Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

Nietzsche's Peace with Islam

My Enemy's Enemy is my Friend

Bibliographic Data

ID9852397
AuthorsIan Almond (0000-0002-7753-2801, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume56
Issue1
Pages43-55
Publication date2003-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGerman Life and Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-8777 • E-ISSN: 1468-0483
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-0483.00242
OpenAlexW1986803272
LanguageEN
Citations received3

This article examines the many references in Nietzsche's work to Islam and Islamic cultures, and situates them in the general context of his thought. Nietzsche's praise of Islam as a ‘ ja–sagende semitische Religion’, his admiration for Hafiz, his appreciation of Muslim Spain, his belief in the essentially life–affirming character of Islam, not only spring from a desire to find a palatable Other to Judaeo–Christian–European modernity, but also comment on how little Nietzsche actually knew about the cultures he so readily appropriated in his assault on European modernity. Nietzsche's negative comments on Islam – his generic dismissal of Islam with other religions as manipulative thought systems, his depiction of Mohammed as a cunning impostor, reveal in Nietzsche not only the same ambiguities towards Islam as we find towards Christ or Judaism, but also a willingness to use the multiple identities of Islam for different purposes at different moments in his work. Noch eine letzte Frage: Wenn wir von Jugend an geglaubt hätten, daß alles Seelenheil von einem Anderen als Jesus ist, ausfließe, etwa von Muhamed, ist es nicht sicher, daß wir derselben Segnungen theilhaftig geworden wären? Letter to Elisabeth Nietzsche, 11 June 1865

Art · Depiction · Epistemology · Islam · Judaism · Literature · Modernity · Praise · Theology · Borges, Kipling, and Jewish Identity · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Religious studies

  • Raça, Classe, Tragédia

    Open Access•A Toscano•Estudos de Nietzsche•2025

  • Wigman's Witches

    Open Access•Alexandra Kolb•Dance Research Journal•2016

  • Nietzsche, the Muslim Falāsifa , and Leo Strauss's Avicennan Turn

    Open Access•Malik Mufti•The Review of Politics•2024

Unique citing works3
Citations per year0,3
Citation span2016 - 2025 (10)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 3
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae