted with interruptions of ing that holy night in which the Koran in its course for more than a thousand years. entirety was revealed to the prophet from on From the middle of the 7th to the end of the high". Between these two dates lies a lang 17th century. life, during which Goethe testified in many No wonder then that European Christen­ forms to his veneration for Islam. This was dom for hundreds of years looked upon expressed primarily in that work which, Islam merely as a riyal and dangerous alongside "Faust", we today consider one enemy, and that-true to human nature-all of his most essential poetic bequests: the verdicts of the enemy were coloured by "West-Eastern Divan", a collection of 250 hostility and prejudice. This was necessarily poems in an oriental style. In a pre-publica­ true of both sides: for both reaped the tion announcement of this work-in which harvest of slander and utter ignorance. Both he came closer to the orient than any German parties accused each other of paganism, writer before or after him-we can even find idolatry, cruelty, crime, immorality, treachery the remarkable statement that the author of and every conceivable kind of vice. The the book would not deny the allegation that cruder the ignorance of the writer, the he himself was a Muslim. cruder was the slander. Let us leave behind It is hard f or us to conceive of the incredible as quickly as possible, this rather di s courag~ boldness that lay behind such convictions and ing period of history ! particularly of making them public, and what Until the end of the 17th century there were a provocation they must have been to hi s not even attempts made , to consider this readers, unless we call to mind what Goethe's relationship in an impartial and unprejudiced contemporaries thought about Islam and its way. Up to that time hardly anyone in founder. To understand this, however, we Europe had concerned himself with the must first turn back even further into the Koran, the essential key to Islamic doctrine. past. Only after the threat of war had vanished, The verdict of the Christi an world on did a shift of judgments slowly become Muhammad and his followers, was from the apparent.Whereas up to that time the start anything but impartial or positive. This writings on Islam and its founder were purely is not surprising when one considers how tendentious and clearly betrayed the con­ many areas, which Christendom had won fessional and polemic intentions' of their during a six hundred years' struggle, had authors, efforts to establish more impartial since been lost to Islam, once it began to reporting and the securing of exact informa­ spread outside of Arabia by the power of tion, became discernible. the sword. It was particularly painful for In the year 1698 the text of the Koran, Christian Europe to see the cross thrown together with a translation into Latin, was down where it had first been raised-at the published by the former Father Confessor of Holy SepuJchre and at the places hallowed Pope Innocent Xl, the Italian priest, Father by the Saviour himself. The victory of the Ludovico Maracci. Here, too, however, this crescent over the cross in the countries of the theological scholar was principally con­ Orient, and each triumph of the new religion cerned with refuting and combating Islam in the provinces of the Byzaritine Empire and its founder. He did this by means of a were defeats felt bitterly by the believers of long introduction and many notes comment- 12

.' ~n ' ,' 1' ing on the individual Surahs. Nevertheless, of Muhammad was based on the Oneness of we mu~t consider it a step towards better God. Sale stressed particularly what a noble understanding that, for the first time, the and praiseworthy effort it had been to convert whole text of the Koran was available to the Arabs from idolatry to the acknowledge- . Eura'peans in a Latin translation. (The first ment of One God. He also pointed out that German translation of this Latin Koran text the exhortations to good morals and virtue was · publislled as early as 1703, and opened contained in the Koran were in part so up the vyorld of Islam to any interested excellent that a Christian might weIl observe German 1ayman.) them. The next phase is characterized by the George Sale repeatedly refers to the fact that, from then on, not onlychurchmen "Bibliotheque Oreintale" published in 1697 participated in the writing about the Islamic in Paris by Batholomee d'Herbelot, a pioneer­ problem-who were, of cOurse, tempted to workwho for· the first time printed everything put their confessiona1 zeal first-but also worth knowing about the religious, social