Ignác Goldziher: His Life and Scholarship as Reflected in His Works and Correspondence 9004075615, 9789004075610

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IGNÂC GOLDZIHER

RÖBERT SIMON

IGNÂC GOLDZIHER His Life and Scholarship as Reflected in his Works and Correspondence

MA H» ^

1986

Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest E. J. Brill — Leiden

Distributed by E. J. Brill ISBN 963 7301 57 7 (Magyar Tudoményos Akadémia Kônyvtâra Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) ISBN 90 04 07561 5 (E. J. Brill)

© Magyar Tudomânyos Akadémia Kônyvtâra— Library of the Hungarian Academy o f Sciences 1986—R. Simon

Printed in Hungary

CONTENTS Preface, by A. Scheiber ......................................................................

7

P art O ne

COMMENTA RIES ON GOLDZIHER’S LIFE AND ACTIVITY I. A paradigmatic life .......................................................................

II

The career and oeuvre o f the scholar ........................................ The morals o f a paradigmatic lif e ................................................ Bibliography ................................................................................. Notes ............................................................................................

II 13 64 67

II. Comments on Goldziher’s seven works .....................................

77

Nomadism and agriculture (1876) ............................................... The place o f Spanish Arabs in the development o f Islam com­ pared with that o f Eastern Arabs (1877) ................................. The development o f Hadith (1890) ............................................. The prehistory o f Higà’ poetry (1 896)........................................... The religion o f Islam (1906)........................................................... Mediaeval Muslim and Jewish philosophy (1909) .................... The relation o f old Islamic orthodoxy to classical sciences (1916)

77 88 96 103 126 132 143

P a rt T w o

SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE OF 1. GOLDZIHER AND T. NÖLDEKE The letters ............................................................................................. 159 Notes to the le tte rs ................................................................................. 421 General In d ex ..........................................................................................449 Plates

PREFACE When the Goldziher Tagebuch appeared, several readers put forward the idea which was later espoused by Brill Publishing Co., namely that with the aid o f the Tagebuch a Goldziher biography and evaluation o f his scholarly work should be written. It is a pleasure for us that R. Simon has prepared it and now presents his work in English to the public. R. Simon has made preliminary studies to this theme when publishing in Hungarian Goldziher’s selected papers under the title The Culture o f Islam (I—II. Budapest, 1981), and he also wrote evaluative studies to it. A fter the 2nd W orld W ar a Goldziher renaissance set in all over the globe: 1947: Vorlesungen and Stellung der alten islamischen Orthodoxie zu den antiken W issenschaften published in Arabic. 1951 : a Hebrew translation o f Vorlesungen, followed by a new edition in 1969. 1952: and again 1970: a Reprint o f Richtungen, published in Leiden, and still in the same year (1952) a selection o f Muhammedanische Studien, 2nd volume, in French; a new edition o f the latter ap­ peared 1962.-1952 was the year when the Arab Literary H istory in Serbian was translated into Hebrew and published in Jerusa­ lem. Reprinted in 1972 and 1979. This is now used as a schoolbook in Israel. J. Somogyi translated the above work from the Hun­ garian original into English in 1957. He edited it in book form in 1959 and a 2nd edition appeared 1966. 1958: a Reprint o f the French translation o f Vorlesungen. 1967-1973: J. Somogyi published the Gesammelte Schriften in 6 volumes (Hildesheim, Olms Verlag). 1967-1971 : Muhammedanische Studien in English, edited by C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern; relevant literature brought up-to-date. 1967: Zähiriten reprint, followed by Wolfgang Behn’s English version, edited by Brill.

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PREFACE

1967: Reprint o f M ythos bei den Hebräern, English translation. 1980: a new edition o f Islam, a work to be read only in Hungarian, edited by E. Vass. 1981 : Vorlesungen published in Prinoeton, translated into English by Andras and Ruth Hamori; Bernard Lewis completed the literature to date. A Hungarian edition o f the Tagebuch, and a Diary o f the East in English are soon to be published. A Dutch scholar, P. S. van Koningsveld, is preparing an edition o f the letters written by Snouck Hurgronje to Goldziher. In his valuable book R. Simon acquaint us with the life story, evolution, plans, struggles and perseverance o f the eminent Scholar, besides showing us what makes his work o f scholarship so novel and timeless. This is a book to be recommended to every Orientalist. A. Scheiber

(The eminent scholar, Prof. Alexander Scheiber died on the 3rd of March, 198S.)

PART ONE

COMMENTARIES ON GOLDZIHER’S LIFE AND ACTIVITY

C hapter O

ne

A PARADIGMATIC LIFE* T h e C areer a n d O euvre o f a Sch o la r “ The difficulty of the problem is that the phenomena and the tendencies labelled today as specifically Hungarian stemmed mostly from the local problems o f gentry Hungary and we more o r less got bogged down in them.” György LukAcs 1969 (Magyar irodalom — magyar kultûra. 1970 (p. 625) (Hung, literature — Hung, culture)

Ignée Goldziher would, in all probability, win first place in the rather ignoble contest among the great Hungarian scholars o f the past, as the one whose world-fame, earned through epoch-making scientific activity, is in inverse proportion to the veneration and recognition given to him by his own nation. Contemporary scholars abroad regarded Goldziher as the founder o f a new branch o f learning, the study o f Islam. It has since been established that he was not just the founder o f a new branch o f learning but its greatest contributor ever, whose world-fame, acquired a century ago, has not subsided. On the contrary! In the last two decades interest has grown steadily in his scholarly synthesis, uniquely coherent o f its kind. The interest o f the non-professionals can be judged, for example, by the publication o f his collected works abroad,1 the frequent reprinting o f his all-embracing monographs,1 the recent translations o f his works into major1 and minor4 languages, and the attempts to fit the Goldziher-phenomenon into the broad context o f the history o f science— to mention but the most obvious manifestations. (The most significant attem pt was W aardenburg’s in 1962.) The unceasing and growing interest towards Goldziher’s oeuvre is unquestionable evidence that this phenomenon is not in any way to be qualified by commonplaces like ‘the honourable creation o f a new branch o f learning’ or ‘aspects that deserved attention at that time’ or a ‘rich collection o f facts* compiled in the service of the sacra pkUologia with tireless industry. However respect-

* Notes on this essay can be found on pp. 67—76.

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GOLDZIHER’S U FE AND ACTIVITY

able they may be, efforts o f this kind in a lifework can only guarantee a worthy niche, without any astonishing after-life or inspiring and direct influence a century later. Let us assume that the unresolved secret o f Goldziher’s still unsurpas­ sed scholarly achievement is some sort o f grandiose attem pt at synthesis, a still-valid world concept, beyond the creation o f a new branch o f learning. Actually, what power can emanate from the works of an east­ ern European scholar o f the 1870s who was a Hungarian o f Jewish origin, and whose world view and judgement o f social values were defined from the very beginning by the 'Prussian way o f development’ after the defeated revolution o f 1848-49 and the dualistic structure o f the Hungarian society which was unable to cope with the antinomies o f the national and bourgeois development and bequeathed them upon the following century? Even for a sketchy answer, various aspects o f unequal development have to be studied, not yet or only sporadically investi­ gated.9 Although one o f the crucial aspects o f the emergence o f this phe­ nomenon in eastern Europe, i.e. the discrepancy between the self­ reflection o f the sick national development and the actual historical movement was sorted out inspiringly by Jend Szttcs in a seminal work o f the Hungarian historical science : A nemzet historikuma is a törtinelem szem lélet nem zeti làtôszoge. Hozzâszôlàs egy vitàhoz, 1970; in German: 1981 the nationalistic attitude to history is becoming more and more dominant in the various forms o f mind. This erroneous and undialectical attitude not only emphasizes the continuity o f the past but also regards differences in the development o f eastern Europe and the rest o f the world as merely quantitative or somewhat asynchronous. When analysing this purely scientific-looking phenomenon it is obvious that numerous aspects o f unequal development have to be tackled, in passing at least. Flattering though it is to our nationalistic feelings, it must be admitted that it is not at all self-evident that the founder of, and still unsurpassed contributor to, the study o f Islam was a Jew—the repre­ sentative of a special national minority who was compelled to accept essential compro mises because he wanted to be a real Hungarian. This phenomenon can be only understood through a complex historical deve­ lopment, abnormal and inorganic for multiple reasons.

T h e M o r a l s o f a P a r a d ig m a t ic L if e * “ Spinoza lived as an ordinary member o f society to be able to write as a philosopher.” — La M ettrie “Once again I spent a week in Berlin and two days in Dresden. I am convinced I would have become a finer man if Fate had guided me there at a young age. Budapest is the world of the Kamtschadals! It is paved with despised pariahs.” (J. Péterly’s letter to Goklziher, 30 August, 1897)

The modem recorder o f Goldziher’s life, career, personality and human and scholarly ethos is especially lucky. H itherto there have been numer­ ous reliable and complementary documents produced by people who were his assistants, students or close friends. Now, Sândor Scheiber has published Goldziher’s Diary in German (Tagebuch, Leiden, Brill, 1978): its existence was known, and it was thought likely to be o f out­ standing documentary value, but its actual significance surpassed all expectations. It is especially true for the first part o f this all-embracing summary o f his life which he began to write in 1890 to review and evaluate the first forty years o f his life. Besides containing the summary o f a paradigmatic life the Diary is a unique document o f Hungary’s twenty years after the Compromise (1867). Goldziher began to write his Diary for the benefit o f his sons. He made the first entry on his 40th birthday, 22 June, 1890 and he made the last entry two years before his death on 1 September, 1919. When reviewing the earlier years o f his life he relied on the diary o f his ’Muhammadan year* written during his tour o f the East. This exceptional Tm-calling-from-deep-down’ testimony is all the more valuable for posterity because the authentic facts o f Goldziher’s life that reflect the awkward position o f the national minorities, denominations and the socio-scientific research in the dualistic Hungary, predetermined from the start by the overweight and ’sick* nationalistic element—these sufficiently counterbalance the European scale o f his oeuvre, harbouring contingencies and the unconditional

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veneration o f various documents. (The greater part o f the letters, com­ memorations, book reviews and so on.) W. Montgomery W att, one o f the greatest researchers o f Islam today, aptly characterised the incompat­ ibility o f Goldziher’s life and oeuvre in his book review, cleverly entitled The prisoner o f Budapest. “Goldziher’s apparently effortless mastery o f his subject and the even tenor o f his scholarly expositions suggest a placid existence in the groves o f academe. The publication o f this Tagebuch shown such a suggestion to be completely erroneous. All these works o f serene and profound scholarship came from one who was engaged for over thirty years in an intense spiritual struggle against forces which made his daily life almost unbearable and threatened to destroy all his confidence in himself.” (TLS, 8th Sept., 1978, p. 998) The greater part o f the Diary gives an account o f this intense spiritual struggle. At the same time, the problems o f the Hungarian Jewry and the change o f era in Hungary’s scientific life are unavoidably spotlighted since Goldziher’s personal tragedy is inseparable from them. In the course o f these processes the cultural, ideological and scientific tendencies o f the Age o f Reform, ending with the reforming ideas of J. Eötvös, gradually gave way, from the 1870s onwards, to Christian-nation­ alistic ones that reached their climax after the turn of the century. Because o f the subjective character o f the testimony it may contain a one-sided opinion o f some o f Goldziher’s contemporaries (of Âgoston Trefort, for example.) Leading a paradigmatic life and being a truly great scholar, Goldziher’s opinions are almost always right. His sharp criticism o f the Jewish grand-bourgeoisie that strived to be assimilated at any price in the society o f gentry Hungary (see the convincing findings o f W. O. McCagg, 1972)7 and that o f the developing populist-nationalis­ tic social sciences, whose function was to reflect current political events in a historical fashion, were especially to the point. (See the features o f the trend à la V&mbéry that are still gaining strength*.) This most personal and most authentic source is counterbalanced and supplemented by Goldziher’s exceptionally rich and manifold correspondence and remembrances o f his friends and his students. Since 18th October 1933, Goldziher’s literary legacy (the most impor­ tant part o f which is the bulk o f letters written to him) has been kept in the Library o f the Hungarian Academy o f Sciences. The mere quan­ tity o f these letters is astounding: the 45 boxes contain 13,700 letters

MORALS OF A PARADIGMATIC LIFE

lo ­

tiront 1,650 persons. Goldziher kept in touch with every reputable arabist^ Semitic philologist, historian o f religions, representatives o f numerous interdisciplinary sciences o f his time and almost all o f the outstanding figures o f the Hungarian scientific life. These fascinating letters, written to him by the great contemporary scholars o f a similar turn o f mind, could pass for scientific papers. The epistles o f T. Nöldeke, C. SnouckHurgronje or C. H. Becker, as yet unpublished, convey more ideas and have greaer scientific value besides their human and documentary force than many o f the mass-produced pieces o f modern philology. The quantity and the quality o f theses letters make them more than the occasional by-product o f a private life or o f extensive scientific activity. This enormous correspondence is the evidence o f a severe dyspnoea so shockingly expressed in many o f the entries o f the Diary. These ersatz-contacts by way of epistles were to compensate for the lack o f real social bonds and relationships, for the lack o f a direct medium. One o f Goldziher’s students, A. S. Yahuda quoted his master as saying “if I receive a letter from Nöldeke or Snouck I feel as if I were given a precious gift. A happy and solemn mood descends upon me immedi­ ately” (1924, p. 583). Goldziher transformed correspondence into a veri­ table cult. (See: Yahuda, ib. 1924,pp. 583-584). In his commemorative speech for his old Leipzig professor, H. L. Fleischer, Goldziher again gave away himself when he compared with deep nostalgia the personal and scientific contacts o f the old and happy times to those o f the great rush o f the modem times. “The era o f post cards does not foster the tradition o f thorough and detailed correspondence that belonged to the generation procee­ ding ours and helped to maintain spiritual contact. Despite his nu­ merous activities, the deceased was especially keen on pursuing this means o f maintaining spiritual contact. That way, he remained the spiritual leader o f his students decades after they ceased to meet in person. He always took pains to declare his views at great length in his letters which, although never written for the general public, were always stylistic and formal masterpieces o f order and taste.” (1889 b, pp. 4-5) Even this miserable form o f relationship with the world was a mat­ ter o f life and death for Goldziher. One o f his Hungarian students,. J. Somogyi, recalls his advice in his reminiscences.

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g o l d z ih e r ’s l if e a n d a c t iv it y

“T w o things I enjoin on you if you want to prosper in life’, he said to me once. ‘Answer every letter or card you receive, even if your answer be negative; and take part in the Orientalists’ congresses with lectures. This is as im portant as literary work.’” (1961, p. 9) The loneliness behind this enormous correspondence and the doubts prompted by the real social medium rarely surfaced. (See the references in some o f the replies by Nöldeke, Snouck-Hurgronje and Max van Berchem.) The consolations offered by these giants of science o f the 19th century sufficiently underline how much o f an outsider Goldziher was. Max van Berchem, the outstanding arabist o f Geneva (1863-1921) who was the founder o f Arabic epigraphy and a great historian o f economics wrote in his letter o f 15th May, 1892 to Goldziher: “A fter all you have created you have no cause to be crestfallen. After all, you are the first who fathomed Arabic literature from a historical and religious point o f view and you have reached deeper down to the roots than anybody before you. There are very useful men who com­ pile the facts only. They are badly needed but thought and original works are even more badly needed, especially if they are as profoundly methodical and academically stable as yours are.“ A nd here is what T. Nöldeke, the brightest Semitic philologist o f the past century and the outstanding researcher o f Iran wrote to his friend (then aged 54) on 12th February, 1904. “Unfortunately you have a special inclination to undervalue your­ self. I am not one to praise somebody in the face but under these circumstances I have got to declare that you, dear Goldziher, are first class. Though I could say more I choose to stop here and now. If you are not recognized in your country it is your countrymen’s fault and loss. Once Budenz, my old friend wrote me long after he returned to Hungary that he was deeply convinced the Hungarians had no ap­ preciation o f the sciences.” As earlier evaluations o f Goldziher’s life and oeuvre in Hungary and abroad will be dealt with later on several accounts, let these excerpts o f letters stand here to mark the discrepancy between the tribute given to Goldziher’s academic activities and his personal demand o f social contacts abroad on the one hand, and the indifference at home on the other.

