Goethe and Islam
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is the greatest German poet. He was also a scientist and a local politician.
As a young man Goethe wanted to study oriental studies - but his father finally wanted him to study law; he always admired the first travellers to Arabia (Michaelis, Niebuhr), he was fascinated by it and read everything they published about their trips. In 1814/15 at the time of his "Divan" Goethe trained himself with the professors for oriental studies Paulus, Lorsbach and Kosegarten (University of Jena) in reading and writing Arabic. After looking at his Arabic manu******s and having known about the Qur'an, Goethe felt a great yearning to learn Arabic. He copied short Arabic Du'as by himself and wrote:
"In no other language spirit, word and letter are embodied in such a primal way." (Letter to Schlosser, 23.1.1815, WA IV, 25, 165)At the age of 70 Goethe writes (Notes and Essays to the Divan, WA I, 17,153) that he intends to "celebrate respectfully that night when the Prophet was given the Koran completely from above".
He also wrote: "No one may wonder about the great efficiency of the Book. That is why it has been declared as uncreated by real admirers" and added to it: "This book will eternally remain highly efficacious/effective" (WA I, 7, 35/36) Still today we have the handwritten manu******s of his first intensive Qur'anstudies
of 1771/1772 and the later ones in the Goethe and Schiller-Archive in Weimar. Goethe read the German translation of Qur'an by J. v. Hammer (possibly as well from the more prosaic English translation of G. Sale) out loud in front of members of the Duke's family in Weimar and their guests. Being witnesses the other great German poet and Goethe's friend Friedrich Schiller and his wife reported about the reading. (Schiller's letter to Knebel, 22.2.1815) Goethe always felt the shortcomings of all the translations (Latin, English, German and French) and was constantly looking for new
translations. In his "Divan" Goethe says:
"Whether the Koran is of eternity?
I don't question that!...
That it is the book of books
I believe out of the muslim's duty."
"Ob der Koran von Ewigkeit sei?
Darnach frag' ich nicht ! ...
Da er das Buch der Bücher sei
Glaub' ich aus Mosleminen-Pflicht"
(WA I, 6, 203)
He studied Arabic handbooks, grammars, travel-books, poetry, anthologies, books on the sira of the Prophet Muhammad - may Allah bless him and give him peace! - and had a widespread exchange with oriental scholars about these matters. Goethe liked the German translation of Hafis' "Diwan" by Hammer (May 1814) and studied the different translations of Qur'an of his time. All of this inspired him to write his own "West-ِstlicher Divan" and of
course many poems of the "Divan" are clearly inspired by and relate to different Ayats of Qur'an.
Goethe bought original Arabic manu******s of Rumi, Dschami, Hafis, Saadi, Attar, Qur'an-Tafsir, Du'as, an Arabic-Turkish dictionary, ****s on matters like the freeing of slaves, buying and selling, interest, usury and Arabian ******s
from Sultan Selim. In his "West-Eastern Divan" (published 1816), a book of poetry, inspired by the Persian poet Hafiz and other world-famous Muslim writers, Goethe refuses the christian view of Jesus – peace be upon him - and confirms the unity of Allah in a poem of his "Divan":
"Jesus felt pure and calmly thought
Only the One God;
Who made himself to be a god
Offends his holy will.
And thus the right(ness) has to shine
What Mahomet also achieved;
Only by the term of the One
He mastered the whole world"
"Jesus fühlte rein und dachte
Nur den Einen Gott im Stillen;
Wer ihn selbst zum Gotte machte
Krنnkte seinen heil'gen Willen.
Und so mu das Rechte scheinen
Was auch Mahomet gelungen;
Nur durch den Begriff des Einen
Hat er alle Welt bezwungen."
(WA I, 6, 288 ff)
Beside Jesus – peace be upon him - and Muhammad - may Allah bless him and give him peace! - in the following verses Goethe also names Abraham, Moses and David – peace be upon them - as the representatives of the Oneness of God (Tauhid). It is a known fact that Goethe felt a strong dislike for the symbol of the cross. In his "Divan" he wrote:
"And now you come with a sign ...
which among all others I mostly dislike.
All this modern nonsense
You are going to bring me to Schiras!
Should I, in all its stiffness,
Sing of two crossed wooden pieces?"
"Und nun kommst du, hast ein Zeichen
Dran gehنngt, das unter allen ...
Mir am schlechtesten will gefallen
Diese ganze moderne Narrheit
Magst du mir nach Schiras bringen!
Soll ich wohl, in seiner Starrheit,
Hِlzchen quer auf Hِlzchen singen?..."
Und sogar noch stنrker:
"Mir willst du zum Gotte machen
Solch ein Jammerbild am Holze!"
Also in his late novel „Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre/Wilhelm Meister's years of travel“ (1829) Goethe quite frankly wrote that it is a "cursed insolence ... to play with secrets that are hidden in the divine depth of suffering" One should rather "cover it with a veil". Finally, in the poem of the „Seven Sleepers“ of his "Divan" Goethe calls Jesus a prophet: "Ephesus for many years/ Honours the teaching of the Prophet Jesus. (Peace be upon the good one!)" (WA I, 6, 269).
Goethe is fascinated by Saadi's ****phor of the "fly in love" flying into the light where it dies as the image for the Muslim who loves God. See here especially the poem of the "Divan" about the butterfly flying into the light "Blissful yearning / Selige Sehnsucht" whose earlier titles were "Sacrifice of the self /Selbstopfer" and "Perfection/Vollendung". In the chapter about Rumi Goethe acknowledges the invocation of God/Allah and the blessing of it: "Already the so-called maho****n rosary [prayer-beeds] by which the name Allah is glorified with ninety-nine qualities is such a praise litany. Affirming and negating qualities indicate the inconceivable Being [Wesen]; the worshipper is amazed, submits and calms down." (WA I, 7, 59) Goethe considered it not to be a mere accident but rather as meaningful incidents, in fact as part of his decree and signs of God, when:
- in autumn 1813 he was brought an old Arabic handwritten manu****** from Spain by a German soldier coming from Spain which contained the last Surat
An-Nas (114). Later Goethe tried to copy it himself with the help of the professors in Jena who had helped him in finding out the manu******'s *******
- in January 1814 he visited a prayer of Bashkir Muslims from the Russian army of Zar Alexander in the protestant gymnasium of Weimar. See the letter to Trebra, 5.1.1814 (WA IV, 24, 91) where he says: "Speaking of prophecies, I have to tell you that there are things happening these days, which they would not have allowed a prophet to say. Who would have been allowed some years ago to say that
there would be held a mahommedan divine service and the Suras of Koran would be murmured in the auditorium of
our protestant gymnasium and yet it happened and we attended the Bashkir service, saw their Mulla and welcomed their Prince in the theatre.Out of special favour I was presented with a bow and arrows which for eternalmemory I will hang above my chimney as soon as God has decreed a luckyreturn for them." In a letter to his son August from the 17.1.1814 (WA IV, 24,110) he adds: "Several religious ladies of us have asked for the translation ofthe Koran from the library."
Goethe's positive attitude towards Islam goes far beyond anyone in Germany before: As an introduction to his "West-eastern Divan" he published on 24.2.1816: "The poet [Goethe speaks about himself as the author]... does not refuse the suspicion that he himself is a Muslim." (WA I, 41, 86)
In another poem of the "Divan" Goethe says:
"Foolish that everyone in his case
Is praising his particular opinion!
If Islam means submission to God,
We all live and die in Islam."
"Nنrrisch, daك jeder in seinem Falle
Seine besondere Meinung preist!
Wenn Islam Gott ergeben heiكt,
In Islam leben und sterben wir alle."