and men from other professions, Europeans who literary institutions of the Arabs, Perisnas had travelled in the Orient, who knew the andTurks. language . and were the forerunners of All three of the publications We have just modern scholarship on the Orient, etc. Fore­ mentioned, must be looked upon as products most among these was the Orientalist and products of the Age of Enlightment, the protestant scholar Hadrian Reland, from influence of which was decisive in Goethe's Utrecht, wlIose book "De Re1gione Moha­ youth. " medica", which appeared in 1705, attempted A.frenchman, Count de Boulainvillier, the first honest appraisal .of Islam. Islam wrote a biography of Muhammad inthis cou1d . never have attracted millions of same spirit of enlightenment, which was followers, Re1and declared, had it been as published after his death in London in 1730. senseless as European portrayals time and Unlike allprevious disparagements of again 4ad claimed. It was absurd, he said Muhamma,d, it canbe considered an apology. to form a conception of a different religion Boulainvillier saw· M uhammad principally as on the basis of the representations of its the reformer of his people and thecreatorofa opponents. Therefore it was necessary to rational religion. Twenty years later his have Islam explained by those who believed book was translated into German. In his in it.Mutua1 goodwill was ' the pre-reQuisite preface, the Oermap translator confesses his for a religious discussion. surprise . that the author had been able to Relandspecifically avowed his faith in escape the holy inquisition. Christianity, in order to protect hirnself Boulainvillier's work had a great influence against the suspicion that he was trying to on, among others, one of his most famous rehabilitate the religion of Islam. This was conü:mporaries, Voltaire. In Voltaire' s certain1y the least that was required of a "Essay surles moems", written in 1765, much scholar of that time, if he wanted to protect was ,said about Islam which showed its himself against the difficulties which might derivation from Boulainvillier's portrayal. have arisen from such a work and the way Here Muhammad's religion was characteri­ of thinking clearly apparent in it. zed as one of the greatest facts of world Another important step was made by an history. The Koran was praised as an English lawyer, who devoted his leisure hours excellent book, containing sublime passages to thestudy of Arabic-George Sale. In and .excellent laws. In this account 6f 1734 he published an English translation of Voltaire's, the prophet was portrayed as a the Koran, which soon thereafter was trans­ great man, as another Cromwell, who as lated into German, Dutch and French. For conqueror, law-giver, mler and preacher all a century it remained one of the main sources in one-had played the most important role from which educated Europeans informed anyone could possibly play on this earth. themselves on all questions involving the Voltaire counted Muhammad among the Koran. Sale looked upon his work chiefly three greatest law-givers of the world, along as a vindication of a much maligned book. with Confucius and Zoroaster. He recog­ In his introduction he refrained from almost nized him as one of the truly inspired vision­ all temptations to polemize. On the contrary, aries. he pointed out the many correspondences How then can we understand the malice with the Christian faith, for instance, when Voltaire poured into his drama "Le Fana­ he emphasizes that the fundamental teaching tisme ou Mohamet le Prophete", in which 13 the hero appears as a hypocrite, a swindler passage that he wrote as a twelve-year-old and a tyrant, driven by sensuality? Voltaire in a school ' essay, advocating tolerance knew that the portrait of his stage-hero did toward the Muhammedans, among whom not correspond to reality. The whole intrigue there were men just as righteous as among on which the plot of the play is based, was the Christians. I quote: "De\ls ipse dixit: entirely his own invention. In this play, Ne judicate, ne damnate! Nolumus damnare however, he was not at all concerned with Moharnetanos : etiam inter Mahometanos historical truth or with the prophet from prob i hominus sunt". In this spirit- that is Mecca. It can be surmised that Voltaire's in the spirit of tolerance Lessing worked all intention was directedtoward a quite different his life. Relying on George Sale's translation goal. As a free thinker he had often crossed of the Koran and on Harian Reland's book swords with the French clerics, and now he on the Islamicreligion, he called for impartial consciously created a stage-playas a polemic judgment of other religions. The religion of against :religion as such, against fanaticism, Islam should be viewed with as much justice clerical craftiness, and superstition. He as unbiased and trusted scholars in modern would have taken the subject matter for his times deemed necessary to concede to it. play from Christian sources had he had the This was Lessing's demand in his " Gar­ necessary audacity and temerity. But that danus" . The violence of the prejudlces he was too much of a risk, and so he preferred had to combat is best illustrated by his to make use of Muhammad- the founder of repeated assertions that Muhammad was . a foreign religion as a figure with which to not a fraud, and that his religion was not of illustrate and combat the phenomenon of the devil, but rather in accord with reason. fanaticism. It was a camouflage on Voltaire's Like Leibniz, Lessing found in the Koran all part, to avoid personal difficulties anddan­ the essential articles of natural religion, gers. He chose aperiod a thousand yeats in stressed the agreement with Christian dogma the past, but was· referring to the present. He in the doctrine of the One (jod, and-like spoke about Mecca, but was pointing at Sale before him-evaluated the ethical pre­ Rome. The author's ' intention, however, cepts of the Koran in such a way that they became apparent, and the play was officially might well recornmend themselves to a banned from the Paris stage after its third Christian. It is hard to' imagine in our day performance, as a danger to religion. It took how much courage it töok at that time to rnuch clever rnanoevering on the part of the publish such ideas. . Thus Lessing-the author before the play was again allowed to protestant pioneer of reason and tolerance­ be performed. was at odds with the powers of the Counter­ If we now turn to Germany, we find first Englightenment and intolerance all his life. of all three men among Goethe's pre4eces­ But through Lessing's attitude many people sores and contemporaries who acted as were led to a more humane and liberal way pioneers for a more humane and rational of thinking. Without his preparatory work attitude toward religions-Leibniz, Lessing, it might perhaps have been impossible for a and Herder. protestant theologian to write as impartially Already in his "Theodizee" (1710) Leibniz about Islam, as Rerder did on1y a few years praised Muhammad for not having deviated later (1791) 'in his "Ideas on the Philosophy in any way from the natural religion whose of the Ristory of Mankind" . In this book great precepts had been set up by Abraham Rerder tried from the point of view of cul­ and Moses, and to which Jesus then imparted tural history-to assess Muhammad as the the significance of a generally accepted last founder of a religion. Although grounded dogma. But Muhammad's followers were to in theology, Retder did not divide world be given credit for having spread the religion history into sacred and profane areas, hut of the sages which,through Jesus, had placed the Islamic world right in the midst become a religion for all peoples, among the of universal history. In Muhammad he saw nations of Asia and Africa, in this way combined all . that nation, tribe, time and destroying in many countries heathen super­ place could contribute: in hirn were conjoined stitions and opposition to the faith in the the qualities of merchant, prophet, orator, one good God, creator ofall things, and . poet, hero and legislator, all in an Arab style. which also contradicted the true doctrine Rerder praised "Muhammad's noble enthu­ of the immortaility of the soul and retribu­ siasm for the doctrine of the One God" and tion in the life to come. for "the way of serving Hirn through purity, Now with regard to Lessing, we have a devotion and good deeds". "Corrupt tradi- 14 tions of Jewry and Christianity", the poetical It was the Greek poet Pindar who was to caste of mind of the Arabic nation, the idiom become his guide here, and this is chiefly of his tribe and his personal talents "were­ what his letter deals with. But at the end of according to Herder-the pinions, as it were, this acknowldgement of Pindar we rea,d: "I which bore Muhammad out of and beyond would like to pray like Moses in the' Koran: hirnself". ' Lord, make room in my narrow breast", Thus we see that in Goethe's era efforts Here Goethe quotes the 20th Surah of the were initiated to look upon Islam in a more Koran. The essential meaning of this liberal and unprejudiced way than had been becomes clearer, when one reads the con­ the habit for hundreds of years. But we must tinuation of