MORALS OF A PARADIGMATIC LIFE

17

When describing Goldziher’s world view and career, the remembrances o f his students, friends or fellow-scientists acquire diverse importance. As far as details o f his career are concerned, his students* remembrances are o f primary value (in explaining the facts in his D iary.) The two essays by one o f his best students, Bernât Heller, (published in 1927 and 1932), a collection o f biographical data by A. S. Yahuda (1924) based on Gold­ ziher’s personal notes, and the reminiscences o f J. de Somogyi, are in this category. O f the remembrances o f his great colleagues, those o f C. Snouck-Hurgronje is o f outstanding importance. (Originally published in the Dutch language, de Gids IV, 1921, pp. 289-499; first published in Hungarian in 1941). O f fundamental importance for judging Goldziher’s personal life and scholarly career are the commemorative pieces o f C. H. Becker (1922), the first truly great historian o f Islamic society and eco­ nomy (in my opinion, his is the most piercing evaluation in the history o f science—R. S.), that o f V. V. Bartold, the great Russian orientalist (1922) and that o f L. Massignon who produced the greatest results in the research o f the misticism o f Islam. (First published in 1922, reprinted in 1927 and 1969.) Later appreciations are, in fact, based on the above mentioned ones, accepting some o f the disputable or false statements contained in them. (Non-denial o f false statements, either by concealing them or relegating the misinterpreted basic facts o f life to unimportant episodes, is taken for acceptance.) A t this point suffice it to mention the two gravest misinterpretations—all the more so, since clearing up the mess about these kindred erroneous statements is one o f the funda­ mental aims o f this study. The first o f the two misinterpretations, a spectacular but utterly groundless paradox aired by L. Massignon in connection with Goldziher’s M ythos bei den Hebräern (1876) is the author’s *siontsme spiritueP (1927, XVI). As this item will be dealt with later, I will merely say here that ours is a century in which uncontested, groundless and rather fishy statements cannot be made without conse­ quences. Spirited denials by Bernât Heller did not seem to have come from the right source. 1927a, p. XVI. no. 3; 1932, p. 25). Massignon’s gossip o f a stray judgement lacking the basic clarity o f scientific notions became especially damaging after 1945. Between the two world wars there was a simple reason behind pushing Goldziher into the dark and not publishing his works in his country. U ntil the fall o f the Hungarian Republic o f Councils in 1919 nobody questioned his Hungarianhood, at least not directly. (A contradictory but characteristic event o f the time was that the MMagyarorszâgi Bajtârsi Szôvetség” (Hungarian Society o f Comrades”) founded in 1916 under the leadership

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o f Albert Berzeviczy, the then president o f the Hungarian Academy o f Sciences, who served as minister o f culture in the cabinet o f Istvén Tisza, elected Goldziher member o f the scientific and literary section.) In 1919 he was put on the index during the violent wave o f open anti­ semitism. (In 1919, when downright accusations o f the Jews were shouted during a section meeting in the Academy Goldziher resigned his chair­ manship. (See: I. Low, 1923, p. 303) And that is in sharp contrast to some events by which the Horthy-regime was trying to make itself outwardly acceptable. (Events o f this kind include an official greeting ceremony at his 70th birthday, his burial or the opening o f the Goldziherroom in the Hungarian Academy o f Sciences on 18th O ct 1933) As was already mentioned, the unsubstantiated judgement was extremely da­ maging after 1945. Then, in an effort to maintain the independence o f the pure philological research Hungarian orientalists shunned every problem subject to possible political evaluation. Instead o f publishing Goldziher’s works or giving his lifework its due, some commemorative writings came out at the centenary o f his birth and at the 50th anniversary o f his death as was customary. It is to the credit o f Gyula Németh, a turcologist, that in his commemorative speech o f 22 June, 1930 he reinstated for the benefit o f foreign scholars the significancance o f Gold­ ziher’s works available in Hungarian only, with special regard to “A z iszlàm ” (1881) on the question o f the priority o f the research o f badllh. However, he failed to realize that the young Goldziher’a set o f besetting problems (which he chose as the title o f his study: Goldzihers Jugend) comprised the unity o f the national and bourgeois existence and an attem pt at merging the socially bound scholar and the ethically religious individual in one man. Németh ducked this fundamental question by declaring that Goldziher’s early work, Der M ythos bei den Hebräern was but a rarity in the history o f science and a mere episode in the author’s lifework. In 1930-51 this was understandable but not acceptable. The commemorative study by Czeglédy in 1971 to mark the 50th an­ niversary o f Goldziher’s death must have made everybody doubtful: if Hungary had a scholar o f that calibre why not give him his due? But if he is remembered only by a few fellow-scholars, why bother about him at all? These two commemorations, that paid tribute to Goldziher but failed to answer haunting questions about him, are mentioned here to demonstrate that a philology void o f politics is able neither to cope with the Goldziher-phenomenon nor to reject Massignon’s superficial remarks about a real great scholar. The helplessness and unwillingness to face its own problems is all the more striking because this non-poli-

MORALS OF A PARADIGMATIC LIFE

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tk al philology is naivety prepared to cooperate with some thoroughly ideological trends that do not seem dangerous from a purely scientific (or philological) point o f view. Think o f the problem o f the prehistory or the ethnogenesis o f the Hungarian people which in itself looks like a truly scientific question. However, it implies a lot more since national development in Hungary had turned into nationalism in the last century. Its various trends presented actual social problems in historical clad­ ding. (From the time Zsolt Beöthy invented his ‘Volga Rider*, some sort o f special, ancient Hungarian mentality had to be dosaged to the ‘Specific Hungarian Fate* to make a scientific-looking concoction.) W ith advance o f nationalistic attitudes towards history, the problem o f ancient history took new forms. Characteristically, the science o f history ho­ noured a man called Vémbéry, published his works and recognized him as one o f the greatest scholars o f the era—avoiding all fundamental problems, although Vâmbéry’s lifework was an obvious blind alley since it advocated a kinship between the Turks and the Hungarians. As to his social and political ideas, he preached with plain cynicism “the white man’s burden** in Asia. This choice has to be given attention because it ostensibly was a social and a political one, and a bad one at that. Moreover, the academic performance o f the two men cannot be compared. The second erroneous or empty commonplace o f a generalisation was not as damaging as the first; however, it convincingly demonstrated how doggedly the exact philology could cling to outwardly pretty but misleading judgements which were quite meaningless in their own right and which acquired a rather sinister meaning in a certain historical and political context. As the development o f contending ideological forms in the course o f the social reproduction o f an alive and developing community, the changing ideological concensus o f a changing community and Goldziher’s Ieitmotive will be dealt with later, let it be enough here to analyse briefly the ideological generalization which is a hardened commonplace unchallenged by historians but definitely rejected by Goldziher himself (see Muhammedanische Studien II, 1890, p. 194). R. G ottheil, R. Hartmann and B. Heller all emphasized in their comme­ moration (1922, pp. 189-190; 1922, p. 287; 1927b, p. 269) that Goldziher was able to grasp the ideological development o f Islam through the analogy o f Judaism. Let us quote Heller’s careful text which referred to certain differences and was echoed uncritically in Hungarian evalu­ ations ever since.

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“Professor Goldziher was able to grasp the depth and breadth o f Islam because he had a deep understanding o f Judaism. The distinction between the Koran and the Sunnah became so clear to him because he grew up in the respect o f written and oral teachings. He distinguished between halakhah and haggadah in the Jewish tradition just as he did between the standards o f law and the ethical narrative and escha­ tological tenets within the badlth.” This remark, conceived either with good will or otherwise, deserves special attention again because it implies that the secret o f academic achievement, not thoroughly understood or analysed, must be something mysteriously Jewish. If the analogy is taken seriously it would mean that the historical development of the Arabs and the Jews, the ideologies behind their social reproduction, ie. Islam and Judaism, are kindred phenomena. This obvious historical trash is not worth giving a second thought. There remains the figurative interpretation o f the analogy. If on the one hand two social structures comprise a ne varietur legal norm based transcendently on sacred books which, on the other hand, sanctions a social practice that changes with the development o f society producing a double system o f manifold customs, the conclusion is that the two social structures have something in common. But this unanalysed analogy th at surfaced in the commemorations, only suggests the abstract truth which Marx hinted at in The German Ideology. 'T h e attitude of the bourgeois to the institutions o f his regime is like that o f the Jew to the law; he evades them whenever it is possible to do so in each case but he wants everyone else to observe them .” (K. M arx, F. Engels: Collected W orks, Vol. 5, 1845-1847, p. 180) So, all he refers to is the duality o f a codified legal norm and the practice o f a class, a group or an individual, valid not only for Jews and Arabs. It is not fortious that several o f Goldziher’s contemporaries (mostly the bearers of the “white man’s burden”) recognized this duality within Islam and the special sanctioning o f the social practice without much knowledge o f the Talmud. The cleverest o f all was C. Snouck-Hurgronje (1857-1936) who served in Indonesia, which had been converted to Islam and then colonized by the Netherlands. Naturally, the duality o f codified law and social practices in bourgeois society was not unknown to this great colleague o f Goldziher. When I criticize the generalisation analyzed above, it is not to avoid answering the question; on the contrary.

MORALS OF A PARADIGMATIC LIFE

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this criticism is o f utmost importance. But my question is what role did Judaism and the Jews, this specific historical community, play in the development o f the world concept and basic views o f Goldziher who was inspired by Eötvös’ reform ideas and subordinated religion to bour­ geois development? It is one thing to examine the question in its historical context with theoretical accuracy, but to get bogged down with a versatile abstraction o f a Jew concept is quite another. I intend to make an attem pt at the former here and I want to prove that Goldziher was able to lay the foundations o f the study o f Islam because he wanted to become a Hungarian who tried to blend Judaic ethics with his would-be bour­ geois existence. These introductory notes make the review o f Goldziher’s lifework somewhat irregular. To be able to understand it, a number o f extant problems, both social and conscious, have to be faced. Goldziher lived in a period o f Hungary’s modem history when all basic contradictions of the national and bourgeois development came to the surface. As a result o f unequal development, these contradictions are our inheritance. Let us have a look at them through an instructive Curriculum vitae. Ignée Goldziher’s forefathers were compelled to flee from Spain: the family settled down in Hamburg; later they moved to Berlin and Vienna. It is worth mentioning that they intermarried with the Heine family. The founder o f the Hungarian branch o f the family was Môzes Goldziher who came to Kôpcsény (Kittsee o f Wieseburg) from Hamburg in 1730. It was his greatgrandson Vitus who moved over to Székesfehérvér with his son A dolf who was to become the father o f Ignée Goldziher. Adolf Goldziher was a leather-merchant whose family lived very humbly. Ignée Goldziher was bom in Székeshérvér on 22 June, 1830. The family lived in Székesfehérvér until 1865. Ignée Goldziher finished the first S forms o f secondary school at the Cistercians there. Besides absorbing classical philology he studied the Bible and the Talmud thoroughly. He demonstrated at an astonishingly early age what a good grasp he had of the latter by writing a short essay in German at the age o f 12 entitled Slhat Yizifaq (Budapest, 1862, p. 19; The M editation o f Isaac), a treatise on the origin, schedule and time o f prayers. This short essay deserves attention since the major feature o f Goldziher’s later world concept and social dedication, ie. the historical analysis o f religion and the support given to Jewish reformist efforts, could have been observed in it. It is characteristic o f the reform atmosphere o f the age that Goldziher’s teacher, a Cistercian monk, greeted him in class at the time his essay was published and called him Ignatius autorculus. (See: Heller, 1927,

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pp. 261-2) This very early essay was a forerunner o f Goldziher’s later works (above all o f Der M ythos bei den Hebräern* 1867 and a series o f lectures entitled the Essence and Development o f the Jewry 1888) in that it provoked sharp protest o f the conservative Jews. Goldziher’s Diary reads: “This work o f mine was the first stone to the foundation o f my bad reputation as a freethinker. The Jews o f Székesfehérvâr were disgusted and called me a Spinozist.” (Tagebuch, p. 22) It is known from the Diary that this first wave o f disgust and denuncia­ tion was followed by more severe and depressing ones among the religi­ ous community. (A fter the Der M ythos bei den Hebräern appeared an action was initiated against him that he be removed from the secretary­ ship o f the religious community and several hundreds o f people signed a petition to demand this. (See : Tagebuch, pp. 88-89) In 1897 the manage­ ment o f the rabbinical school condemned the tendencies represented by him comparing them to those of Steinthal. In the management’s opinion Goldziher was spreading atheism and nihilism. (See: Tagebuch, p. 212) In 1865 the family moved to Budapest where Ignée Goldziher finished his secondary education in the Secondary School o f the Reformed Church under rough conditions in 1867. One o f his school-mates was Max Nordau (Tagebuch, p. 30) who later became a prominent Zionist. A t a later stage, when examining Goldziher’s worldview in the context o f the antinomies o f the national and bourgeois development, I will refer to their exchange o f letters in 1920 from which the antagonism o f their historical choices will be clearly seen. The roughness of the last years o f his secondary schooling and his family’s move to Budapest were due to his father’s bankruptcy in 1865. The event had such a deep impact on Goldziher that a doctor adviced that he should not attend school for one year (from Sept, 1865). That year, without passing his matriculation examination he enrolled as a special student at the univer­ sity o f Budapest. He attended classes of classical philology, philosophical history, linguistics and oriental studies given by Ivén Télfy (1816-1898), Cyrill Horvéth (1804-1884), Szende Riedl, the Germanist (1831-1873) and Armin Vémbéry (1832-1913) who was then a newly appointed lecturer. Because o f another illness he sat for matriculation exams only in 1868. O f his exceptional two and half years at the university, one year was accepted; thus in the 1868-69 academic year he registered as a 2nd year student. (See: Tagebuch, pp. 23-31) Having passed the m atri­

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culation examination he studied philosophy, philology and oriental studies as well as Hungarian philology, which was taught by Ferenc Toldy (1805-1875), in two terms. As a student o f exceptional ability he soon attracted attention and was awarded a pro diligentia prize on two occasions (amounting to 50 Forints each). Both prizes come to him at the time when, for a short while, the wave o f liberalization during the 1860s seemed to be able to clear the obstacles from the way o f bourgeois development. In 1868 Jözsef Eötvös (1801-1871), who was the minister o f religion and public education between 1867-71, sent him abroad on a government scholarship with the definite intention o f making him a university professor. Goldziher wrote this about it in his Diary: ‘T h e M inister o f public education for Hungary, Jözsef Eötvös requested the university to nominate students whom he would send abroad with a government stipend to receive the higher education prospective university professors would need.** M 6r Ballagi (1815-1891) and Armin Vâmbéry nominated Goldziher. Before making his decision, Eötvös asked Goldziher to see him in April 1868 because he wanted to make sure personally that the nomination was correct. Goldziher said o f the meeting: “Eötvös wanted me to outline a plan of my future studies. His invitation took me by surprise but I had the presence o f mind to deliver an off-the-cuff speech on my ideas o f oriental studies before that remarkable man. I told him I attached special importance to the study o f the historical development o f human institutions in their religious and political context. If I had the opportunity I would study this set o f questions in a Semitic environment. Eötvös replied that it would be a valuable contribution to the Hungarian science.** (Tagebucht pp. 33-34) Needless to say that the Rector o f the University, L. Roder (1812-1878) a Catholic priest, did everything in the power o f the University Council to prevent Goldziher from being sent abroad and literally threw him out o f his office shouting “Are you taking me for a rabbi, too?** Finally, Eötvös had to intervene via his secretary o f state, Gedeon Tanarky. (Tagebuch, p. 35) The seriously ill Eötvös wrote to his secretary o f state on 10 September, 1868:

24

GOLDZIHER’S LIFE AND ACTIVITY

“Ignée Goldziher, nominated by Ballagi and Vémbéry is to receive 400 Forints from the M inistry as stipend to help him pursue his studies abroad because he gave me the impression, when I spoke to him on several occasions, that he was a very promising and bright young man.“ (Heller, 1927b, p. 261) Then, he declared his opinion and plans about Goldziher: “I had known a lot o f youths who prepared for a scientific career and I have long since lost my optimism about them. However, I am optimistic and think that this young man will become an excellent teacher o f the Semitic languages.” (Heller, 1927b, p. 261 ; 1932, p. 21) It must be remembered that these words were written down in the second year of the Compromise, in 1868 by Jözsef Eötvös who champi­ oned the bourgeois development and did the most to emancipate the Jews. Goldziher’s fruitful Wanderjahre that determined all his later life began in 1868 and ended with a study tour o f the East in 1873-74. During those years he had the opportunity to learn from the greatest orientalists, historians o f religion and linguists, and to make friends forever with the most outstanding representatives o f these branches o f learning. The experiences he gathered during his long years o f wan­ dering provided a sharp contrast to the conditions in Hungary since the state o f academic affairs reflected the backwardness o f society much more markedly than later. The reputation o f science in Hungary and The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy* was characterised by Goldziher at the beginning of his studies as follows: “I introduced myself to my future professors most o f whom treated me with ostensible irony. The science o f Austria was subject to ridicule in Northern-Germany. As regards my professional studies, they were identified with Hammer-Purgstall. Moreover, Hungary was thought to be a state o f barbarians and the gentlemen I met were amused to learn that a man had set out from that country to become a scholar.” (Tagebuch, p. 37) Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1836) was a notorious figure in the study o f the Orient in Austria. Although his influence was positive (Goethe praised him in his notes to the W estöstlicher Diwan and F. Rückert’s Persian

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translations were also inspired by his works) he failed to observe the basic principles o f philology in his works which were taken to pieces by contemporary critics. (See: Fück, 1955, pp. 158-66 on his career) The specific effect o f the Wanderjahre on Goldziher’s worldview must be emphasized. His studies in Berlin and Leipzig, his researches in Leiden and Vienna, together with his study tour to Syria and Egypt, added the final touch to his irreversibly totalitarian attitude towards world history. Under the guidance o f the best professors o f that time he grew acquainted with the latest scientific methods and ideas, with the modern critical research o f the Bible, for example, the results o f which he not only endorsed but successfully developed. In Goldziher’s world view the work! historic attitude acquired decisive force, the duality o f which must be pointed out. Goldziher considered the special phenomena as part o f universal history and examined social ones in the course o f their dynamic development. However, Goldziher rejected the two dominating world views o f the social sciences: the positivism and especi­ ally the historism which attained wide currency in German scientific life o f those decades by Ranke, Mommsen, Droysen, Treitschke and others. To save anticipating later analysis, here it will do just to indicate that Goldziher, a member o f a not-yet-developed East European bour­ geois society rejected both positivism—the scientific technique o f the developed and dominating bourgeois society, void o f any real world concept—and historism—the container o f the “M achtstaar-idca which was the main support o f the German nationalism. Goldziher’s special position and the set o f given historical conditions gave rise to a coherent bourgeois world view that could take only a general and abstract form resembling the enlightened rationalism blended with hegelianism. Let us consider who were Goldziher’s professors and friends during his long academic apprenticeship in Europe and in the East. As the development and standing o f Arabic studies within the social sciences, as well as their epistemological aspects, will be dealt with later, the short description given below will only be comprehensible if accompanied by a brief review o f the history o f sciences. However it must be remembered that this was the era when the study o f the Orient was about to be bom as a science. This was partly so because capitalism had colonized the Middle East and North-Africa a t an advanced stage in its develop­ ment, in the second half o f the 19th century; and partly because the bourgeois social scientists eventually managed to be rid o f the era o f the histoire universelle o f the enlightenment based on the right o f nature, which did not acknowledge qualitative differences within the development

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o f Humanity. Furthermore, both left and right rejected the Hegelian historical philosophy, even though it represented the totalitarian and historical character o f world history despite all its speculative idealism. As will be seen later, the study o f the Orient, gradually established as a philological discipline, did not take part in this fight. The two main tasks o f this newly born discipline were to acquire independence and to work out scientific methods applicable to its subject-matter. It will be sufficient to quote Diez* definition from 1815 to perceive the first task in the same way as Goldziher: “The word ‘orientalist* hitherto stood for a public teacher who absorbed biblical literature and Hebrew and Arabic to be able to teach them in higher educational institutions. (Goldziher, 1889b, P* 13) N aturally, there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the liberation o f the biblical exegesis (ancUla) and its availability to the lay readers, and the power of the bourgeoisie that created the world market. After the initiatives10 o f the D utch School's Th. Erpenius (1584-1624), J. Golius (1596-1667), A. Schultens (1686-1750) and J. J. Reiske (17161774, the unmatched German master o f classical philology and the study o f the Orient), Napoleon*s campaign to the East had been a major turning point. Earlier connections established by missionaries, diplomats and merchants o f luxury items had been swept away by the beginning o f capitalism’s political and economic hegemony throughout the world. In Paris, an École spéciale des langues orientales was set up as early as 1796; and its first and greatest arabist was Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838) who was accomplished and well-versed in most branches o f the study o f the Orient and created a school on account o f his out­ standing work. The lion’s share o f his lifework served practical aims and attempted to follow the rules of classical philology in its approach. He was the master o f one o f Goldziher’s most significant professors, H. L. Fleischer, who was an influential teacher o f Arabic philology in Germany and directed what was then the greatest workshop o f the Arabic studies in a fatherly manner. His school was called “the Leipzig workshop o f the East and an affiliate o f the Sacy-school” . (Goldziher, 1889b, p. 15) The second task was to elaborate the basic methods o f the study o f the Orient. This problem existed among those that had not figured so far in the European research o f the theory o f science and criticism of