(WA I, 6, 128)
Apart from Goethe's - the poet's - fascination for the language of Qur'an, its beauty and sublimeness, he was mostly attracted by its religious and philosophical meaning: the unity of God, the conviction that God manifests in nature/creation is one of the major themes in Goethe's work. During his first intensive Qur'an-studies Goethe copied and partly put right the **** of the first direct translation of the Qur'an from Arabic into German by Megerlin in
1771/1772. Goethe wrote down different Ayats of Qur'an which teach man how he should see nature in all its phenomena as signs of divine laws. The multiplicity of the phenomena indicates the One God.
The relation towards nature as the Qur'an presents it connected with the teaching of the kindness and oneness of God - as Goethe writes it down from the Ayats of Sura No. 2 - became the main pillars on which Goethe's sympathy and affinity towards Islam was based. Goethe said we should realize "God's greatness in the small" - "Gottes G e im Kleinen" and refers to the Ayat of Surat Al-Baqara, vers 25 where the ****phor of the fly is given.
Goethe was very impressed about the fact that Allah speaks to mankind by prophets and thus he confirmed the prophet Muhammad - may Allah bless him and give him peace!: In 1819 Goethe writes (referring to Sura "Ibrahim", Ayat 4) "It is true, what God says in the Qur'an: "We did not send a prophet to a people but in their language." (Letter to A.O. Blumenthal, 28.5.1819, WA IV, 31, 160) Referring to the same Ayat Goethe repeats in a letter to Thomas Carlyle: "The Koran says: God has given each people a prophet in its own language." (20.7.1827, WA IV, 42, 270) It appears again in 1827 in an essay of Goethe in: German Romance. Vol. IV. Edinburgh 1827 (WA I, 41, 307)
Goethe affirmed the rejection of the unbelievers' challenge to the prophet Muhammad - may Allah bless him and give him peace! - to show them miracles where he says: "Wonders I can not do said the Prophet, / The greatest miracle is that I am." (Paralipomenon III, 14 of the Divan, WA I, 6, 476)
In "Mahomet" Goethe wrote the famous song of praise "Mahomets Gesang". The meaning of the prophet is put into the ****phor of the stream, starting from the smallest beginning and growing to be an immense spiritual power, expanding, unfolding, and gloriously ending in the ocean, the symbol for divinity. He especially describes the religious genius in carrying the other people with him like the stream does with small brooks and rivers. On a
handwritten manu****** of the Paralipomena III, 31 of the "Divan" Goethe writes on the 27.1.1816:
"Head of created beings / Muhammed". (WA I, 6, 482)
Furthermore Goethe was impressed by the Muslim view that true religion is shown by good action. Here Goethe especially liked the action of giving Sadaqa, giving to the needy. In several poems of the Divan, "Buch der Sprüche" Goethe speaks about "the pleasure of giving" / "die Wonne des Gebens" / "See it rightly and you will always give" - "Schau es recht, und du wirst immer geben" (WA I, 6, 70), being a good action which already in this
life is full of blessings.
Goethe is also well known for his rejection of the concept of chance/accident: "What people do not and can not realize in their undertakings and what rules most obviously at its best where their greatness should shine - the chance as they call it later - exactly this is God, who here directly enters and glorifies Himself by the most trifling." (conversation with Riemer, November 1807)
The increasingly firm belief in the decree of God (conversation with chancellor MŸller, 12.8.1827, WA I, 42, 212, WA I, 32, 57) and the verse of a Divanpoem: "If Allah had determined me to be a worm;/ He would have created me as a worm." (WA I, 6, 113) and more "they [-examples of ****phors used in the Divan -] represent the wonderful guidance and providence coming out of the unexplorable, inconceivable decree of God; they teach and confirm the true Islam, the absolute submission to the will of God, the conviction, that no one may avoid his once assigned destiny." (WA I, 7, 151ff)
resulted in his personal attitude of submission under the will of God, i.e. Goethe saw it as an order to accept it thankfully and not to rebel against it. See famous examples for this in his famous works "Egmont", "Dichtung und Wahrheit/Poetry and Truth", "Urworte Orphisch/Primal Words Orphic" and "Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre/Wilhelm Meister's years of travel" etc. A deeply moving example from his own life was his reaction to the accident of his coach when he started his third journey to Marianne von Willemer (July 1816), who he intended to marry after his wife Christiane had died about which he felt extremly unhappy. Goethe took this as a clear warning not to pursue his wish anymore and completely refrained from his original intention. After that Goethe wrote: "And thus we have to remain inside Islam, (that
means: in complete submission to the will of God)" (WA IV, 27, 123) He said: "I cannot tell you more than this that also here I try to remain in Islam." (Letter to Zelter, 20.9.1820, WA IV, 33, 240) When in 1831 the cholera appeared and killed many people he consoled a friend: "Here no one can counsil the other; each one has to decide on his own. We all live in Islam, whatever form we choose to encourage ourselves." (Letter to Adele Schopenhauer, 19.9.1831, WA IV, 49, 87) In December 1820 Goethe wrote thanks for the gift of a book of aphorisms of
his friend Willemer and says:
"It fits ... with every religious-reasonable view and is an Islam to which we all have to confess sooner or later."