this Surah. (Goethe noted it not forget: it was only a few individuals who down at the time in his excerpts from the were capable of rising to such an unbiassed Koran, of which we shall speak later.) It viewpoint. Only the few exceptiona11y fine says here: "0 Lord, make room in my mirtds of that time truly endeavoured to over­ narrow breast. Make also my task easy. come narrow-minded concepts, enlighten the Loosen the ties of my tongue". This proves perceptions of their countrymen and ennoble to usthat the verse from the Koran in the their ideas and ways of thinking. On the letter to Herder was also expressirig the idea other hand, the rest of the scholarly world, of longing for "mastery", for lightening of in so far ,as it took notice of Islam at a11 his "task", for ,the looseningof his tongue, remained mostly intolerant and unsympa­ that is, for the final release ofhis creative thetic. powers in the right way. Goethe's simul~ As far as Goethe was concemed, his atti­ taneous ref~J;~nce to, the ,Koran and,J>indar tude toward Islam-and this is decisive-was in this conneCiion tqrows a sudden light upon from the very beginning not exelusively the poet's evaluation of the former even at from the very beginning not exclusively that time. , " ' determined by an attitude of progressive We know how Goethe came in contact enlightenment and its aspirations toward with the Koran when he was 2~ years old. tolerance. Goethe's relationship to Muham­ In the year 1772, a German translation of the mad, and his religion was of a much more Koran was printed in his native city, prepared personal nature. That is also the reason why by the Frankfürt professor Megerljn. Even his comments on Islam far surpassed in befare this book appeared in , the " imtumn provocative daring anything that had been book-fair, Goethe got possession of the said in Germany before his time. Goethe proof-sheets, possibly because the publisher achieved a truly positive relation to Islam sent them to hi;m for a review. Goethe, as by finding certain major precepts in accord you know, was a contributor to the "Frank­ with his own thinking and beliefs. This furter Gelehrten Anzeigen", .a pu blication aroused in him a deep-seated sympathy, and devoted soldy to reviews. from this sympathy resulted the tenor of such Megerlin was the first German scholar who sincere conviction as we have already cited. translated the Koran from the original text I would now like to elaborate on those into German, and thus answered an urgent chief points of the Muslim religion that had need of the time. In his intellectual attitude, such an attraction for Goethe. Up to now however, he in , no way showed hirnself there had been no elear conception of this. modem, or everi impartial and unbiased. To And yet, the true nature of Goethe's rela­ hirn the Holy Book of lslam appeared to be tionship to Islam cannot be fu11y understood, a "book of lies" and Muharrirnad as a false unless we answer this question : What was it prophet and Anti-Christ. that so attracted hirn to the Muslim religion, Goethe was obviously deeply disappointed what was it that seemed to be so elose to his in Megerlin's work. A review in the "Frank­ own way of thinking? furter Gelehrten Anzeigel}" was devastatingly A decided affection for the oriental world critical, at any rate. The reviewer clearly manifested itself in Goethe's life at an early showed that his concept of the Koran was a stage. He tried to get as much information cornpletely different and higher ,one than as possible about it. The, first piece of evi­ Megerlin's tra.t;lslation was , able to convey. dence for his interest in Islam dates from The reviewer expressed the wish that "l- diffe­ June, 1772. We find it in the famous letter rent translatjon might"l?e prepared "under to Herder, containing the avowal of his oriental skies, by a Gerrnan reading the passionate search for ways to achieve what Koran in his , tent with due , poetiC arid he ca11ed "mastery" and genuine "virtuosity". prophetic feeIlrigs~ and sufficientsrnsitivity to 15 grasp the whole". The review mentioned messenger among you, and many messengers George Sale's El1glish translation of the have died before hirn. If he should now die, Koran, the tenor of which was naturally would you therefore turn back on your more congenial to Goethe than Megerlin's heels"? "God is not given to making knQwn polemic-ridden work. But to Goethe, Sale's what is secret, but he elects a few of his translation seemed antiquated too. None of messengers as he sees fit: that they (the the existing translations could measure up to nations) may believe in God and in his his demands. Goethe was very sensitive to messenger" . the linguistic beauty of the Koran. Even in As is weIl known, the young Goethe his late years he praised this beauty in the debated at great length, especially with the "West-Eastern Divan" where he says: "The Swiss theologian Lavater, the question whe­ style of the Koran is severe, elevated, for­ ther it was Jesus Christ whom we had to midable, in parts truly sublime". If one is consider the sole Messiah of God, or whether acquainted with Goethe's way of expression, we should acknowledge otllers to have this one knows that the words"truly sublime" same mission. This was one of the points of belong to the highest attributes which he dispute that finally led to his break with could assign to a literary landmark. Lavater, for Goethe could not accept the The young Goethe was at that time strictly Christian view of his friend. It seriously studying the Koran. He seemed surely was no coincidence that the personal to have made his first attempts at learning to diary of Lavater shows the Koran also to . speak and write Arabic. We know this from have been the subject of discussion between a number of papers which contain excerpts Goethe and hirnself. By referring to Muham­ in his own handwriting from Megerlin's mad, Goethe probably tried to explain to translation and from Maracci's Latin Koran. Lavater that history also knows other great There he wrotedown a considerable number founders of religion, outside the realm of of verses from ten different Surahs. His Christianity. Furthermore, Goethe's Koranic choice of verses is very revealing. For the excerpts betray his special interest in Muham­ first time we can recognize some of those mad's effect upon a whole people and their aspects of the Islamic religious doctrine attitude towards hirn. Thus we find Goethe which Goethe considered relevant to his own taking down the following lines from the ideas. To begin with, we must mention here Koran (from Surah 29): "The signs are with the basic concept, so typically Goethean, that God, I am but a manifest preacher", and God reveals Himselfin all ofnature. Without from Surah 13: "Furthermore some un­ a doubt he was thinking of this conviction of believers say of you: has there not been a his when he noted down the following verses wondrous sign sent down upon him by his from the Koran: "The rising and setting of Lord? But you are only apreacher, and the sun are the Lord's and wherever you every people has been given a teacher for its turn, there is God's countenance". "He has instruction" . given us abundant signs in the creation of the It has been proven that Goethe, aIl his life, heavens and the earth, in the change of night had a special liking for this last verse from and day . . . in all these are signs abundant the Koran. Even in 1819, he quotes it in a of his oneness and goodness forthose letter to a young scholar: "What God says peoples that are observant of them". The in the Koran is true: We have never sent a last words also reflect the doctrine of the prophet to any people, except in its own unity of God, a concept wh ich certainly did language". And in a letter to his Scottish not find its way into Goethe's hotes acciden­ friend, the writer Carlyle, in 1827, he again tally, for it was precisely the emphatic mentions this quotation from the Koran, pronouncement of this doctrine which the where he writes: "The Koran says: God has poet considered one of the main achievements given a prophet to every people in its own of the prophet Muhammad. We shall come language". And Goethe repeats this same back to this later. sentence in an essay of the year 1828. Other verses from the Koran written down The Koranic verses from Goethe's notes, by Goethe at this period, refer to a subject which I just mentioned, speaking of the that the youthful Goethe was much con­ unbelievers' expectation of miraculous signs cetned with: that God had spoken and was from Muhammad, also had a prolonged still speaking to makind, not only through effect on Goethe. Alluding to these verses, one mediator but through many. I quote: aliterary appendix of a much later date­ "Thus Mohammed is also nothing but a that 1;S, from the period of the "West-Eastern 16 Divan"-reads as fallows: " 1 cannot per(o(m And the rivers of the plain miracles, said the prophet. The greatest And the streams from the mountains Shout to hirn in exultation- Brother! miracle is that I am". Brother, take your brothers with you, Goethe's concern with the Koran in the Wlth you to your aneient father, year 1772, led to extraardinarily important To that everlasting oeean, consequences. They