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ideologies. Oddly enough, as a symptom o f the deeply rooted antagonism between the European study o f the Orient and the Arabic social sciences that were o f growing importance, the latter sharply criticized the former in the field o f criticism o f ideas on several occasions11. But there are few brandies o f the social sdences whose achievements comprise as many purely ideological elements, from subject-matter to judgements o f value transformed into judgements o f fact, as the study o f the Orient's. A part from some exceptional achievements, the ideological elements are rather incoherently connected to one another and to their subject Consequently, they can be identified more or less easily1*. Let us quote Goldziher on the motivation behind the research into dialects, a seem­ ingly innocent discipline. "W hile in the past centuries people were driven by the urge to convert others, these days they are driven by their own financial interests. Even the dialects o f the Arabic language are o f the German colonists as Arabic is spoken in Zanzibar and on the continental seaboard o f Africa. It is common knowledge that the Reich has manifold political interests in this part o f East-Africa.” (1895c, pp. 95-96) Speaking o f the oriental studies o f the French, that had been ultimately influenced by the colonization o f North-Africa1*, Goldziher remarked: " It is easy to guess why the dialects o f North-Africa are given so much attention by the French. A fter the conquest o f Algeria a working command o f the local Arabic dialect has acquired vital importance for thousands o f men who served in governmental offices or settled down there. France could not have satisfied her political interests or fulfilled her, so called, cultural mission on the northern and western seaboards of Africa without a good command o f the native language." (1895c, pp. 91-92) Goldziher described the relationship o f the state and the science by bitterly confronting the western practice with manifold interest in the East and the lack o f social commissions characteristic o f the state o f affairs in Hungary. "It is unfair to say that sciences flourish where governmental and social support relieves scientists and scholars o f need and makes the

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fulfilment o f their tasks easy, like for example, in England. It is fairer to say so where the lack o f support cannot deter the men from fol­ lowing the straight path o f science and it does not cool off their devoted enthusiasm. The history o f science has proven that the greatest works were not inspired by encouragement. They were born through the sacrifice o f great minds. (1895d, p. 97) But this was written much later. We are in the year 1868, at the enthu­ siastic beginning and the high hopes formulated by Eötvös. Before discussing direct influences it would be instructive to review, a t least briefly, the most significant works in the field o f the Arabic studies that were considered fundamental during Goldziher’s university years and to look at the influence they exerted on his world view. A t that time scientific research was focussed on Mohammad and the religious problems o f the foundation o f Islam. The political history o f the rise and fall o f the caliphate was pushed into the background. The concepts, accepted at least for half a century, were in statu nascendi examples that the Arabic studies did not let themselves be influenced by contemporary historical and ethnographical research. The biographies of Mohammed by G. Weil (1808-1889) (M ohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre, 1843), W. M uir (1819-1903) (The U fe o f Mahomet and the H is­ tory o f Islam, 1858-1861) and A. Sprenger (1813-1893) (Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed, 1861-1865) were but discussions o f a religious problem in biographical form, supplemented by diverse meditations on the history o f culture as a special interest, although the third one outclas­ sed the first two. That the authors utilized sources o f growing number was a novelty but none o f them applied strict principles to their subjects. Weil respected his text beyond reasonable limits, as was customary in classical philology: the disastrous result was a dry catalogue. M uir, a Scottish missionary, tried to approach his subject as an objective Christian should do. Sprenger, originally a doctor, produced a stylish and imaginative diagnosis o f the hysteric and sexually abnormal Moham­ med. As a follow-up to their biographies of Mohammed, both Weil and M uir wrote a book about the history o f the caliphate. Weil’s books were Geschichte der Chalifen, 1846-1851 and the Geschichte des Abbasidenchalifats in Aegypten, 1860-1862; M uir’s were entitled the Annals o f the Caliphate, 1853, dealing with the Umayyad period and The Chaliphate, its rise, decline and fa ll, 1891, extending up to 1520. As the religious problem was simplified into a biography, so was the political history o f the caliphate into a history o f dynasties. (The

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only difference was that Weil’s German accuracy made his work almost indigestable or Jedem as Nöldeke put it, while M uir’s one showed a close spiritual kinship to Gibbon’s, in that M uir had bor­ rowed the title o f his work. But his priestly moralizing on the relationship o f easy divorce, veiling and the half-barbarous state o f the Moslem world would not pass even as a caricature o f the Gibbonian perception o f history). Neither the biographical history o f religions nor the dynastic history o f politics could have attracted Goldziher’s attention because o f their respective barenness o f thought and unreality. Three other works, how­ ever, proved crucial for him. One o f the three was the early book on the Koran by Theodor Nöldeke (1836-1930), possibly the greatest philologist to study the Orient. In the Geschichte des Qorans, I860 he tried to re­ construct the origin and the true structure o f the holy book o f Islam. Together with later additions his is a standard work14 in this field and a philological masterpiece, in that it is comparable to the best critical attem pts at analysing the Old and the New Testaments. As no true and lasting philological achievement is feasible without a coherent world view in keeping with the meaningful elements o f contemporary society, Nöldeke’s exceptional one is clearly based on a readily perceptible world view that likens him to J. Wellhausen, the great critic o f the Bible and outstanding arabist historian who worked in a similar protestant environment in the north o f Germany. Nöldeke, who on the basis o f enlightened rationalism regarded the classical Greek and Roman develop­ ment as normative, represented the world view o f the bourgeois individual yearning for independence. The positive aspects o f his position are basically related to the standpoints o f J. Burckhardt, the great Swiss cul­ ture historian, without the negative, criticism o f anticulture and egali­ tarian bourgeois development. Such a world view, rare in the Germany o f the end-19th century, is obviously the concentrated and abstract continuation o f the German enlightenment which was as much opposed to (non-historic) historism (Nöldeke criticized sharply Mommsen’s non-historical remarks in the Römische Geschichte) as to positivismindifferent towards its subject-matter and aim. (confer Flick, 1935, p. 217) Wrote Nöldeke on 2 December, 1894 about his early work to Goklziher: (Probably The Arabic-Mohantmadan realencyclopaedia, first mentioned in 1892, see: Tagebuch, p. 150; later realized as the Enzy­ klopädie des Islam, Leiden, 1913-1942, new edition from 1954) was the work in the production o f which Nöldeke was to take part)

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“It is my ultimate wish not to be harrassed by Mohammad and the Koran. When I was young I was preoccupied with these subjects for some reason or other. I must confess that they seem to be more mysterious now than ever before. I feel the same about a number o f other things in the Old Testament. ! am too modern a European to see clearly in that world of dreams.” On 12 February 1904 Nöldeke declared his views in connection with Goldziher’s book on Mohammed Ibn Tüm art that appeared in 1902. “You must be aware that the Arabic theological literature is rather unknown to me, if not entirely. I have never studied Gazäli seriously. I am too thoroughly impregnated with rationality not to take the side o f Ibn RuSd in an argument between the philosophers and him. When I was reading your interpretation my old doubts began to haunt me again whether religion brought more happiness to people than suffer­ ing. Eventually, the saying o f Lucretius o f blessed memory that tantum religio potuit suadere malorum has come true with the emergence o f Christianity and Islam.” Then he carried on in conneticon with the Aramaic and Ethiopian literatures to be written about in the Kultur der Gegenwart: “Naturally, the presentation o f the Ethiopian literature will not be a bed o f roses. I will not be able to approach all this literature o f monks or, rather, that of clericals with as much affection as I did with the national epos o f Iran, the Sàhnàme. (See: Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, II., Das Iranische Nationalepos, 1896, pp. 130-211) (R. S.) W hat on earth could have induced me to choose these literatures which are so profoundly theological? Me, the enthusiastic philhellene and orthodox heathen?" Nöldeke’s enlightened rationalism, accompanied by his Euro-centric views, was reflected in his choice o f subjects (see his greater affection for Iranian subjects which he felt more closely related to the ancient ones), in frankly declared judgements o f values and comparisions o f various elements. In a letter dated 3 May, 1895 to Goldziher, Nöldeke wrote about the book o f cUmar b. Abl RabFa, a 7th century Meccan gazai poet, whose poems were about to be published.

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“Hopefully, there will be sufficient material to present this char­ mingly frivolous aristrocrat well. I do like this man, although he is not such a brilliant swine as Abu N uw is but he is a poet in the truest sense o f the word. If it were up to me I would give dear Goethe the chance to get know his poetry because it is entirely different from that o f Hàfiz. (It has neither pederasty nor mystic gossip.)” By quoting lengthier excerpts from straightforward and precise selfcharacterisations I wanted to present the world concept and some o f the value judgements o f one o f the rare and exceptional representatives in the 19th century study o f the Orient. At its best this world view can give rise to a philological masterpiece that is a thorough, accomplished but formal and consequently negative analysis o f a literary phenomenon, which is in accordance with the endorsed methods o f classical philology and disregards the non-European features thereof. The Eurocentric and culturally aristocratic attitude precluded that the climax o f philology could show the character o f society sui generis, essentially different from a European one. Goldziher did not accept this sort o f world view. Naturally, he mastered the critical method o f Nöldeke’s early book on the Koran as impartially as the achievements o f contemporary criticism of the Bible. By way o f illustration, if the above were the image o f the structure o f an a rt piece, the Silvestre de Sacy-school and its affiliate, the Leipzig workshop o f the East headed by Fleischer would be the contours of the form. Nöldeke’s achievement, while suggesting something o f the core, was the negative content only, what the real one should not be. The other work that exercised the greatest positive influence on the young Goldziher was the Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islam, published in 1868 by A. Kremer (1820-1889) whom Goldziher called the wittiest recorder o f the Muslim history o f politics and culture. (1877a, p. 25) To paraphrase the words o f Michaelis, the scholar o f Göttinga, recorded in 1755, Kremer most definitely was not one of those machines whom he labelled Professores Linguarum orientalium, who brought upon the study o f the Orient the misfortune that all adherents o f the arts lost interest in it. (Goldziher, 1894, pp. 21—22) Few orienta­ lists have had the opportunity to study the Middle East for a lengthy period on the spot. Being more fortunate, Kremer spent years there as a diplomat from 1849 onwards and served on the international committee of Egypt’s national debt in 1876. That he was minister o f Commerce in Austria between 1880-81, shows that his practical abilities were also recognized. It is therefore typical o f him and revealing that, prompted

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by particularly enlightened Josefianism he studied the political and spiri­ tual aspects o f Eastern Civilisation that functioned in the Hapsburg Monarchy to safeguard the sham-coherence o f its inorganic totality. He studied three basic ideas: G od (Gottesbegriff), the prophethood, and power or the state (Staatsidee). He thought that the struggle o f ideas is an indispensable tool of development. Fortunately, in the Europe o f the 16th century neither Catholicism nor protestantism could do away with the other. Unfortunately, the Muslim orthodoxy won over freethinking thus inflicting an idleness o f reason upon the civilisation right up to the present day. Consequently, the difference between the Muslim and the European development does not stem from the different char­ acter o f their respective ideas but from the different patterns o f the development they followed. He resolutely discarded every suggestion that the development of basic ideas could have been, in any way, influ­ enced by racial, geographical or material conditions. He strenuously attempted to find parallels between concepts o f G od o f Christian phi­ losophers from Scotus Erigena to Hegel and those o f the Muslims. He claimed that Mu*tazila was the equivalent o f free-thinking and the righteousness o f G od (the contrary o f what Goldziher proved. See his Die islam ische und jüdische Philosophie des M ittelalters, 1913:303\) By reverting to it the Arabs could rejoin the community o f great civilized nations. The Kremer image would not be complete without referring to his H istory o f the M uslim culture (Çulturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, I—II, 1875-1877) published some years later in which he presented a grandiose synthesis o f the cultural phenomena, the counter­ parts o f his basic ideas. (See: urban life, development o f statehood, state revenues, army, law, family and marriage.) This work is the only true equivalent of the great 19th century cultural histories in the field o f the Arabic studies. Naturally, the hierarchic trio o f state, culture and civilization is identical with the basic message o f K roner's first volume. (As a supporter o f the Hapsburg Monarchy he saw the cause o f the fall o f Islamic culture and civilization in the decay and political decentra­ lization o f the state. (See: Çulturgeschichte, II. pp. 485-501) K roner's oeuvre had an im portant effect on Goldziher’s world concept which the latter frankly admitted. In a letter to his old Leipzig school­ mate, V. R. Rosen (1849-1908) a founder o f the Russian Arabic studies who became one of his closest friends, Goldziher wrote: “W ith Kremer dead, 1 lost the person whose works o f all the writings in my field of study inspired me the most to carry on with my

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research. They brought fresh air to our studies. So who is to condemn a person for some minor mistakes whose wide horizons broadened the scope o f our research? His works opened a new era in the research o f Islam (his earlier books include M ittelsyrien, Aegypten). It has often occured to me while I worked what enormous preparations he carried out when he analysed the caliphate and, eventually, charted its inner life. He deserves note for being the first, before the great and immortal Dozy, to imprint his personality on his subject. He had an unmatched sense for what was im portant and fundamental. A lesson we can learn from him is to dismiss any narcissistic praise o f insignificant trifles. Only a man destined to participate in the great events o f the state could have risen to such heights.” (Barthold, 1922, pp. 156-57; Fiick, 1955, p. 226, note. 577) W hat elements o f K roner's thoughts could be influential? Firstly, emphasise has to be placed on the relative independence o f ideas. It will be seen, however, that in Goldziher’s oeuvre Kremer’s abstract and ahistorical history o f ideas was replaced by a historically concrete analysis o f social forms o f consciousness. A further great step forward that he made was: he had historically proven the relative independence and importance o f the idealistic motives. The second thought that affected Goldziher most in Kremer’s work, was that man’s development is universal. As will be seen later this was the governing idea o f Gold* ziher’s early work on the Hebrew Myths. And now comes the third book which had a profound effect upon Goldziher in that it shocked him all over. This one was the H istoire générale et systèm e comparé des langues sémitiques by E. Renan (18231892) which, prior to its publication in 1853, was awarded by the French Academy the Volney prize in 1847. Renan’s was the first attempt to elaborate a scientific theory o f species by setting the Aryans against the Semites in the fields o f religion, language and ways o f thinking. The Der M ythos bei den Hebräern, predetermined by the Hungarian history o f the 1860s and 1870s, was meant to be an answer to this work. To mark the general direction o f Goldziher’s development, it must be men­ tioned that two sets of questions were o f primary interest to him which, more or less accurately, can be called the comparative history o f religions and cultures and were discussed in detail in his work on the Hebrew Myths. The enormous ethnological material o f his early masterpiece, the year o f apprenticeship after 1868, and his Wanderjahre were sufficient proof o f his interest, because in all those years the

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language and culture o f the Arabic peoples were only one o f the subjects he studied. A part from the deep spiritual impact o f Kremer’s work, he received true and deep spiritual inspiration from other fields o f learning besides Arabic studies. Let us accompany Goldziher round the stops o f his Wanderjahre and be acquainted with his professors, closest friends and colleagues. In Berlin, his first stop, he listened to the lectures o f E. Rödiger, J. G. Wetzstein, F. Dieterici, M. Steinschneider and H. Steinthal. A fter a slightly closer look at this list, it will be realized that all o f these men had interests outside the Arabic Studies. E. Rödiger (1801-1874) was a student o f Gesenius, the great Hebraist, whom Goldziher called the founder o f modern Hebrew philology. (1894, p. 95) However much he knew, his lectures were rather drab. (Tagebuch, p. 37) J. G. Wetzstein (1815-1905) was a consul in Damascus between 1848-62. Goldziher spoke highly o f his lectures on the language and customs o f the Bedouins. (Tagebuch, p. 37) F. Dieterici (1821-1903) was Rödiger’s student. He was the only one o f these men concerned in the main with Arabic studies. He began by publishing poetic and linguistic texts and did a lot to publish and interpret Muslim philosophical works. Goldziher had much closer perso* nal contacts with M. Steinschneider, H. Steinthal and A. Geiger, who in their respective fields o f study fought for the social and spiritual emancipation o f the Jews and Judaism. They did everything they could to present the real values o f Judaism and to integrate them into the universal development of man. One o f the most marked representatives o f this trend was M. Steinschneider (1816-1907). Together with his friend, Leopold Zunz, he studied the relationship o f the Jews and the Arabs and pointed out in his basic works that eastern Mediaeval Jews were intermediaries between the East and the West. Goldziher received the greatest spiritual inspiration from H. Steinthal (1823-1899), the professor o f general linguistics of the Berlin University. As we wil come back to him later when discussing the linguistic, philosophical and psychological bases of his work on the Hebrew Myths, a quotation from an early paper by Z. Gombocz is enough to indicate his place in the history o f science. WH. Steinthal opened a new era in the history o f linguistics. Following in the footsteps of his great predecessor, W. Humboldt, he became the founder o f the modern linguistic trend (the new grammarianism— R. S.). It is due to him that H erbart’s psychological achievements were put into practice in linguistics. He defined the exact relationship

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between logic, psychology and linguistics. No good book like Paul’s could have been written without Steinthal’s work.” (1898, p. 3) The im portant point is that he added his own linguistic and psychological achievements to Humboldt’s inspiring ideas which placed the connection between language and community in the focus o f linguistic theory. The Völkerpsychologie he worked out with M. Lazarus exercised decisive influence on the most important linguistic school o f the 19th century, (the new grammarians), on W undt’s popular-psychological concept, Durkheim and the French sociological school (Lévy-Bruhl, M. Mauss, Davy, Guyau and others.) The im portant pillar o f this theory and a crucial element of the Der M ythos bei den Hebräern is Humboldt’s idea that language as such is a special Zwischenwelt between the human mind and the objects o f the world about us. This standpoint, prompted by Kant’s theory of knowledge, does not deny the objective existence o f the world but declares that the knowledge o f the world is only subjective and is determined by the state o f the language. Thus, language is not only a determined but a determining factor too. (This concept can be found in the language concepts o f the neo-Kantian E. Cassirer, the existentialist Heidegger and the American B. L. W horf.) How can linguistic psycho­ logy help to understand the process in which diverse elements of popu­ lation are transformed into a community or a nation? How can it help to perceive the new linguistic cultural community’s creation o f world concept and that o f a second, make-believe world, the rules o f which it obeys? These were the questions Goldziher was inspired by in the circle o f H. Steinthal, the outstanding linguistic philosopher. Besides this Goldziher learned that language, myth and religion are complementary parts o f a compact unity, since the ways o f human self-expression are collective because o f their trans-individual character. The essence o f Goldziher’s world view can be grasped through the special contradiction o f the bourgeois attitude that emphasizes the community o f man and the transindividuality o f social phenomena. Obviously, this attitude can not be the individual rationalism o f a developed bourgeois society. The rationalism that protects the common human element and the commu­ nity o f man is preached by the not-yet-developed bourgeoisie which is still searching for its true self and exists as an inorganic, non-integral part o f society. Its community is abstract by necessity because o f the sick national development, be it either prenationalistic or postnationalistic.1* Goldziher said goodbye to Berlin in August, 1868 and went to Leipzig,