(WA IV, 34, 50) As a participant in the war of 1792 against France Goethe said that this belief in the decree of God has its purest expression in Islam: "The religion of Mohammed gives the best proof of this." (WA I, 33, 123)
According to Eckermann's conversations with Goethe (11.4.1827) the latter said to the first speaking about the education of the muslims by constantly seeing opposites in existence, therefore meeting doubt, close examination of a matter and thus finally arriving at certainty: "That philosophical system of the mohammedan people is an excellent measure which one can apply to oneself as well as to others in order to know on which station of spiritual virtue we actually are."
About the unity of Allah Goethe said: "The belief in the one God has always the effect to elevate the spirit because it indicates for man the unity within his own self." (Noten und Abhandlungen zum West-ِstlichen
Divan, chapter Mahmud von Gasna, WA I, 7, 42)
Goethe tells about the difference between a prophet and a poet and the confirmation of Muhammad - may Allah bless him and give him peace! - as a prophet: "He is a prophet and not a poet and therefore his Koran is to be seen as a divine law and not as a book of a human being, made for education or entertainment." (Noten und Abhandlungen zum Westِstlichen Divan, WA I, 7, 32)
Conclusion
Everything contained in Goethe's poetic as well as scientific writings, especially "Zur Morphologie", stands as his lifetime's propagation of the view that the universe is the creation of a Divine Being and that the Creator has no connected aspect to His creation. Thus it can be said that Goethe, Germany's greatest poet and the glory of the German language and intellectual life, is also one of the first intellectuals in modern Europe, who re-opened their hearts and minds to Islam since darkness had descended on Islamic Spain. Goethe stands for a re-awakening in the hearts of European people of the desire for knowledge of God and His messenger, a knowledge that had lain dormant for many centuries. Especially today, when narrow and self-centred minds talk about a "clash of civilizations", Goethe is a reminder that Islam in fact is not a specific culture but rather a filter for every culture! The Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: „I was sent to perfect good character“. God has placed good character in every culture of the world. Goethe reminds us of
the inseparable unity and power and generosity of the Creator of Mankind, God Allmighty.
He was the first great intellectual in the West of modern times who opened the way for the West to understand the need to overcome confrontative attitudes and see the power of the One God.
"God's is the Orient!
God's is the Occident!
Northern and Southern lands
Lie in the peace of His Hands."
(West-eastern Divan, 1816)
"Gottes ist der Orient!
Gottes ist der Occident!
Nord- und südliches Gelنnde
Ruht im Frieden seiner Hnde.“
(West-ِstlicher Divan, 1816)
Note:
1. The reference code WA I, 6, 288 means:
WA = Weimarer Ausgabe/Weimar Edition (classical and largest edition of
Goethe's writings), I = Section I, 6 = Volume 6, 288 = page 288
2. The worldwide leading expert on the subject of Goethe and Islam, from Whom we took all this information, is Prof. Dr. Katharina Mommsen.
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