inspired hirn to outline Who with outstretehed arms a wh oie tradegy that was to be entitled Awaits us ... "Mohomet". Although this plan was not Later it reads, slightly transformed: Take yo ur brothers from the plain. carried out, Goethe did write down a number Take yo ur brothers from the mountains of crucial passages, which we still possess. With you, to your father! Even wirh regard to these passages it must be And Goethe's Mahomet hymn ends: said that they represent probably the most And he earries thus his brothers significant homage a German poet ever paid All tumultuous with rapture to the prophet of Islam. The fragments of To their waiting Maker's hear!. this tragedy are impartant for our considera­ These verses reveal most clearly how tions here, beca use in them the essence of G ~ ethe , throughout the whole song, also Goethe's strang personal interest in Islam POlllts to hirnself. This was the way he feit becomes truly apparent. First of a11, it was about his task, his mission as a poet: to the figure of the prophet Muhammad him­ work fo r mankind, as for his brothers, to self, and secondly one of the doctrines he carry them along, to bear them upward to a taught, which aroused Goethe's suscepti­ higher farm of life. In this sense alI his bilities even in his youth. po~t!c work took on for hirn an ultimately To speak first of the figure of Muhammad reiiglous aspect. And Goethe did in fact -Goethe was interested in the type and fate become the spiritual guide and prophet for of a faunder of religion who spread hi s many people. message not only by the ward, as did Jesus In the same way, however, all the fr ag­ Christ, but also by aggressive secular means­ ments of the tragedy that are concerned with by the sward. For Volta ire it was exactly this Muhammad hirnself, bear the marks of the latter aspect that led hirn to such an unjustly young Goethe. At that time the poet had in negative portrayal in his Mahomet-tragedy. mmd a number of dramatic plans, whose Goethe intended to give a much more centre was to be occupied by some great positive portrayal, even if a certain amount figure from history or mythology ; in this of criticisr1 was unavoidable. way he wanted to symbolize what he, as a Among the preserved fragments, it was young ma~ , feit to be his own uniquesness; mainly the farnaus song of praise-Maho­ the magmtude and force of his creative met's Gesang-The Song of Mahomet, po~ers, whic~ he regarded as samething originally meant as a dialogue sung by Ali dlvllle, but WhlCh at the same time seemed to and Fatima that expressed Goethe's interest hirn his special task and mission, his divine in Muhammad as apersan. Here Goethe call. portrays the nature of the prophet of a lalready mentioned that the fragments of spiritual leader of mankind, in the symbol the Mahomet-tragedy reveal Goethe's special of a stream. He chose this symbol to illus­ interest in one main doctrine of Islam. It is trate how the spiritual power, from the again the doctrine of the unity, the oneness smallest beginnings, grows into a gigantic of God. He expressly points to this doctrine force, through unfolding and expanding, and in the hymn at the beginning of the drama. comes to its glorious fulfilment by fiowing Alone, under the starry skies, Mahomet into the ocean, which here is made the symbol sings this hymn which begins with the words: of divinity. "The fervency of this soul I cannot divide This simile is mainly based on the concept among you". that the religious genius carries the other Praying, Mahomet first turns to a11 the people as his brothers, bears them along with stars, then to single, more important heavenly hirn, like the large river the sm aller brooks bodies: to Jupiter, to the moon and the sun. and streams, on its way to the sea. It is this Here again, Goethe's reverence in the face of very motif that is emphatica11y illustrated. nature accords with Islamic concepts. It is Let me remind you of the famous verses characteristic, however, that Goethe's hero where it is said of the river: endeavours to raise his eyes beyond the And now; silver-resplendent, multiplicity of the divinely-given natural It enters the plain .. . phenomena to the vision of the One, Highest 17 God. In his autobiographic "Dichtung und It is from "Dichtung und Wahrheit" that Wahreit" where, in a consideration of his we also learn why Goethe was equally Mahomet fragment, Goethe discusses this fascinated by the negative aspects of Moham­ hymn, we read: "Mahomet ... raises hirnself mad's personality. Repeatedly he had to God, the One, the Everlasting, Unlimited, observed at that time, that weIl known con-' to