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to Fleischer. He had a finished doctoral thesis in his suitcase and was able to inform Eötvös with whom he was constantly in touch about his studies with d ear conscience. Eötvös wanted him to receive his Ph. D. in 1868-69 to be able to qualify as a lecturer at the university o f Budapest. Goldziher was pleased to hear that o f all the students sent abroad on scholarship Eötvös was satisfied with him most. (Tagebuch, p. 40) Leipzig offered new and better opportunities academically. Goldziher, halfway between a student and scholar, felt in his element there. In his Diary he said: ‘T enrolled for every lecture by Fleischer on the Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages, for Krehl’s Syriac and Arabic courses, Brockhaus’ Sanskrit grammar, Drobisch’s course o f lectures on psychology and so on." (Tagebuch, p. 41) His curiosity and thirst for knowledge were unlimited. For example he learned Egyptology from G. Ebers during his second term. But his already crystal-clear world view helped him to distinguish between various influences. Let us take two typical examples. The first demonstrates that Goldziher rejected the presentation o f old theories in new cladding. (The superficial and deceptive acceptance o f the Bible’s modern criticism.) However, he visited the lectures by representatives o f the latter trend called the intermediary theologians. One o f them was Franz Delitzsch, an Evangelist priest (1813-1890) who often met Goldziher to talk about the Talmud and Jewish philosophy. Goldziher described his relationship to the famous intermediary theologian in this way : “ I often admired his enormous knowledge and fairness although his Asian mysticism and transcendent inclination repelled me like some illness. Although I was a young man and not a venerable old scholar I had no intention whatever to add to the praise o f the fanatic converter. (That was the level the orthodox Jews degraded themselves to)." (Tagebuch, p. 45) His frequent encounters and his close friendship with M 6r Kârmân the famous pédagogie o f the Age of Reform (1843-1915) undoubtedly had a favourable effect on him. Kârmân, too, was given a scholarship by Eötvös to prepare himself academically for professorship. The two young men started their careers under similar conditions and were enthusiastic about the reform ideas of Eötvös. They shared lodgings in Leipzig and

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during their long walks in their leisure time they exchanged ideas fruit­ fully and thoroughly, and discussed the contradictions in their world views and the directions o f their future activities. Goldziher wrote in his Diary about the influence on him o f this man, who was seven years his senior and had an already mature personality: “These conversations inspired me in my later research in the field o f the history o f religious development and comparative mythology. They were my first lectures on the history o f biblical literature. I came to know the works o f Kuenen, G raf and Vatke and the entire approach o f modern biblical research through Kârmân. He taught me to respect them. He too it was, who silently pointed out contradictions in my soul and prompted me to ponder painfully how to hammer out w ith my own strength, my own harmonious world view.*’ (Tagebuch, p. 43) Goldziher offered his early synthesis, the Der M ythos bei den Hebräern (1876) to his dear friend M 6r K drrnin. Besides basic attractions and choices in his world concept the over­ whelming importance o f Fleischer’s school must be emphasized in Goldziher’s academic development. It was able to play a decisive role in Goldziher’s much-admired philological erudition because Fleischer was a true teacher and a great man, rare in his capability to establish a following the cohesive, attractive force o f which outlived him. Goldziher eulogized Fleischer’s activity and human-scholarly ethos both in his Diary and his commemorative speech in 1889. The image of a nice, lovable and ethereal master emerges from the portrait Goldziher presented with enormous warmth. He was the ideal type o f German philologist professor, humble and free o f modem gambits, whose greatest merit was, besides his impressive philological knowledge, that he loved teaching while Silvestre de Sacy, who had a scientific versatility, practical-mindedness and a charming personality, did not. Said Goldziher o f him: “ He was one o f the few learned men o f our time whose academic influence was inseparable from the moral beauty that decorates a man’s character.’’ (1889b, p. S) At Rddiger’s recommendation the famous Leipzig professor received Goldziher with great affection. He introduced him to his family and invited him to use his library and visit him in the evenings. Fleischer was an influential teacher who always had students from almost a dozen o f

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GOLDZIHER’S LIFE AND ACTIVITY

countries. When Goldziher went to Leipzig in 1868 he became the school* mate o f V. R. Rosen, mentioned earlier (to whom Goldziher dedicated his book Zähirites, published in 1884), A. W. J. Mehren, the Swedish H. Almkvist, the Norwegian J. P. Brock, the Czech Jarom ir KoSut, the Italian Buonazia and many others who later became famous Arabists. The list of Fleischeris German students included practically all the great­ est Arabists (J. Barth, K. P. Caspari, Fr. Dieterici, M. Hartmann, A. M üller, E. Sachau, A. Socin, H. Thorbecke, J. G . Wetzstein and so on) the greatest Iranists (G. Rosen, H. Ethé) Assiriologists (Fr. Delitzsch, F. Hommel) historians (the great E. Meyer) and theologians (W. V. Baudissin, F. Delitzsch, E. Kautzsch, B. Stade and others). (On the Fleischerian school see : Fück, 19SS, pp. 171-172) Characteristic o f the respect the 18 or 19 year old Goldziher enjoyed in Fleischer’s circle was that the other students called him the ‘little Sayb* while Fleischer was the ‘great Sayb’. The professor’s good opinion of Goldziher strengthened almost daily and he soon entrusted him with the introductory lectures. ( Tagebuch, p. 41) That this high esteem was lasting was borne out by the fact that after a Fleischer-foundation was set up in 1873 with the support o f the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, the professor made the first award in 1874 to Goldziher. (1889b, p. 41) Later it was Fleischer who intervened with the Austrian government to provide a suitable job for Goldziher who arrived home after his Wanderjahre to find conditions changed and all hopes lost. (Tagebuch, p. 77) Naturally, it is naive to think that Fleischer’s influence on the develop­ ment o f Goldziheris world concept and choice o f subject-matter was utterly decisive. (However, Gyula Németh thought so. 1950—1, p. 14) This is not only the outright rejection, but the sure sign o f the complete ignorance, o f the works of the mature Goldziher who had compromised to study Islam only. Goldziher was a dedicated scholar who strived to produce a historical synthesis without separating his judgement on value and fact. Unbiased philology1' could only be the indispensable tool or techné of scientific knowledge that acquired true precision through its theoretical character. Although Fleischer tried rather persistently to persuade Goldziher to pursue linguistic and philological research the only product o f this persuasion was a paper on the linguistics o f the Arabs (Goldziher, 1871-1873) which was purely a tribute to his master. Characteristically, the manuscript of a dictionary o f synonyms o f the Bedouin language, called the Kitäb tahdlb al-alfaz by Ibn as-Sikklt (died in 245/859-860) was found in Goldziheris legacy. At Fleischer’s encouragement he worked on it between 1872-1883 to prepare it for

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publication but he never completed it. Eventually, the dictionary was published by L. Cheikho (Beyrout between 1896-98.) Goldziher’s legend* ary but involuntary working capacity is well-known. He wrote his works during his 5 or 6 week holidays (his volumious monographs included). (Tagebuch, pp. 92-93.) The Arabic studies by Fleischer could not have increased the attractive force o f the Arabic studies o f philology as already perceived by Goldziher. As soon as he realized he could not learn much more there, he quickly prepared and defended his doctoral thesis. His doctoral thesis (Studien über Tanchüm Jerüschaim i, 1870) discussed the work o f a 13th century biblical exegesist, “the Ibn Ezra o f the East”, who attempted to process the vocabulary o f the MiSnS Töra in Arabic. Goldziher sat for his doctoral examinations in December, 1869 before a board o f examiners comprising Fleischer, the Indologist Brockhaus, and the psychologist Drobisch. Having passed the examinations he asked to be appointed lecturer at home in Budapest as Eötvös urged him to do so. The painfully detailed account o f his first defeat, given 20 years later in his Tagebuch expresses the deep impact o f his first serious dash with the ruling forces in Hungary. ‘T wouldhave been, the first Jew to become a lecturer at the faculty which caused the non*Jews to cry out in protest.” W ith Budenz as their leader, the opposition included those considering Goldziher to be Vâmbéry’s protégé, whom they took for a swindler. They did not want another one in their diele. But what really made Budenz suspidous was that Goldziher began his studies o f the Orient under Vémbéry who posed everywhere as the discoverer of the talented student to increase his own nimbus. Added Goldziher in his Tagebuch: (see : Tagebuch, p. 47) “ My application triggered off a debate in the columns o f the news­ paper Pesti Naplô between Budenz and Aladàr M olnâr who represen­ ted Eötvös. He launched a severe attach against the conditions at the university using my case as pretext. The university dons, in retaliation, chose not to do anything about my application until I came back from my study tour.” Goldziher’s application for the position was eventually accepted in 1871. He delivered his first lecture in September, 1871, entitled The place o f

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historiography in the Arabic literature (see: Heller’s Bibliographie p. 27) and received his lecturer’s diploma in the same year. (Tagebuch, p. SO) In 1870-71 Goldziher spent one more term in Leipzig and left for the Netherlands in March. Because he had already got his PhD, he could not officially register as a student at the university o f Leiden. He could, however, attend lectures o f theology (by the great Kuenen, an Evangelist priest and researcher o f the Bible, or J. H. Schölten, a vicar o f the Refor­ med Church) and classical philology (by G. Cobet), his own choice. He studied industriously in the famous Leiden libraries, the manuscripts especially, keeping one eye on the future—which was even more useful to him. Notably valuable were the meetings with the great Dutch scholars (like Reinhard Dozy [1830-1883] who was on authority in the study o f Islam in Spain for about 75 years, and M. J. de Goeje [1836-1909] who was most probably the greatest publisher o f basic Arab sources and who introduced the methods of classical philology) that often led to life-long and deep friendships. Goldziher said o f the unflagging continuity o f the Dutch school and its influence on his development : ’’The philological traditions o f the Netherlands facilitated the ap­ plication of critical methods to the Muslim sources completely dif­ ferently from Mommsen’s sometimes credulous sometimes nihilist way. The encounters with the scholars of Leiden marked out in a manifold and impressive way the path on which I set out later. My works on Muslim questions were always appreciated most by the Dutchs.” (Tagebuch, p. 50) He acquired his legendary knowledge in his field during the exceptionally intensive term in Leiden, as he related later. (See: Tagebuch, p. 49) After his scholarship was extended Goldziher worked in Vienna between October 1871 and February, 1872. About his Vienna months he wrote: “Although my materials and collections increased considerably during my Vienna months, they provided almost nothing o f human value or o f worthwhile inspiration.” (Tagebuch, p. 51) To evaluate the collection o f materials, it must be mentioned that he publication o f sources had not changed in comparison to the time o f the great Reiske, whose autobiography (Lebensbeschreibung, 1783) expres­ sively reveals the difficulties the ’little science* had to face. A t that time very few sources were available since the great period o f publication in the

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Arabic studies was the turn o f the century. References in Goldziher’s works to manuscripts show what a strenuous job he did, mainly in the famous manuscript collection o f Leiden University’s Legatum W amerianum and in the Hofbibliotek o f Vienna. To mention but one, he wrote his book Zähirites (1884), which is now a seminal book on the history of the so-called fifth legal rite solely on the basis o f handwritten documents. Arriving home from Vienna in February, 1872 he was first compelled to take stock o f his chances at home. To put it mildly, the result was distressing. Goldziber wrote this about the university where he lectured: “I began to give lectures a t the university at the beginning o f Easter term. There were very few students and these few learnt nothing. The sluggishness o f scientific life in Pest is distressing compared to the vitality thereof in the places I saw during the last four year.” He made immediate mention o f the clique fights that distorted even that Sargasso o f scientific life. “There was not one section o f social life 1 could have joined. Cliques were busy fighting each other.” He depicted with amazing accuracy the shift o f trends in ideology and scientific policy that reached its climax in 1875. That was the time when Deék Party, which retained something o f the ideas o f the Age o f Reform and 1848, was replaced in power by the Liberal Party of Kâlmân Tisza. (The Liberal Party was the product o f the merger o f the Deâk Party and the Centrist Left with the latter predominating.) “The ruling mandarins of the time met with the opposition o f a group o f the modems that had ’European* on its banner as slogan to fight the rigid economic orthodoxy and jovial incompetence o f the former, with equal roughness though with slightly more knowledge. This was a group o f lousy busybodies who relied on the fact that the old were all imbeciles.” (!Tagebuch, pp. 51-51) He added that the group tried to exploit Kérmén for their purposes as a “strongman” but “their real spokesman” was Gusztév Heinrich, a stupid stuffed shirt who was cunning as a fox and used M agyar Tattûgy (Hungarian Education) to terrorize professors and the Pester Lloyd to influence the public opinion. (Tagebuch, p. 52) Gusztév Heinrich (18451922) was a typical figure in the gentry Hungary o f the K ilm én Tisza era,

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both as a scholar and a politician. (Our lexicons, such as the ‘Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon’ (Hungarian Biographical Lexicon) presented him as “a significant representative o f the Hungarian positivist history o f literature although he does not really deserve this highbrow characterisa­ tion, because the mere compilation o f facts without any underlying theory is not positivism.) W hat is more, G. Heinrich himself confessed that he was not even good at the simple compilation of facts. Nevertheless, he was jolly good at making powerful alliances through marriage. (He married one of the omnipotent Antal Csengery’s daughters and thus became the brother-in-law of Gyula Wlassics, the minister of culture, who married the other Csengery-girl.) He was equally good at acquiring influental positions. With his father-in-law’s support he was appointed university professor at the age o f 37, which earned him much ridicule. In 1882 he became the member o f the Kisfaludy Society; in 1892 the member of the Hungarian Academy o f Sciences and in 1905 the secretary thereof, while in 1910 he became a member of the Upper House. The leaders of the ruling clique were the Pulszkys: the father, Ferenc Pulszky, (1814-1897) an archeologist and a powerful politician who played an important role in the 1848-49 Revolution and the ensuing Emigration, and joined the Deâk Party after he returned home; and his son, Âgost Pulszky (1846-1901), a sociologist and philosopher of law. Said Goldziher o f them: “To be favoured by this family meant an awful lot o f help for all young men who wanted to build up a successful career. M ost profes­ sorships were awarded to the Pulszkians.’’ (Tagebuch, p. 52) Goldziher’s Wanderjahre were crowned with a tour o f Syria, Palestine and Egypt between September, 1873 and April, 1874. In the spring o f 1873 Âgoston Trefort, the minister o f culture asked Goldziher to see him and sent him on a study tour to Syria and Egypt to study the verna­ cular and the officialese o f those countries. During the interview Trefort made casual and obscure referrences that an Academy o f the Orient might be set up. As was later revealed, the only aim o f this operation was to get Goldziher off the scene. But Goldziher said those were the best days of his life, and surpassed all his expectations. The timing o f the tour was extremely lucky. Between 18 January, 1863 and 25 June, 1879, during the reign o f Ism ail, the grandson and most talented succes­ sor of Muhammad CAU, (called Khedive from 8 June, 1867) Egypt went through a spectacular series o f economic, social, legal and cultural

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reforms that ended with catastrophe. At the beginning it seemed that Egypt could acquire de facto independence from the Ottomans and counterbalance the growing influence o f the contending European powers, ie. the English and the French, by reforms imposed from above. (The reforms included the election o f the Maglis Sürä, a populistdemocratic Consulting Assembly in 1866; the setting up o f the so-called Mixed Court o f Justice in 1875 which was authorised to pass sentence on foreigners as well; the unconditional guaranteeing o f private property in 1871 to ease capitalist development; the wholesale building of the road and telegraph network; the nationalisation o f the postal service; the introduction of health care, and the inauguration o f the Suez canal on 17 November, 1869—the climax o f the reforms. There were numerous other ones in the field o f education besides. The first schools for girls were opened, as well as polytechnics and medical schools. A good in­ dication o f the depth and breath o f these measures is the number of state schools, that shot up from 185 to 4817 under Ismäcil.) The reforms were only good for letting the genie out o f its bottle. When Ismâcil was forced to abdicate, it became d ear that Egypt had sunk to colonial status. But the Egyptian ‘Age o f Reform* was well under way—the political and ideological awakening was irreversible leading eventually to the military takeover in 1952. Goldziher was sharp enough to notice everything and deeply sympathized with the opposition. Ten years before Ahmad cUràbï’s uprisal against the European influence (1881-82) and the ensuing occupation o f Egypt by the English Goldziher was exceptionally lucky to be able to witness the efforts, of Europe’s overt modernization attempts on Eastern development. It was due solely to his own self that he was able to get in touch with the outstanding early representatives o f the Egyptian awakening and the leaders o f various pro-and anti-European political forces, and approached the sources of the Islamic revival to which no other European ever had access before. He was closely related to the circle of Saiyid Çâlib Bey al-Magdi, an earlier minister of state for education which comprised the think-tank o f the Patriotic Party (AlHizb al-wa(anî), a Party-like and half-secret organisation, closely con­ nected to certain sections o f the staff o f officers in the Egyptian army. This group, which bears no measurement by European standards, fought against Europeanisation at any price. (Tagebuch, p. 67) However even more important was his friendship with the influental leader and ideologue o f pan-Islamism, öam äl ad-Din al-Afgänl; this man stayed in Egypt between March, 1871 and September, 1879 and had a strong impact on the revival o f Islam. Goldziher wrote in his Diary:

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“One o f the most original among my friends was a man who had been the centre o f discussion as an agitator, an exile, a journalist, and who entered into a debate with Renan. (See: the Essay on the Muslim philosophy o f the Middle Ages.—R. S.) This man was ‘Abd al öam äl an Afghan." (Tagebuch, p. 68) That they spent one hour every evening talking together was sufficient proof o f their deep friendship. As Goldziher wrote in his Diary in 1890, he planned to give an account o f his meetings with the leader o f Pan* Islamism in a peaceful period; it, unfortunately, never materialised. That was the time when a deep relationship developed within him towards Islam: “ I turned wholly towards Islam, intellectually speaking. My personal symphathy drove me towards it, too. I called my monotheism Islam and I truly believed in Muhammad’s prophecies. My Koran is the ultimate proof how intimate the bond was between me and Islam." (Tagebuch, p. 71) Because o f this intimacy, deepened by his unconditional acceptance among Muslim circles, he did not publish his Diary. He thought he would have betrayed his Egyptian friends since he not only approved their ideological awakening but took part in it as well as in their move­ ment against European colonialism. "D uring the festivities held on the occassion o f the viceroy’s daugh­ ter’s marriage, I spoke out against European domination in the bazaar. In Çalifr al-M agdfs circle I spoke about theories o f the new local Muslim culture and its development as an antidote to the epidemic o f European domination. I spoke about the things in those circles for which cUräbi and his generals drew their swords a decade later. I had no wish to participate in the festivities together with the other Europeans." (Tagebuch, pp. 71-72) The deep understanding between Goldziher and the progressive Muslim figures and politicians o f Egypt was both the cause and effect o f the fact that he was the first European allowed to attend the Theological lectures of the Al-Azhar, the greatest Muslim theological academy. The significance o f this permission was expressed by the fact that the then minister o f educaton (nà?ir Diwan al-madâris) pasha Riyâçi

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intervened personally, speaking with the notoriously severe 8ayh (rector) o f the al-Azhar, the famous banafite al-M ahdl al-cAbbâsi, who granted permission after a rigorous examination. Goldziher was the student o f al-Azhar for four months and “ both the students and the teachers treated me as if I were one o f them, although I never posed as a Mus­ lim.” (Tagebuch, p. 71) Goldziher related the “experiences o f the four glorious months o f spirited learning” in Islam (1881). (See: Life in a Muhammadan Academy, pp. 299-340) Even through this factual account one can feel how deep-seated was Goldziher’s sympathy towards his subject. That the adjective ‘glorious* was not an exaggeration was borne out by A. S. Yahuda’s statement. For example, when he was in Cairo in 1912, he met some old and famous azharite professors who remem­ bered well the wise ’aS-Sayb az-Zarawi’, the Golden Sheikh as they called Goldziher. (1924, p. 581. See other interesting examples on pp. 582-583) Islam , together with studies written in Hungarian at the end o f the 1870s and at the beginning o f 1880s can be considered the summary o f the Wanderjahre with their tone, their endless variety o f subject-matter, and their novelty in attempting a historical-genetic world view. This exceptionally thoughtful work o f the young Goldziher, valid right up ' to the present day, is a rare blend o f a historical-genetic world concept and an insight into the contemporary Muslim society, capable o f pin­ pointing its problems. None o f his great contemporaries or talented followers could have repeated his performance. Nöldeke, Wellhausen, Snouck-Hurgronje or C. Becker applied the values o f a European to their subjects which ranged from the abstract bourgeois humanism to the downright declaration o f colonialism’s civilizing mission. L. Massignon identified himself with the mysticism o f Islam so strongly that he became a mystic himself, which excluded historical-genetic examina­ tion. To prove that Goldziher was a dedicated scholar, suffice it to men­ tion three other chapters o f Islam. In Chapter 3, (entitled The C ull o f the Saints and Remnants o f Old Religions in Islam , pp. 171-270) he outlined a critical thought regarding this important field, related ethnologically to Taylor’s survival concept o f popular and established religions. Gold­ ziher was keen to detect remnants o f early, popular religions, transformed and retained within Islam, as old as the ancient Egyptian cults. This analysis hinted at Goldziher’s basic ideas17 o f the development o f the forms o f mind in a living and changing community which were not necessarily the ideologies o f the ruling class in precapitalist» societies, whose innate incoherence appeared with the development o f the state. This attributed special importance to Gramsci’s question o f hegemony.

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Chapter 4 (entitled The interrelationship between Architectural Remnants o f Islam and the M uslim world concept, pp. 271-298) was unique o f its own kind, in that it discussed Muslim architecture in connection with social functions and forms o f mind; onoe again rich Egyptian material was included. Chapter 6 (entitled M isconceptions o f Islam, pp. 341-382) was an equally rare attempt to refute Euro-centric preconceptions exist­ ing since the 18th century. It underlined the ability o f the Muslim society to follow its own rules and path, in the face o f opinions about the stagnation o f the East. Goldziher was able to do this last task much more easily because, as has been said, he keenly took note o f the newly founded Pan-Islamic movement, comprising the linguistic, cultural and, first and foremost, the political elements o f Arabic survival. As a member o f a handicapped national minority o f Eastern Europe, Goldziher sensed the Arabic nationalistic movement in its infancy, together with its linguistic, cultural and ideological elements. It was all the more possible for him because the fight for national and bourgeois rights bore underlying similarities and dissimilarities with the situation in Hungary.18 The Arabic countries had to fight against Turkish rule (which was a matter o f life and death for Syria and Lebanon and was the primary cause o f emigration from those countries), and the less and less veiled colonialism by Europe. Goldziher’s papers written in Hungarian after his study tour contained several interesting lessons on contemporary Arabic development. Firstly, they imply that by approving the reform politics o f Eötvös he intended to share in the realisation o f it as well. Under the auspices o f bourgeois development he attem pted to interpret, for the Hungarians, the phenomena o f contemporary world history which he knew very well and considered important. Characteristic o f this period were his numerous writings in Hungarian, expressing an easily understandable liberal bourgeois world view. His writings were intended to have a strong effect (published in Budapesti Szem le, the east European version o f the French Revue des deux mondes; in Egyetemes Philolögiai Közlöny, the relatively popular journal o f the intellectual or in M agyar Tam gy) and aimed at a specific audience (of eastern Europe); therefore Gold­ ziher never published them in any other language. Secondly, they imply that besides the study of the Orient Goldziher’s interest turned towards the universal and comparative history of religions and cultures into which he tried to fit the development of the Semitic peoples. And thirdly they imply that he was able to analyse thoroughly events of contemporary history through his world view, although from a handicapped position

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as a Hungarian burgher. It is enough to refer to one of his studies in this context. In his exemplary factual and political study, entitled On Muham­ madan public opinion (Budapesti Szem le, 1882, pp. 234-265) written inJanuary, 1882 barely four months after the revolutionary overture of the Arabic nationalistic movement, the Ahmad ‘Uräbi uprising (September, 1881), he evaluated the situation from the point of view o f a developing community’s actual and achievable progressive hegemony. To illuminate Goldziher’s world concept, it is worth quoting some o f his phrasing: “Recently a great idea has been stirring the Islamic world again. It is the idea o f Pan-Islamism that demands the spiritual unity o f the politically divided Islamic world.“ (ib. p. 234) He wrote that the movement was eventually concerned with the questionso f Arabic national independence and unity. It opposed Turkish hegemony as fiercely as it rejected European colonization. The military uprisatof cUräbi was the concentrated expression o f these demands. W hat are the criteria by which to judge a social movement? “The aims o f a movement o f any historical significance can be judged, correctly only if the circle o f supporters and their acoepted political ideals, lent to the movement, are analysed. This has to be done in case o f the September movement o f the majors too.“ (ib. p. 251) In this case the movement, led by the National Party, the al-Hizb a lwatanf, united every layer o f society which turned against Khedive Ismâc,il, who served the European interests, and demanded that Egypt should be for the Egyptians. (A t that point Goldziher took pains to show how numerous and diverse the layers o f society were, united in the movement o f independence. It comprised the reformers with Europeantype education who wanted to utilize, together with their own countrymen the Europeans* achievements in an Egyptian fashion; the conservative Muslims who lined up behind the al-Azhar and demanded the restora­ tion o f a state based on Islamic traditions; and finally, the Arabic nationalistic groups which rejected Pan-Islamism as serving the interest o f the Ottoman empire.) In the course o f the analysis Goldziher empha­ sized that Pan-Islamism could have been combined with national demands in Egypt only because o f the 75 years o f de facto independence, whereas in every other country it was the adversary o f national indepen­

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dence (ib. p. 252) The thorough analysis o f the revolutionary outburst o f the national movement was given true historical dimensions when Goldziher discovered the enclosure o f the political struggle within the ideological one. W hat is the relationship between the press, this most significant and newly-born mass-media o f the East, and politics like? How does it reflect the revolutionary movement that strived to achieve supremacy and the ruling political society? Here are some o f Goldziher’s straightforward and fitting judgements: 'T h e Algerian Arabic newspaper, the BeSlr (Herald) cannot be considered an expression o f Muslim opinion as it is the official paper o f the French government there.” (ib. p. 239) "Although the representa­ tives o f Arabic journalism in Egypt are mostly Muslim, Muslim thought could be found in it as sporadically as in the measures o f the government which it intended to serve.” (ib. p. 239) But: "N o more intense response has ever been triggered off in the litera­ ture of the Muslim East by any movement other than the one started by cU rabi and his followers in the Arabic journalism which now has an overwhelming influence o f the minds o f the people.” (ib. p. 247) The account o f the secondary school teachers* study-tour in Egypt, similar to those in Greece and Rome, was published 17 years later. (Egypt, the Account o f Hungarian Teachers’ Studies, 1899) By that time the process had already begun in which the main social function o f the Hungarian intelligentsia was to represent the conservative and apolitical national ideal so that it might become an integral part of the so-called historical Hungary. Goldziher participated in this field trip as the only Jew among Cistercite and Piarist teachers but not as the recognized leader o f the group. He paid second fiddle as the guide of the Cistercite F. B. Platz (1848-1919) and Zsolt Beöthy (1848-1922). (See: the actual role o f interpreter and adm inistrator in Tagebuch, p. 200) Reference must be made o f this unbelievably substandard and unscientific volume for two reasons. One is that Goldziher’s study, The Islam o f Egypt (ib. pp. 257-273), was a scholarly masterpiece, a valuable addition to Chapter 3 o f Islam. (1881) However, much more important is that it was rather different from the chosen subject-matter, the dear judgements and the explicit and progessive bourgeois world view o f his 1881 study.

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Taken in the context o f Goldziher’s human and scholarly development, this study is a purely historical and philological analysis o f a problem in the cultural history o f the past. He seemed to be resigned to the present state o f society that can be rejected only if the past looms over the present. The second reason is that contemporary Egyptian history was interpreted in the vohune by a loyal and typical limited representative o f the historical Hungary o f the gentry. In his discussion the cU räbi uprisal was given its due place according to the conservative and reacti­ onary concept o f history. The roused and lowly mob o f the East rudely attacked the poor English who only wanted to help. No wonder that they pacified the country in rightful self-defence for the greater glory o f civilization and tried to persuade the people o f Egypt to undertake the respectable service o f the white man. Amid such circumstences Goldziher could only be a venerable object o f special interest. The contrast between the extremely fruitful Wanderjahre in Europe and in the East, the preparations for professorship in accordance with Eötvös’ ideas, and the hardship o f the ensuing years, is a classic «cample of the contrast between the illusions and possible alternatives o f the 1860s and reality, ie. the Prussian way o f developing the gentry who acquired political power after 1875. Jözsef Eötvös died on 2 February, 1871 and Péter H atala (1832-1918) was appointed head o f the faculty o f Semitic philology but, o f course, for religious and political considerations rather than for his renown in Europe or his great knowledge. The only connec­ tion the now forgotten H atala had with Arabic studies was that between 1857-1860 he worked as missionary in Palestine after his ordination in 1855. As a professor o f theology he spoke out against the dogma o f papal infallability. In order to solve the scandal he had aroused, he was given the professorship which had been intended for Goldziher, and held it from 1873 to 1905. This anecdote, that might easily pass as a bad joke, was deeply characteristic o f the politically distorted process of bourgeois development in the mid-1870s and o f the dawning anti-semitism which attacked the Jewish orthodoxy, the ghetto mentality, and the anticlerical Jewry that wanted to embark upon bourgeois development This process was novel, in so far as it surfaced in a modem ideological guise, charac­ teristic o f the ’sick* capitalistic development that was able to influence equally the layers o f society hard hit by the decay o f feudalism and the infantile disorders o f the inorganic capitalistic development, (the guild bourgeosie, the bankrupt lower and landed gentry, the peasantry and part o f the emerging working class.) To demonstrate the actual practice of the Age o f Dualism after the emancipation o f the Jewry by the 1867/17

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A d let us quote the account o f Bernât Munkécsi, the wellknown con­ temporary linguist, o f his own suffering: “The honours degree, PhD and academic achievements were all in vain! Where teacher's posts were given, certificates o f baptism were required. The terms o f “unsettled religious status" has come into vogue under the ministerial tenure o f Trafort. Teachers-to-be of Jewish origin had to settle their “Religious status” before being employed by the state. Many o f my attempts to acquire a secular job have failed. In May, 1890 when I was elected member o f Hungarian Academy o f Sciences my friend Béla Vilc&r described my conditions in his hu­ morous poem in Borsszem Jankô (a satirical paper) that I have a 'seat* but I have no 'chair'." (1925, p. 18) The neglect o f Goldziher and H atala's appointment as professor after he had rejected the dogma o f papal infallability deserves slightly more explanation. As was mentioned earlier, Goldziher's Oriental scholarship was awarded to get him off the scene. A dually, H atala was appointed professor while he was away and even Trefort felt embarrassed about the event. Goldziher mentioned in his Diary that Trefort received Hatala just before him (Tagebuch, p. 54). The implications o f the strange meet­ ing became clear only after his return. Incidentally Trefort, said to be a pursuer o f reaipolitik, proved unequal to this task. W hat, in fact, is the background to this truly incomprehensible case? It is common knowledge that the insanely mystical Pope Pius, IX at the age o f 78 made the 1st Vatican Synod on 18 July, 1870 to endorse his dogma o f papal infal­ lability after he had duly threatened and removed his significant opposi­ tion. On the basis o f the dogma, all 'ex cathedra* pronouncements o f the pope, the absolute monarch of the Church, on questions o f faith and customs are infallible and therefore final and unalterable. As the catholic clergy played an important role in Hungary even after the Compromise in the field o f education and maternal law (marriage and divorce), to mention but a few, the question possessed enormous importance. In keeping with the above, the Hungarian government, that claimed to be liberal, instructed the delegation of bishops who left for Rome to join the opposition to the dogma. Instead of taking a dear stand the dele­ gation chose to abstain from the polls. A t the time there was considerable antagonism between the government and the Episcopacy, not to mention the fact that the political tune was set mostly by the Calvinists in the counties. That is why the reaction against the ultramontanism was

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decisive socially. Aware o f this, the Episcopacy, w ith Primate Archbishop Simor a t its head, did its best not to stress the antagonism (although the Bull was declared despite the royal right o f veto), and manoeuvred tactfully between the Pope and government. Péter H atala and the lobby behind him made use o f the delicate situation so that the dogma o f papal infallability became an open political concern. H atala, as the professor o f the faculty o f theology, rejected the dogma, which earned him easy popularity, and was elected Rector with the support o f secular forces when it was his faculty’s turn in 1872-73 to nominate for this position. To increase his popularity he did everything possible to be excommunica­ ted but Primate Archbishop Simor wanted to avoid scandal and did not let himself to be carried away. A political compromise was reached between him and Trefort, the minister o f culture, to remove H atala from the faculty o f theology and to give him the professorship o f Semitic philology at the faculty o f Arts. When Goldziher questioned Trefort about the pressorship promised to him by Eötvös and Hatala’s appoint­ ment Trefort excused himself by saying : “ Hatala’s appointment must not be understood like that. I know that he is a comedian who had to be transferred to the faculty o f A rts because he could not be left at the faculty o f theology... His appoint­ ment must not be taken seriously. Something will obviously happen. Meanwhile be calm and patient. We will soon find some sort o f solu­ tion. Go home and leave your future to me.” (Tagebuch, p. 75) W ith Goldziher’s future in such good hands the 30 year-long ordeal began for the soon world-famous scholar, chosen for professorship by Eötvös. He who fought against the Jewish ghetto mentality with all his intellectual might become the secretary o f the Jewish community o f Pest on 1 January, 1876 until 1905. He had to suflfer another humiliation because o f Trefoil’s willful or accidental blunder to push him into that situation. A fter he was denied the professorship that had been promised earlier, his friends offered him jobs abroad. (Stremeyer, the Austrian minister asked him through his old teacher Fleischer to offer his services to the Vienna ministry o f education. Ebers, the egyptologist suggested that Goldziher should fill the vacant post o f director in the library o f the viceroy o f Egypt. (Tagebuch, p. 77) As an Austrian invitation would have been unfavourable for the cultural condition in Hungary, Gyula Andrâssy the minister o f foreign affairs o f the Monarchy reprimanded Trefort personally. The latter asked Goldziher to see him urgently on 15 January,

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1875 and seemed to be prepared to do something to help him. Goldziher asked for an extraordinary professorship. The minister naturally agreed and said he would pass on his appeal to the king, circumventing the dons o f the university. In response to Goldziher’s query if it could be done he declared: ’’That is only a formality. I will send you your letter o f appoint* ment in 2 or 3 weeks’ time. You may take it settled.” (Tagebuch, p. 77) A fter the conversation Trefort submitted Goldziher’s appeal to the uni­ versity for discussion where it was rejected with enormous indignation. So, all that Goldziher could get was Trefoil’s excuses and the secretarial job at the Jewish community o f Pest. „Consummatum est! I might have cried on 1 January, 1876.” he wrote in his Diary about his bad luck. As all Trefort’s promises turned sour, he added : “ I must become a slave, that is for sure now. The Jews want to be merciful with me. That is my tragedy.” (Tagebuch, pp. 80-81) W hat did the well-sounding title o f the secretary o f the Jewish community in Pest mean? Let us quote Goldziher himself: “The tasks entrusted to me were services o f lower grade that any young shop-assistant could have carried out. I had to draw up reports, copy things, act as a registrar, see to every marriage personally, check on documents and handle the humble people who came to the office.” (Tagebuch, pp. 81-82) Difficult as it was to endure the 8 hours o f monotonious daily work, it was even more difficult to endure the disdainful and patronizing treatm ent o f his rich and influental coreligionists who measured success in more practical terms rather than by academic activity which brought titles and fame but no material gain. Goldziher gave a to-the-point charac­ terisation o f this mentality on the occasion of the inauguration o f the Jewish community’s new administrational centre : “It will now grant ultimate expression to what the ’great m an' (the chairman o f the community, M. W ahrmann) has so often reitera­ ted—that our religious community is, in fact, a big firm like a brickbaking limited company or a bone-black factory.” (Tagebuch, p. 128)

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When Goldziher began his secretarial career he was compelled to separate his academic and private life from that o f the religious community which was rather painful to him but his irony got him through the first few years relatively easily. The events of Tiszaeszlir, however, brought about the reorganization o f the community that proved to be catastrophic for Goldziher. W rote he on the effects o f Tiszaeszlir: “ Now that the Jewry was in jeopardy the chairman had to be a man who knew his task, had no sense o f shame but a lot o f money.“ (Tagebuch, p. 96) He added that a man possessing at least 5 million Forints was needed and was eventually found in the person o f M 6r W ahrmann, the first Jewish MP who pursued the policy o f stick without carrot within the Hungary o f the antisemitic gentry where popular anticapitalism was blended with an adverse attitude to the bourgeoisie, and a policy o f unconditional compromises with foreign countries. During his chairmanship (1883-1892) Goldziher had become a slave both in practice and in prin­ ciple. The statements o f humiliations he suffered in those years are the most shocking part o f his Diary. He had a nervous breakdwon presu­ mably in 1883 and doctors suggested that he should go on a nine week holiday across Europe. Arriving home, he wrote : “From then on I was careful not to give myself to irony which was my only left to me by others. The less I was able to avail myself o f such opportunities the deeper the malady penetrated me. The sad conviction was growing within me that I deserved my Fate that had befallen me. There were weeks when I felt unworthy o f entering the groves of academe as a result o f enduring the humiliations without a word o f protest.“ (Tagebuch, p. 109) During his prolonged depression his love o f work subsided. It was only then, in the mid-1880s, that he began to give up some o f his earlier and enormous plans of comparative cultural history. In 1890, he wrote this about the year 1883 : “So far I have noted everything industriously that had some bearing on ethnography, ancient history, biblical theology, the study o f reli­ gions, history o f Eastern cultures and other kindred fields to incorporate them into my knowledge. Now I have to give up the regular study o f

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these fields. ‘Because o f half-heartedness and the difficult service* (Exed. VI. 9.) little time was left to academic activity. Therefore I concentrated on Arabic philology and history and Islam.’* (Tagebuch, p. 110) The monotonous administrative work consumed his whole day. Thus, in the next three decades he collected material for the enormous academic work he did during the hours o f the night. His Diary gives exact information about the way he pursued his academic activities under such conditions. “ I prepared for the annual literary work during my everyday leisure and did the actual work during my 5 weeks o f holiday which I spent either in the mountains or by the sea. During the year 1 was only able to write short articles or make a rough copy for the longer works, for which I had only my short holidays. I created everything that brought me fame during the 40-42 days o f my annual holidays.” (Tagebuch, pp. 92-93) A fter he was appointed lecturer in 1871 (but an unpaid one only!) he became an honorary professor in 1894 which meant merely additional burden for him in these circumstances. In his memoirs, Snouck-Hurgronje Goldziher’s fellow-scholar, recalled those difficult days as follows: ‘‘The 40 years o f work at the university which we gathered together to celebrate in 1911 were not actually 40 years o f professorship. Goldziher was a private lecturer for some time before he was appointed ordi­ nary lecturer. During those years he was compelled to spend most o f his time with the monotonous chores o f an administrative office for which he had no talent and which did not give him any work satisfac­ tion at all, as rightfully said. Little Hungary had few competent people who could judge the merits o f a genius like Goldziher in a field o f study in which he was the only representative. Furthermore, the prejudice against Jews (which, unfortunately, is not limited to Hungary) played its well-known and ill-fated role.” (1941, p. 107) Besides his job as a clerk that devoured most o f his time and strength, he had the energy to actively participate in the reform o f Judaism to supple­ ment the bourgeois emancipation o f the Jewry. He took part in the foun­ dation o f the rabbinical school (inaugurated on 4 October, 1877) and

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served on its board o f directors from 1880. A fter the death of Dâvid Kaufmann he undertook to teach religious philosophy from 1900 to 1921. In line with his im portant basic writing, produced and presented in 1887-88, in which he attempted to outline the place o f Judaism in the history o f the world, he analyzed the outstanding Jewish thinkers and religious philosophers o f the Middle Ages (Sacdya, Bahya, Yuda Ha-Lëwî, Maimonides.)(See: Heller, 1927b pp. 271-272) “Our religion keeps pace with the fundamental truths o f the chang­ ing times and the development o f human thinking; it does not turn a deaf ear to the lofty ideas that enriched the thinking of the centuries.” (1888, p.389) As will be seen, the young Goldziher’s grandiose attem pt is both unpre­ cedented and unrepeated in Hungarian history and therefore unique. It involved no less than the maintenance o f purely ethical elements o f religiousness in the spirit o f equality and freedom o f the Hungarian nation and the bourgeoisie which could have become an im portant but secondary element in socially aligned science. This concept, detectable in his early works, is similar to the squaring o f the circle because o f the antinomies in the national and bourgeois development. The resignation that arose from the conflict between the various elements and the im­ possibility o f their unity lends a special character to Goldziher’s career and provides important information for the diagnosis o f the development in Hungary. In brief what was at stake was this : whether or not Judaism should become an element o f private life like Catholicism or protestantism, parallel with the social emancipation o f the Jewry and its integration into the bourgeois nation. Goldziher’s attempts, made in the course o f the reform o f Judaism, were aimed at the two extrem responses o f the east central European Jewry, to this historical challenge. He rejected both the Jewish orthodoxy o f the ghetto mentality and the unconditional integration into gentrified Hungary to enjoy the opportunities o f capita­ lism. Examples had been given earlier (1862, 1877 and 1897) of how his attempts—apart from certain outstanding intellectuals—met with rejec­ tion from both groups. The political (non-bourgeois) society and its forms o f mind did not allow for the Goldziher-type alternative. O f the two sodally-typical alternatives mentioned above, the strengthening antisemitism which was rooted in the sick national development had lopted for the former: isolation. The limitation o f the second alternative ’bourgeois development with or without ethical Judaism, and socia

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radicalism, are all too wellknown. (Think o f Anna Lesznai’s frank and beautiful novel “A t the beginning there was the garden” depicting the world o f the gentry at the turn o f the century and the attempts o f the various members o f the Berkovics family at integration or radicalisation.) Characteristically, Goldziher searched for a scapegoat within the ecclesia and not outside the Jewry. An instructive entry from his Diary is worth quoting, on the reaction to his five brilliant lectures held in the winter o f 1887-88 under the title The Essence and the Development o f the Jewry which were deeply characteristic o f his reform ideas. (See : Heller, Biblio­ graphie, 1927, Nos. 125,379) “During the winter o f 1887-881 gave lectures on The Essence and the Development o f the Jewry, the first five o f which appeared in the Jewish review (M agyar Zsidô Szemle, 1888—R. S.) edited by two o f my school-mates (J. Bénôczi and V. Bacher—R. S). who lived by journa­ lism. A fter I broke off spiritual contacts with the guild I retained the last lecture among my manuscripts. There was an exceptional number of listeners at the first lecture but as soon as the audience discovered that I was determined to teach and not entertain them, there were fewer and fewer o f them on every occasion. A fter the 6th lecture 1eventually made up my mind to stop in order to protect my reputation. This was the last time I cast pearls before swine. And what is more the swine did not even listen to m e . .. I was cured o f wishful thinking for good.” (Tahebuch, pp. 111-112) A splendid example is contained in the entry o f 24 November, 1912 o f his Diary, to slow how the ghetto mentality and the Jewish aristocracy already assimilated in the gentry, the two false alternatives o f the one, distorted historical development, got together to condemn his efforts to achieve bourgeois emancipation. The upper cast was celebrating the 70th birthday of Jenô Râkosi and Goldziher happened to be among the

“A fter the dinner Jenô Balog, the secretary o f state sat by my and told me that the Rabbi o f Vâgujhely, a man called Friedmann, submit­ ted an appeal to the minister in which he lodged a protest because an enemy o f the religion, the author o f the M ythos bei den Hebräern is on the teaching staff o f the rabbinical school. The protest was given to baron Jözsef Hatvani Deutsch. He will decide on the piousness o f Ignée Goldziher. At long last, after 36 years the Book of the Myths

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had a Hungarian reader! That is a success! And Baron Deutsch as a judge o f piousness. That is great’*(Tagebuch, p. 272) It is understandable after all this that Goldziher’s attitude towards the quasi-scientific study o f the Jewry, still representing the ghetto mentality, was negative. “The unbelievably rude relationship, unfit for a virtuous community, which I had with the representatives o f Jewish authority and Jewry itself, made me disdain participation in the deceitful activities which were carried out under the banner o f the Jewish studies.” (Tagebuch, p. 110) The subject-matter and direction o f his early university lectures were defined by the problems which were the main focus o f the Book of the Myths. Between 1876-83 he ran courses o f lectures on the universal his­ tory o f religions and on mythology. (See: Tagebuch, p. 92) Bernât Munkicsi’s memoirs help judge the quality and unorthodoxy o f his lectures: “I got acquainted with Goldziher during my first years at the uni­ versity. His lectures on the origin o f writing and his introduction into comparative mythology were the most attractive and interesting lectures o f all I had ever heard. His exceptionally great knowledge, his wittiness and kindness captured the youth who got near him. (1925, p. 18) From the 1880s (after Tiszaeszlér and the foundation o f the antisemitic party by Istôczy and other events) Goldziher must have realized that eccentric experiment (to hammer out the unity o f burgher, scientist and Hungarian plus the ethical piousness defined by these) was doomed to failure in Hungary. His humiliating way o f life became less and less bearable with the passing o f years. The failure o f his experiment was inevitably reflected in his world view, academic activity and his own life too. The question about the latter took the form whether he should stay in Hungary under such circumstances or not. All the more so, because after 1885 lots o f European, American and Eastern universities invited him to accept professorships there. In 1885 Goldziher was invited to Prague. Let us quote from Nöldeke’s letter o f 30 November, 1885. “If you accept the invitation you may consider whether to move house to Vienna or stay in Budapest if need be. I would be very glad

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if you go to Prague, if the terms are acceptable. And as for the fact that you would not be able to write in Hungarian—so much the bet­ ter! You are not a popular teacher and what is the point o f writing in a language that nobody does, or will, understand outside Hungary? I am at a loss to understand you.” In 1893 he was offered a professorship at the university o f Heidelberg. Let us quote Nöldeke’s letter again. (14 December, 1893) He warned Goldziher that if he refused he would deprive himself o f the possibility o f any future German invitation, and went on like this: “If I live for 7 years after Easter I am going to retire. If it will be so and you will be in Heildelberg you will be my successor and have, at least, a huge library at your disposal. Naturally, these are ‘the things* o f the future and I don’t want to attach too much importance to them. But please think o f something: with your working capacity you have obligations towards science. If you are in Heidelberg you can be o f greater use to it than in Budapest.” In 1894 Goldziher was invited to Cambridge to be the successor o f W. Robertson Smith, the great historian o f religions and Semitic philologist. It was E. G. Browne, Goldziher’s admirer and friend, the outstanding Iranist o f the time who tried to persuade him to accept. (Browne’s A literary history o f Persia, retains it worth today.) “Let me express myself quite frankly. Professor Bevan and I are deeply convinced that the good standards and efficiency o f the Ori­ ental Faculty can be guaranteed only if one o f the greatest Arabists o f Europe can possibly be persuaded to settle down among us and accept the vacant professorship. ” (from Browne’s letter o f 25 April, 1894) A fter Goldziher’s negative answer (See: the entry o f 28 April, 1894 in his Diary: “The gates o f Redemption are wide open everywhere. It is not the fault o f the world that I have to remain a slave. But I have to .”) Browne wrote in his letter o f 4 May, 1894: “You have driven me to absolute despair with your reply although I do appreciate the nature of bonds that bound you to Budapest. I cannot easily accept that my suggestion is not feasible. Your feelings, however, are greatly to your credit!”

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A fter Goldziher was appointed successor o f the retired H atala in 1905, the further constant and provisional invitations to universities—Stras* bourg, Universities o f the USA, Uppsala, College de France, Jerusalem and the personal invitation o f Khedive Ahmad Fu9Sd to Cairo—are not o f fundamental importance. The question is why Goldziher refused to accept the complimentary university invitations that would have guaranteed a respected, bourgeois way o f life at that time. (The numerous references in Goldziher’s Diary to his family obligations, to bring up his older sister’s orphaned children, can be neglected when looking for an answer; for he could have fulfilled his obligations much better in Heidelberg or Cambridge than in Budapest.) This simple question disguises a special problem that had something to do with world history, namely why Spinoza could leave his religious community in 1656 and why Goldziher could not, and did not, do the same about 200 years later even though he shared Spinoza’s world view on fundamental questions. Naturally, the problem is inseparable from the character o f the national and bourgeois development in Eastern Europe. As the analysis o f the historical situation and Goldziher’s closely related lifework is a subject to be treated below, let us make do for now with subjective reflections and some genuine statements. Goldziher told Bernât Heller sometime around 1920 when somebody accepted an invitation to teach abroad: “W hat a pity that he accepted the invitation. I did not do so and I do not suppose you would either.” (1927b, p. 273) Another student, Jdzsef Somogyi, also recalled Goldziher’s personal testimony. “Science has no fatherland, but a scientist must have one.. He used to say this when refering to his numerous university invitations. (1961, pp. 15-16) Earlier, references were made to Goldziher’s and Max Nordau’s life and career which represented the two, diametrically opposed alternatives. (M ax Nordau was Goldziher’s school-mate and friend). Nordau left Hungary in 1880, and this cosmopolitan Jewish intellectual became one the spiritual leaders o f Zionism. He was among the first to join T. Herzl, the father o f Zionism. During the first Zionist congress in Basel, he was

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his main support and after HerzTs death he succeded him in the chairmanship o f the congress. He was the leader o f the movement till 1911 and his mortal remains were hurried in Tel-Aviv, as requested. (See: A. Scheiber, 1956, pp. 200-201) Their alternative paths were once again compared towards the end o f their lives and their incompatible differences were explicitly expressed. Max Nordau wrote a letter to Goldziher on 12 May, 1920 in which he invited him to Jerusalem to the university to be founded there. Beside this he casually mentioned the peacemaking mission between the Arabs and the Jews. “Because o f the few friends 1 still have in Hungary I follow the development o f events there with deep anxiety. I hope with all my heart that you can reach the decision to move to Jerusalem. You would be on free Jewish territory there, which would be able to give you your due place. The university soon to be founded would be proud to have you. Furthermore, you would be able to do an awful lot to establish friendly relations between the Jews and the Muslim Arabs. (We do not, and will not, want to approach the Christian Syrians.)” (Scheiber, 1956, p. 205) In his answer o f 30 May, 1920 Goldziher naturally rejected the offer which had far more significance than his earlier refusals. W rote he: “Parting with the fatherland at this time would be like demanding a heavy sacrifice from a patriotic point o f view. On earlier occasions 1 refused to emigrate to English and German universities for the very same reasons.” (Scheiber, 1956, p. 205, no. 20) Reminiscences about Goldziher by Kàroly Sebestyén, who was one ge­ neration his junior, contain a very instructive fact. A fter the death o f T. Gomperz, the outstanding German historian o f philosophy, in 1912, a commemorative speech was delivered by K. Sebestyén in which he quoted the following confession from Gomperz’s Essays und Erinne­ rungen: “The relationship with the religion I inherited was intimate only in my childhood. Despite this I was o f the opinion—and now I believe I was mistaken—that one’s honesty and conscience does not allow the rejection o f the old religious community by which I blocked the path to more bénéficient activities before me.”

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A fter the speech was delivered Goldziher told Sebestyén: “You would have been better advised to keep quiet what you related about Gomperz and the Jewry. W hat was the good o f putting it before the public?” When Sebestyén brought up the truthfulness of science Goldziher retorted vehemently: “The truthfulness o f science would not have been any the worse if you had kept silent about this matter. A fter all I think I have got a vague idea what constitutes the truthfulness o f science.” (Sebestyén, 1922, pp. 44-45) Bernât Heller quoted a confession-like excerpt from a letter written by Goldziher in 1889 to Jôzsef Bâbôczi: “Jewishness is a religious term and not an ethnographical one. As regards my nationality I am a Transdanubian, and by religion a Jew. When I headed for Hungary from Jerusalem 1 felt I was coming home. Man is the product o f objective historical conditions. His character is determined by these conditions and not by the index o f his skull.” (Heller, 1932, p. 25) How can these answers be evaluated? Let us draw on the proofs to be presented later. Goldziher’s conduct and world concept are considered to be a temporary but paradigmatic phenomenon that carried a certain message in the history of Eastern Europe, although it could not be typical o r current either before 1848 or after the turn o f the century or World W ar I. Because o f the lack o f real national unity and bourgeois development before the turn o f the century, Judaism could not gain independence from the Jewry that isolated itself ethnically in ghettoes with its way o f life and world view penetrating into every sphere o f its life, and it could not become a potential element in bourgeois private life (similar to the development in the West). A fter the turn o f the cen­ tury class warfare was internationalized, the Eastern European corre­ lation of which was the engagement o f Capital and Fascism that relent­ lessly caused people to take sides. Considering all this Goldziher’s expe­ riment could live only as a historical element in E. Bloch’s messianistic philosophy of hope. In the second half o f the 19th century Goldziher’s

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experiment was to be regarded as the transitional phase o f the bourgeois national assimilation/emandpation o f the Jewry which failed because o f the victory o f the nationalistic trend in the sick Hungarian develop­ ment. It is the traditional irony o f history that the original connections are rarely o f interest to posterity. In accordance with the future o f the Jewish question the new generation did not recognize that the predomi­ nant element in Goldziher’s experiment was the unity o f bourgeois and national endeavours as the ethical element sought in vain in the Prussian way o f distorted national and bourgeois development. Posterity saw only that he dinged to Judaism. Spinoza could become a cosmopolitan. Goldziher could not. (This is borne out by the fact that he never seriously concerned himself with the Jewish studies. First he chose the comparative history o f culture and religions and later Islam.) One o f Goldziher’s favourite subjects was the legend of a monk called Bar$i$a about whom he wrote a study (D ie Legende vom Mönch Barftfo, 1895) with C. Landberg-Hallberger. The devout and pious monk resisted all temptations. Once, however, the Devil forced him to choose between three evils: drunkenness, fornication and murder. O f course, the pious monk picked drunkenness which was the lesser evil. But he fornicated while drunk and then he murdered his partner in sin. The fact that Jend Péterfy used the monk’s name seven times to adress Goldziher jokingly shows that the legend with its diverse versions at­ tracted Goldziher’s attention not only for its philological value. (Goldzi­ her was Péterfy’s friend till his death in 1896. See: I. P. Ziméndi: Jenö Péterfy’s Life and Age, 1972, p. 379. For Péterfy appropriate literary remarks were very important in the characterization of himself and others. See: Ziméndi, 1972, p. 447) In his letter written sometime in September-October, 1896 he referred to the reason for using the nam e: “My famous Bar-Sisa, I have got good reason to use this name because I read in the papers the day before yesterday that the United States are having themselves registered at the University o f Budapest in the person of one of their young scholars, for Bar-Sisa’s sake. The faculty o f Arts can be proud now.” Péterfy and tem ptation, nation) can The history

Goldziher interpreted the legend that evil (be it foreign isolation, or unconditional assimilation into the gentry be avoided by way o f moral honesty and self-control. o f the 20th centuiy has shown that even pious monks are

MORALS OF A PARADIGM ATIC LIFE

61

compelled to make decisions and if Bar$i$a is trapped in a vicious circle (nationalism and/or Jewisness) he has only Hobson’s choice because all paths lead to the devil. Although Péterfy and Goldziher belonged to the 19th century it became clear in their case as well that moral honesty is not enough by a long chalk; Péterfy committed suicide, while Goldziher’s life and career are the proof that he resigned the experiment he embarked upon when he was young. The other aspects o f Goldziher’s life possess merely an episodic cha­ racter when set beside the set o f problems discussed in this study. Con­ ventional commemorative writings usually highlight Goldziher’s career a t the Academy of Sciences. (He became an associate member in 1876; an ordinary member in 1892, chairman o f the first department in 1903, the member o f the board o f directors in 1911.) It is well-known, however, that membership in the Academy, the generous creation o f the Hungarian aristocracy and nobility does not necessarily mean that one is an out­ standing scholar; the fashion within the institution was set by the rep­ resentatives of the nationalistic trend. (Vâmbéry could merely boast o f a German-Turkish dictionary when he became an academician.) It is common knowledge too that Goldziher remained a second-grade Hun­ garian even as a member o f the Academy. His handicapped Hungarianhood is reflected by the fact that the ’Awakening Hungarians’ harrassed him after the fall o f the Republic o f Councils. It was no use being a professor and a chairman o f department of the Academy. He resigned the latter post in 1920 and wanted to resign his professorship, too. The international protest induced Horthy’s Hungary to produce some gestu­ res which were mentioned earlier. Then came the silence which was made even more deadly by the few and awkward reminiscences.