whom . . . an limited glorious beings owe temporaries, appearing in the role of religious their existence". prophets, could not keep aloof from certain It was this doctrine of the Oneness of God, errors. In pursuing their spiritual aims, they of. His uniqueness, that Goethe always often did not seem able to avoid making use valued most highly, and when we speak of of very worldly means. It was mainly in the this poet's relationship to Islam we will have personality of Lavater that Goethe observed to recognize this doctrine of the unity of God such traits. He thus developed the suspicion as the main source of Goethe's indebtedness. that the religious prophet in general had It is significant here that Goethe's hymn to the something questionable about hirn. He heavenly bodies was written in direct reference always observed the same phenomenon: to one of the Surah of the Koran-some­ that all too easily the higher is sacrificed to thing that isn't mentioned in "Dichtung und the lower. In pursuing his goal, the religious Wahrheit". It is the 6th Surah, translated prophet can hardly maintain his purity from the Latin version by Goethe, and also intact: too often his paths lead hirn to contained in his excerpts from the Koran destructioninstead ofto salvation-as Goethe previously mentioned. says in . "Dichtung und Wahrheit". So Let me just mention the short dialogue Goethe decided to portray dramatically by scene among the fragments of the Mahomet the example of Muhammad, wh at he as a tragedy, in which once more the topic of the poet had recognized as a characteristic, or unity of God is made the central theme, again, inner principle, of any religious prophet. On characteristically tied up with the subject of the other hand, he reports that he in opposi­ the veneration of nature. Mahomet says tion to many of his contemporaries "could here, that God appears to hirn "at every quiet never look upon Muhammad as a fraud". spring, under each blossoming tree with the He had at that time just been reading and warmth of his love". At the same time the studying with great interest the life of the prophet combats the false belief, so prevalent öriental prophet. That inspired hirn to out­ among his people, according to which many line this tragedy in which, furthermore­ gods are venerated "like minor lords". "God and I quote again-"all that was to be has no partners". "If he had any", Mahomet portrayed which genius, through strength of says, "if he had any, would he be God"? character and mind, can effect in men". "All Let .us recapitulate: It was, in the first that genius can effect in men"-these words place, the whole personality of the prophet prove once aga in how the phenomenon of the that mainly interested Goethe in Islam ever spiritual educator, of the religious leader since he had planned a Mahomet tragedy in influencing mankind, both so important to lüs youth; in the second place, it was !he Goethe, were so c10sely connected in his mind doctrine of the unity of God. Concernmg with Muhammad's personality. It is obvious Muhammad's personality, Goethe was fas­ that the Mahomet drama projected by the cinated even by such traits as seemed ques­ young Goethe, would have been fund amen­ tionable. On this point we find a detailed tally different in a positive way from Vol­ account in a passage of "Dichtung und taire's Mahomet. Many years later Goethe Wahrheit", where. he comments on the translated Voltaire's "Mahomet" and pro­ Mahomet work of his early years. To judge duced it on the Weimar stage. But let it be by this passage, the projected drama was clear-this did not show a change of convic­ supposed to show Muhammad as a general, tion, for it was only with considerable inner who often had to employ terrible means to resistence that he decided to translate it, advance his good ends-like any general or precisely because he did not agree with conqueror. Thus, in the course of the action, Voltaire's poiemically distorted portrayal of it .happens-and I quote-that "the secular the prophet. That he did it at aIl, was only world grows and expands, the divine retreats because the Duke of Weimar, Carl August, :and is tarnished". Theend of the tragedy, desired it and Goethe could not refuse. bowever, was to letthe prophet appear in (To be continued.) fun glory. As Goethe writes: he was "to * Goethe (1749-1832), was a German writer univer­ depart from this world highsouled, worthy sally acknowledged to be one ofthe giants of world of admiration, purifying his doctrine and literature. He was also an outstanding critic, establishing his empire". journalist, statesman and natural philosopher. 18