B ib l io g r a p h y •(The exact bibliographical data of works referred to in the Foreword, with their year of publication or incomplete title.) i) The bibliography of Goldziher’s works: B. Heller: Bibliographie des oeuvres de Ignace Goldzihcr par Bernard Heller. Pans, 1927 (X V n+100 p.) ii) Goldzihcr's works mentioned here: I.Sichat-Jiczchak, Abhandlung Ober Ursprung, Eintheilung und Zeit der Gebete von I. G ., Gymnasialschaler in Stuhlweiszenbürg, Pest, 1862 (19 p.) 2. Studien Ober TanchOm JerOschalmi. Inauguraldissertation. Id p rig . 1870 (56+15 p.) 3. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachgelehrsamkeit bei den Arabern: Sitzungsbe­ richte der phil. hist. Classe der Kais. Akad. der Wissenschaften, LVII. Band Wien 1871, pp. 207-251; LXXXI. Band Wien, 1872 pp. 587-631; LXXIII. Band Wien, 1873, pp. 511-552 4. The Question of Nationalities among the Arabs. Értekezések a nyelvés széptudomânyok kôrébôl III, 8, Budapest, 1873 (64 p.) (In Hung.) 5. Beiträge zur Literaturgeschichte der S fti und der sunnitischen Polemik: Sitzungsberichte der phil. hist. Classe der Kais. Akad. der Wissenschaften, LXXVIII. Band, pp. 439-524; separate publication: Wien, 1874 (88 p.) 6. Der Mythos bei den Hebräern und seine geschichtliche Entwickelung. Untersu­ chungen zur Mythologie und Religionswissenschaft. Leipzig, 1876 (XXX + 402 p) 7. The Place of the Moors in the History of the Development of Islam Compared with that of the Eastern Arabs. Értekezések a nyelv és széptudomânyok kôrébôl. VI, 4 1877 (80p.) (In Hung.) 8. George Smith, Egyetemes Philolôgiai Közlöny, 1877, I, pp. 22-35, 100-110, 160-167 9. On the Method of the Comparative Study of Religions. A Vade Mccum of Religious Philosophy. W ritten by Dr. Ödön Koväcs, the teacher of theology in the town of Enyed, 2 volumes, Budapest, 1878 (Franklin); Magyar TanQgy. 1877-78, V n .(p p . 171-186) (In Hung.) 10. The Latest Trends in Mythology, Egyetemes Philolôgiai Közlöny, III, 1879 (pp. 602-624) (In Hung.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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11. On the Present State o f the Comparative Study of Religions, Budapesti Szemle XXVI, 1881 (pp. 203-225) (In Hun.) 12; The Development of the Comparative Mythology, Budapesti Szemle, XXVIII, 1881 (pp. 1-35) (In Hung.) 13. Islam. Studies on the Religion of Muhammad. Budapest, 1881 (412 p. + XI p.) (In Hung.) 14. On the Muhammadan Public Opinion. Budapesti Szemle, XXX, 1882, pp. 234-265 (In Hung.) 15. Die ?lh iriten . Ihr Lehnystem und ihre Geschichte. Beitrag zur Geschichte der muhammedanischen Theologie. Leipzig, 1884 (X + 232 p.) 16. Le Culte des Ancêtres et le Culte des Morts chez les Arabes. Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, X, 1884 pp. 332-359; separate publication: Paris, 1885 (28 p.) 17. On the Development of Judaism. Magyar-Zsidö Szemle, 5. pp. 1-14. (On the Development of Judaism. An Introductory Lecture), pp. 65-80, pp. 138-155, The Prophétisai) pp. 261-279 (The Rabbinism) pp. 389-406 (The Effects of Philosophy) (In Hung.) 18. Muhammedanische Studien. Halle a.S. E nter Thcil 1888 (XII + 280 p.) Zweiter Thei! 1890(X + 420 p.) 19. Commemorative Speech on Henrich Leberecht Fleischer the associate member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Commemorative Speeches in the H. A. of S. V, 4.1889 (44 p.) (In Hung.) 20. The Concept of the Poet among the Old Arabs. Hunfalvy Album, 1891, pp. 175-181 a n Hung.) 21. The Phases in the Secular Development of Islam. Budapesti Szemle, LXX, Budapest, 1892. pp. 353-382 (In Hung.) 22. The Poetic Traditions of the Heathen Arabs. An Inauguration Treatise. Értekezések a nyelv és széptudoményok kôrébôl XVI, 2.1892 (In Hung.) Separate publication: Budapest, 1893 (69 p.) 23. The Ethnographical connections of the Comparative Study o f Religions. Ethnographia 3,1892, (pp. 335-351) (In Hung.) 24. The Orientalist Renan. A Commemorative Speech. Commemorative Speeches in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, VIII, 2,1894 (100 p.) (In Hung.) 25. The Latest Works on Arabic Dialects. Nyelvtudoményi Kôzlemények XXV, 1895, pp. 90-96 a n Hung.) 26. Die Legende vom Mönch Bar& a (Co-author: C. G raf v. Landberg-Hallberger), Kirchain, 1895 (29 p.) 27. Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie, Leiden, Erster Theil 1896 (VI +231 p.) Zweiter Theil: Das Kit&b al-mucammarin des Aba H itim al-Siÿstflni, 1899 (C IX +103 +69 p.) 28. Islam in Egypt. A Collection of Essays by Hungarian Teachers. Budapest, 1899, pp. 253-273 (In Hung.) 29. Miksa Müller. Nyelvtudoményi Kôzlemények, 30.1900 pp. 458-468 (In Hung.) 30. Die Religion des Islams. Die K ultur der Gegenwart. Berlin—Leipzig, 1906, Teil I, Abteilung 3, pp. 87-135 31. Die islamische und die jüdische Philosophie. Die K ultur der Gegenwart. Berlin-Leipzig, 1909 Teil I. Abteilung 5, pp. 45-77 32. Vorlesungen über den Islam, Heidelberg, 1910(327 p. + Index)

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In Hungarian; Eldadésok az b zlim rtl. Translated fay B. Heller, Budapest, 1912 (413 p.) 33. The War and the Solidarity o f Schoian. Magyar Figyeld, IV, 1914, pp. 250-234 (In Hung.) 36. Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung. Veröffentlichungen der de Goeje-Stiftung, Nr. 6, Leiden, 1920 (392 p.) 37. Tegebush. Herausgegeben von A. Scheiber, Leiden, Brill 1977 (341 p.)

iii) Reminiscences V.V. Bartold: I. Goldziher 1850-1921. Nekrolog. Izvestia Rossiiskoy Akademii Nauk, 1922. pp. 147-168 C.H. Becker: Ignaz Goldziher: Der Islam 12,1922 pp. 214-222; new publication: Islamstudien II, 1967, pp. 499-513 K. Cteglédy: The Greatest Hungarian Scholar of Islam. Remembering Ignée Goldziher. Vilégosség Vol. 12, December, 1971 Un Hung.) J. FQck: Die arabishen Studien in Eurôpa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig, O. Harrasowita, 1955. R. Gottheil: Ignaz Goldziher: Journal o f American Oriental Studies, XD, 1922, pp. 189-193 R. Hartmann: Ignaz Goldziher: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 76,1922 (Neue Folge I, pp. 285-290) B. Heller : Ignée Goldziher. Magyar-Zsidô Szemle 44. pp. 261 -274 (In Hung. B. Heller: In Memoriam Ignée Goldziher, 1932IMIT, 1932, pp. 7-32 (In Hung.) I. Löw: Goldziher Ignée. Széz beszéd [Hundred speeches], Szeged, 1923,299-309. L. Massignon: Ignace Goldziher. Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, LXXXVI, 1922, pp. 61-72; Revised edition in B. Heller’s Bibliographie des oeuvres de I. Goldziher, Paris, 1927, pp. V -X V n. B. M unkicsi: The Beginning o f my Career. 1925. Izr. TanQgyi Értesitô 50. pp. 15-19 and 59-65 (In Hung.) J. Németh: Goldzihers Jugend. Acta Orientalin Hungarica I, pp. 7-24 K. Sebestyén: Ignée Goldziher, the Man. IM IT, 1932, pp. 33-49 (In Hung.) C. Snouck-Hurgronje: Ignaz Goldziher, De Gids, IV, 1921, pp. 489-499; In Hungarian: IM IT, 1941, pp. 98-111 J. de Somogyi: A collection of literary remains of I. Goldziher. Journal of Royal Asiatic Studies, 1935, pp. 149-154 J. de Somogyi: My Reminiscence of I. Goldziher. The Muslim World, 51. 1961, pp. 5-17 J. Véradi Sternberg: Ignée Goldziher and the Russian Researchers of the East. Utak, talélkozésok, emberek, Uzhgorod—Budapest, 1974, pp. 266-275 (In Hung.) J.—J. Waardenburg: L’islam dans le miroir de l’Occident. (I. Goldziher, C. Snouck Hurgronje, C. H. Becker, D. B. Mac-Donald, Louis Massignon), Paris-La Haye, M outon, 1963. A.S. Yahuda: Die Bedeutung der Goldziherachen Bibliothek für die zukünftige hebräische Universität. Der Jude 8.1924, pp. 575-592.

N otes • Written in 1978-79 as the Foreword to I Goldziher’s A z iszldm kultüràja [The Culture of Islam], (Budapest, 1981, ed R. S. Gondolât Publishing House) but not included by the publisher because of some disputed points. I have tried to give an in-depth analysis of several of the problems sketchily outlined in the Foreword in my studies, which were attached to Goldziher’s works as commentaries. 1 Gesammelte Schriften . Published by J. de Somogyi, I-V I, Hildesheim, 1967-1973. * For example : the new edition of the English version (1877) of the Der M ythos bei den Hebräern, (1976) in 1968; the new edition of the French translation—Le dogme et la lo i de l'islam , Paris, 1920—of the Vorlesungen, 1910 in 1961 ; the new edition o f the Zâhiriten, 1884 in 1967; the new edition of the Muhammedanische Studien, 1888-1890, in 1961; the new edition of the Streitschrift, 1916 in 1956; the new edition of the Richtungen, 1920 in 1970. 1 A Short History o f Arabic Literature, Hyderabad-Deccan, 1959, 1966. (The original in Hungarian: Arabok: Egyetemes irodalomtorténet, ed. G. Heinrich, Budapest, 1902, pp. 245-328); The Spanish Arabs and Islam. Muslim W orld,U II-LIV, 1963-64 (The original Hungarian appeared in 1877.); Muslim Studies, 1967; II, 1971 = Muhammedanische Studien , 1888-1890; The Zähiris, 1971 = Çâhiriten , 1884. 4 For example the Arabic and Hebrew translations of the Vorlesungen, 1910 in 1940 and 1951 ; the partial Arabic translation of the Richtungen, 1920 in 1944; the Arabic translation of the Stellung der alten ismamischen Orthodoxie, 1916 in 1947; 4 In my opinion the most significant and fruitful approach to social theory in the last 15-20 years was the research into unequal development. Besides the new ways in investigating the burning theoretical and practical questions of the recent past and the present, researchers began to elaborate new categories to facilitate the analyses of 'pre-history*. (By radically rejecting the Eurocentric historical concept, criticizing the unilinear historical pattem , approaching the problems of the mode of pro­ duction in a new fashion and questioning the metaphysical interpretations of history predetermined by the invariable and constant parameters like proprietorship, or exploitation. Seee. g. the excellent succint survey of the recent studies concerning the Middle East by Bryan S. Turner: Marx and the End o f Orientalism London, G. Allen and Unwin, 1978. War was declared on the formalist concept of economic history and dogmatic Marxism that neglected the original analysis of the economy. The classic study of this wave of research is, in all probability, A. Gerschenkron’s Economic Backwardness in H istorical Perspective (The Progress o f Underdeveloped Countries, ed. B. Hoselitz, Chicago University Press, 1952) published in 1952.

(See further two volumes of his collected papers : 1. Economic Backwardness in H istorical Perspective. A Book o f Essays, Belknap Press Gambridge/Mass. 1962;

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GOLDZIHER S LIFE AND ACTIVITY

2. Continuity in History and other Essays, Belknap Press, Cambridge(Mas3. 1968) In his works he underlined the obvious fact thoroughly forgotten within Marxism that credible hypotheses of historical theory must be founded on practical analyses o f the history o f the economy that are thorough and not oblivious of the history of the world as a whole (exemplified recoently by the pathfinder works of F. Braudel, I. Wallerstein or P. Anderson). One of the obvious paradoxes of the postmarxian Marxism is that the social theory rooted in the economy has not bothered to produce newer and newer analyses of the phenomena after Marx had completed his own one. The ensuing theoretical attem pts had no practical backing. After Tamâs Szentes’ significant theoretical work the actual analysis of the economic history of the periphe­ ral East Central European development did not begin until relatively recently relying heavily on the thoughts of Gerschenkron, E. Hekscher, S. Kuznets and others. (See: Ivân Berend T.—Gyôrgy Rânki: Gazdasàgielmaradottsàg. Kiutak és kudarcok a XIX. szdzadi Eurôpâban. [Economie Backwardness. Solutions and Failures in the 19th c. Europe]. Kôzgazdasâgi és Jogi Könyvkiadö, Budapest, 1979) A detailed record of the attem pts of the ’new left* is contained in Tamâs Szentes Polgdri is ,,iûfbaloldair elmètetek a tôkés vilâggazdasâgrôl [Bourgeois and 'New-Leftist' Theories o f the Capitalist World Economy]. (Kossuth Könyvkiadö, Budapest, 1980) 4 1 consider Goldziher’s life paradigmatic in the aforementioned context of unequal development, as a possible and progressive reply of the* inside’ to the challenge of the more developed ’outside*, as was appropriately put into words by Endre Ady: “ Ferry-Land, Ferry-Land, Ferry-Land. Even when dreaming her mightiest dreams she could not but shuttle between the two banks. Between the East and the West, but mostly the other way ro u n d ... Idealists and impostors joined hands to build up fairy castles of sand and trumpe­ ted to the world that the real Europe was created at the foot of the C arpathians... The great bluff did not do any harm to Europe. Their lies were taken in at hom e... Meanwhile there were great Falls; people like Béla Grünwald and Jenô Béterfy fled from the country as soon as they discovered what was going on. Who knows how many of them did so and who they were actually. And how many of them fared even worse ? The majority of theses unfortunate exiles just vegetated. Ten thousand people ran forward and became European abroad to create poetry and thoughts and to suffer pain and thirst. The land produced an over-sophisticated race here that was ahead of its time by one hundred years at least. These holy couriers of development did not even dream that they had a retinue of none**. (E. Ady: IsmeretlenKorvin-kôdexmargôjàra%1905) 7 W. O. McCagg used some amazingly rich material in his exceptional and thorough work (Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modem Hungary, East European Monographs III, New York, 1972) to characterise the crucial and more or less known and recog­ nised role, broken down into entrepreneurial types, that Jewry played in the capitalist development of Hungary. He convincingly described the close contacts between the Jewish great-bourgeoisie and the non-buorgeois Hungarian ruling block, much needed and accepted by both parties. He said that about half of the Jewish archcapitalists were noblemen (see: p. 36) but it is truly shocking that 220 of the 346 noblemen of Jewish origin acquired their titles “ in the last two decades o f the Monarchy’s existence, when Hungary’s industrial transformation finally became massive.” (p. 39) It proves beyond doubt that the Hungarian ruling block could, and did, rely on this special national minority, of all minorities in the country.

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As substantiated by a chart on p. 121, the massive waves o f title awarding occured when the government needed financial help to strengthen or demonstrate its power. (The first peak was in 1867, in the year of the Compromise. The second one was between 1882-87 when Kâlmân Tisza set out to protect them in the face o f a new wave of anti-semitism. The third peak was between 1895-97 because Jewish money was needed to back the show of power at the Millenium. The other peaks that follo­ wed in 1905, 1910 and 1914 can be explained by Governmental Invitations, too.) Naturally this phenomenon sheds light on the nature of the ruling block and the crucial fact that the big capital (of the Jews) could play the role of a tolerated ally only within the ruling block, ie. the moneyed had to adapt to the non-bourgeois ruling block politically, culturally and so on. This blind adherence to the ruling block can be detected in the opportunist deeds of the Central Council of the Hunga­ rian Jews even after the Jewish Acts were passed. (See: Jenô Lévai: Zsidôsors Magyarorszägon (Being a Jew in Hungary), Magyar Téka, Budapest, 1948, pp. 79-83 The unconditional adaptation in the earlier periods was aptly characterised by Lgjos Hatvany. “ I have seen the tragedies of assimilation. Vilmos Vâzsonyi created democracy with the Hungarian gentry. Henrik Marczali wrote Hungarian history for the Hungarian ruling class. Zsigmond Simonyi worked to purify the Hungarian language through the institutions, universities and academies of the official science. Vâzsonyi came into conflict with himself by the time he died. Marczali was compelled to resign in favour of SzekfQ. Despite his apostolic zeal, Simonyi was thrown out of the university and the Academy. The insults caused him to die. (A polgdr vàlaszûionfThc burgher at Crossroads), 1926, Dec.: Emberek is korok/People and Eras) Szépirodalmi Kiadô, 1964,11, p. 411) HTo substantiate the latter suffice it to quote a passage in extenso from Goldziher’s Tagebuch in which he gave an account of his meeting Vâmbéry on 9 April, 1900. “ Nach langer Pause machte ich heute dem Derwisch wieder einen Besuch. Mit dem Alter dieses bösen Abenteurers wächst die Ruchlosigkeit seiner Seele. Heute sprach er mir 1. über den hohen Werth des Geldes; jeder Mensch, der sich kein Geld verschafft, viel Geld, ist ein verwerflicher Charakter. “ Ich hab’ mir eine viertel Million verdient, eine halbe Million Kronen, aber nicht mit der Wissenschaft. Wissen­ schaft ist ein D r. . .k(ipsissim a verba) Mommsen? Das ist der grösste E sel. . . und so fort. 2. In Ungarn braucht man keine Wissenschaft. Glaubst du, ich habe mir ‘mit der Wissenschaft’ meinen Reichthum erworben? Ich hab* bekommen Jahresgehalt von der englischen Königin und vom Sultan für politische Dienste. England hat mir jetzt «meinen Gehalt* mit, ,500 Fund* jährlich erhöht. Das ist Wissenschaft.*’ 3. “ Warum gehst du eigentlich nicht fort von Ungarn? Willst du warten bis H. (= Péter Hatala — R. S.) stirbt ? Ich weiss ja, dass du bist ein berühmter Mensch, ich hab* dass in Ausland gehert. Du misstest auswandern.” „Dann noch einige ungrammatische Tiraden über die Niederträchtigkeit aller Religionen, über den Socialismus, über Patriotismus (der görsste aller Schwindeleien) etc. etc.“ (pp. 226-227)

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9 Fuck’s statement sufficiently characterises the state of Oriental Studies in the Austria of the mid-19th century. 44When Nöldekewas in Vienna between 1856-57 he had the impression that after the death of Hammer-Purgstall Austria had no orientalist at all. Because of the relations between Austria and the Ottoman Empire the study of the Orient was limited to practical needs at the Eastern Academy in Vienna.** The two dictionaries by A. Wahrmund (1827-1913) —to quote again the statement o f FQck—did not44 satisfy reasonable scientific requirements.** (1955, p. 187) 10 For the Hungarian connections and the description of the school using philological methods instead of the traditional biblical exegesis, see in Goldziher, 1880, pp. 113-119; passim 1889, pp. 10-11, and 1908, pp. 5-10. 11 See: A. Abdel-Malek: L'orientalisme en crise. Diogène 44, 1963, pp. 109-142 (in La Dialectique sociale, Ed. du Seuil, Paris, 1972, pp. 79-113); A. Laroui: L'idéolo­ gie arabe contemporaine, F. Maspéro, Paris, 1973; La crise des intellectuels arabes, Traditionalisme ou historicisme? F. Maspéro, Paris, 1974; For a Methodology o f Islamic studies, Diogène 83; 1973, pp. 12-39. Edward W. Said: Orientalism . New York, Vintage Books Edition, 1979 ,f See one of our earlier writings on the question: Marx, néhàny marxista irdnyzat és az orientalisztika törtinelemfelfogdsa a Közel-Keletröl. Megjegyzések Bryan S. Turner: Marx and the end o f Orientalism c. kônyvérôl (Concept o f Middle-East H istory in M arx, some marxian trends and in the study o f the Orient. Comments on Bryan S . Turner's M arx and the end o f Orientalism) Magyar Filozofiai Szemle, XXIV.

1980/5, pp. 809-817 13 See the latest and excellent essay by Ph. Lucas and J. C. Vatin and their rather depres­ sing chrestomathy on the Exactness of science in Europe*: L'Algérie des anthropolo­ gues, F. Maspéro, Paris, 1975 11 Geschichte des Qorans. 2. Auflage bearbeitet von F. Schwally. I. Teil: Über den Ursprung des Qorans, Leipzig, 1909 (The author dedicated this volume to Goldziher and Snouck-Hurgronje) II. Teil: Die Sammlung des Qorans, 1919; III. Teil: Geschichte desQorantextes von G. Bergsträsser und O. Pretzl. 14 This obviously implies a paradoxical world concept, the secret of which is that an East Central European and specifically Hungarian would be burgher tried to har­ monize the already incompatible elements of the national development, determined by the overweight bourgeois advancement, plus the freedom of the developing bourgeois individual who sharply criticizes his own 4prehistory* plus the decisive role of the human community. He did it at a time when the earlier ethnical and religious ghetto community ceased to exist but the new and organic national com­ munity was not yet in existence. Although the rationality of the bourgeois scholar is a necessary consequence of the above situation, it can be related neither to the empirism nor to the sensualism produced by the development of the English bourgeoi­ sie that acquired economic power earlier and wanted to legitimize its political power in the 17th—18th centuries, and the world concept of which was the philosophical product of its social compromise built on the objective unity of reality and the free bourgeois individual of equal rights. However, this rationalism is different from that o f the enlightened French burgher still fighting for political hegemony to supple­ ment his economic power. The French attitude placed emphasis on the freedom o f

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the autonomous and Independent Individual as against the matter-of-fact attitude of the English Bourgeoisie that allowed a peaceful compromise with the nobility during the ‘Glorious Revolution9. The rationality of the individual entailed, first and foremost, non-sensualism (ie. the suspiciousness of the not-yet-conquered reality) and the rejection of the transindividua! categories. It is fundamental that both world concepts neglected the problem of universality and human community. There was, however, a third world concept aptly called the ‘tragic world concept9 by L. Goldmann. In the arts and philosophy of the sick German bourgeois development, besides the freedom of individual special importance was attached to the realtionship between the subjective and objective nature of the individual, ie. the problem of the individual and human community and the question of transindividual values. Because of the above, the world concept originating in the ‘German misery9 paid great attention to the moral questions. (On the differences of the three ways of devel­ opm ent see L. Goldmann: introduction à la philosophie de Kant, Gallimard, Pians, 1967. pp. 36-59) There is a crucial difference in the way the former two world con­ cepts and the latter interpreted the meaning of historical events. E. Lask called the epistemological position of the former ‘analytically logical9 while that of the latter was the ‘emanatingly logical9 which referred to the replies given to the question of relationship between the individual and human community and that of the parts and the whole. Their debate can be traced in the philosophical thinking of the last 200 years from the kantian criticism of rational dogmatism and sceptic empirism to the spectacular west-German “ Positivismusstreit99 of the 1960s (The description of the two positions see: in L. Goldmann: ibid. pp. 71-72; and Sciences humaines et philosophie, Ed. Gonthier, Paris, 1966, pp. 131-139) Let us revert to our subject now. There were two fundamental ideas in the young Goldziher’s world concept and lifework trying to react to the East Central European conditions. One was the common and universal development of man that surfaced in his early works as an organic and historical teleology ; the other was the problem of the transformation of heterogenious societies into national communities. The latter set of questions was to become the ‘Leitmotiv9 of the scholar who founded the study of Islam, and acquired classic expression in his epoch-making studies of the Muhammedanische Studien , 1888-1890 which crowned the young Goldziher9s scholarly activities. The former set of questions was the focus of the Book o f the M yths and provided its antinomies at the same time. The interesting lessons of this work, exceptional in the history of science, would deserve a separate study. Here let me refer only to certain aspects of it and mention that in my study on Nomadizmus ésfôldmûvelés (Nomadism and Agriculture) I dealt with the work9s myth and religion cencept as well as its relationship to religious histo­ ry and ethnology In connection with this work I intend to comment on Goldziher9s views on religious philosophy, the inseparable nature of his work from contemporary Hungarian conditions, and the interrelationship between the work and Goldziher9s future activities. I will try to describe the highly problematic position of the East Central European would-be burgher mentioned above. This is Goldziher9s only sig­ nificant work in which the decisive ideological element is the abstract organic evolu­ tionism. The abstract ideological movement, however, is inconstant conflict with the tenden des of a true historical-genetic world concept. Because of the paradoxical world concept the study wavered between abstract speculation and exciting historical analyses sufficiently supported by documents: the dynamics of the essential social phenomena of the real social movement and the sham-movement of universal ideas.

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Let us deal with the first set of questions first ! The analysis is both easy and difficult because of the4horn of plenty* which the young Goldziher provided with his accounts of the state of regular research into myths and religious history in Europe in the 1870s and early 1880s in accordance with his grandiose ‘Kulturgeschichte9concept. At the same time he continously outlined his own opinion (see: 1876a, pp. 117-159; 1878, pp. 176-186; 1879, pp. 529, 602-624; 1881a, pp. 203-225; 1881b, pp. 1-35; and he reverted to the question at the end of the 1890s in order to characterize the tasks of ethnography: 1892b, pp. 335-351). Originally, he intended his Book o f the M yths as a series of lectures to be delivered in Hungarian at the Academy (See: 1876, IX) in the course of which he clarified his attitude towards Max M011er9s solar myth-theory based on comparative linguistics, and the conclusions of cultural history of H. SteinthaTs language concept. Further, he made an effort to declare in an ambivalent way, out of necessity, that he had nothing to do with the abstract speculation in religious philosophy like Comte’s and Spencer9s positivist religion concept in an unambigous and convincing way. As to his relationship with the former two, it must be noted here that he always regarded M. MOiler’s myth concept as the ‘scandal’ of language (See: the excellent characterisation in E. Cassirer: The Philo­ sophy o f Symbolic Formsf Yale University Press, 1970, II. pp. 21-22; The M yth o f the State9 Yale Univ. Press, 1969, pp. 16-22) and treated it with reservations from the very beginning (see: 1876, pp. 49-50) since in Goldziher’s view the myth is not at all the negative aspect of language (it would mean that in course of the reduction of polyonymy the genesis of the myth would be the transformation of all, or more exactly of some, the common nouns of the natural phenomena into proper nouns; not a defined social attitude towards nature but a linguistic misunderstanding) but “ the myth is a natural form of man’s inner life at the early stages of human deve­ lopment’’ (1881b, p. 25) which is the same everywhere. As opposed to this his attitude towards H. SteinthaTs psychological concept always remained positive. Goldziher expressed his own standpoint most coherently in his book review of Ödön Kovâcs’ manual. It is not his erudition that is irresistable in his instructive writing but the philosophical foundation he demanded of himself. When outlining the requirements of a study of religions void of ideological conno­ tations, he referred to Feuerbach :

“ Feuerbach, the philosopher, wrote in one of his brilliant letters published posthumously that theology, the science of religion, so called in the vernacular, should be replaced by theonomy as was the case with the mediaeval astrology, the study of heavenly bodies which was replaced by the modem astronomy. (1878, p.172)

He mentioned that theological questions were investigated by Aristotle, Spinoza, Hume and ‘above all by Hegel and his school* free o f‘speculative methods’ and the ‘bonds of the theological authorities’ (See: 1878, pp. 172-173) but the thoughts of these philosophers could not be found in the work he reviewed. He referred to Aristotle’s famous passage in which he related the idea of rule to the idea of God (see: Aristotle: Politics, 1,2 : 1252b); and said that they became the bases ofethno-

NOTES

7*

logical research in Asia Minor. (1878, p. 173) He also sought in vain for Hume’s basic thought in the said work which was one of the fundamental principles in Goldziher’s own myth-concept. “ A much later philosopher, Hume was the first to contradict the theological school’s views that took polytheism for a degraded ancient monotheism. Hume postulated that polytheism always preceded monotheism in the development o f religions everywhere and he expressed his views on the basis of the history of development on a nearly evolutionist basis.” (1878, p. 173) Goldziher reverted to the question in 1881 when he wrote a summary in connection with the lifework of F. Creuzer, who was the founder of the school of symbolism. Goldziher declared that it was the sentimental and romantic atmosphere of the timesthat popularized the symbolist school, in which the theory of ancient monotheism originated together with the belief that polytheist mythologies and religions are the degraded versions of the revelations of an ancient monotheism. “ The main philosopher o f the school was Schelling, with his work Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie.” (See : 1881b, p. 16)

After he described the subject of the comparative study of mythology and religions, he brought up the question of classification which was one of the fundamental issues of scientific methodology. After a criticism of theologian and philosophical classifications he stated : “ If I reject the morphological, dialectical and the ethnological classfications, what kind would I want to build the method of comparative study of religions on ? My short reply is that the method of the comparative study of religions should be based on the history of development, but not an a priori construction in the history of development or a Hegelian synthesis. If the religion of any race or people is the product of a long process called evolution in any phase of the history, then the method of the history of development, made up of facts observable in various cultures, can reasonably claim to be termed ’comparative method* because it did not observe the phenomenon of development in races individually; it paid special attention to the volume of spiritual and historical elements which triggered off universal development in humanity. Where there seemed to be differences in the ratios it studied the spiritual and historical elements that had caused them.” (1878, p. 182) He protested vehemently that nations should be classified on the basis of one factor of development (Semitic monotheism and other rubbish). Instead of the term religions o f roces%the term religions o f cultures should be used. (ibid. p. 184) “ The Arabs belong to the class of fetishism while the Hebrews belong to the class of monotheism either for their cult of heavenly bodies of the night or for ritual and abstract monotheism.” (1878, p. 184) Here are the contours of Goldziher’s concepts of the history of religions: i) the universality of development; ii) the common cultures with certain non-qualitative,

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GOLDZIHER S LIFE AND ACTIVITY

spiritual and historical differences; iii) the preservation of cultural and dvilisatiotial peculiarities (eg. the remnants of religious elements of an earlier stage of social development preserved at a more advanced stage, say, those of the nomadic cultures in an agricultural one. The principle is best exemplified by the brilliant reconstruction of early Arabic poetry. 1896, 1.); iv) rigid distinction between myth or barbarous prehistory and crystallized, ethical religion. (Goldziher criticized positivism for not distinguishing between the two. (See: 1876, p. 182-183; 1879, p. 532-537; 602-619; 1881b, p. 205) To read a true meaning into it, it must be noted that Hegel too tried to tuck religion into the notion of philosophy after he excluded subjective feelings and sensations from it which had an overwhelming influence on the views of the new Hegelians. (See: K. Löwith’s apt description: Von Hegel zu Nietzsche, S. Fischer, Stuttgart, 1969, pp. 366-367) The crux of the m atter is that Goldziher excluded ethical religiousness from his investigations on purpose which enabled him to take mythical prehistory to pieces with the methods available to a scholar of the time. That explains why the two paradoxical elements, ie. the postulate of common human development based on transindividual values (expressed in black and white in 1876, pp. 132-133; with the denial of Renan's theory: ibid. pp. 136-151) and the demand that a scientific, historical-genetic method be applied, could be welded into one. As regards the second set of questions, ie. that of embeddedness in Hungarian conditions, it is quite obvious without presenting proofs that the cultural historical declaration of common human development is an organic part of Eötvös* reform ideas and the denominational emancipation of the national minorities. The work was late when it appeared in 1876 because Eötvös died in 1871 and Tisza formed his government in 1875. In 1872 the anonymous reviewer of the book commented on its history in the Egyetemes Philolögiai Közlöny: “ Originally, our compatriot wrote his interesting book in Hungarian. As soon as he discovered he could not find a publisher in Hungary he stopped writing in Hungarian and produced his book in German which was published by Brockhaus, the greatest publisher in Germany.“ (1877, p. 223) The reviewer stated that the book was a big hit abroad (along with the numerous and significant criticisms, the work was published in English in 1877) and he con­ cluded his review with this bitter remark : “ Goldziher can be proud of the career of his book. He might well entertain hopes that his book will once be published in its original form, ie. in Hungarian, “(p. 224) As regards the third set of questions, the place of the work in Goldziher's oeuvre, I declare that nobody has known how to interpret it the right way. To save the rest of Goldziher’s corpus this work was considered to be an isolated writing in his oeuvre and it was pretended that Goldziher had rejected his own work. (Competently expressed by C. H. Becker, 1967, p. 505) It is sufficient to quote one of the 1890 -entries from the Tagebuch to disclaim the rejection: “ 77ie Book o f the M yths was published by Brockhaus in the March of my first year of misery and the English translation thereof came out in the same year

NOTES

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(1877) through the mediation of Max MQller. The book was a greater suooess than I ever thought it would be, especially in England. I have never observed the religious consequences of my method and my achievements any way other than it happened from the point of view, 1 have in the Introduction. Ecclesiastic or denominational considerations never mattered for me. My religion was the universal religion of the prophets and being born a Jew I felt myself their dedi­ cated representative. It is to the credit of the ministers of Church of England that they guessed this side of my spiritual life through empathy and sympa­ thized with me, while the Germans of Thubingen were unable to get rid of their Evangelist prejudices when judging my early writing. My English critics, friends and adversaries alike, understood me. Of the German, Steinthal was the only one who shared my feeling—for obvious reasons. The Jewish critics chose not to make mention of my work at all. Only some of the Jewish newspa­ pers of England made frantic efforts to reclaim their Abraham and the incestuo­ us daughters of Lot. As if the Jewish rabbis feared for their extra income if it had turned out that neither Abraham nor his sensual nieces were historical figu­ res as they once imagined them. The Jews of Hungary did not hear a single word of my famous book. ‘The sacred rolls9, the evening paper of Lloyd, did not even register it was published.99(Tagebuch, pp. 86-87) The crux o f the m atter is that he was compelled to give up his wide-ranging studies in connection with his Kulturgeschichte9 concept after 1885 as he was quoted as saying in his Diary. He concentrated on the Arabic Studies, (1893, p. 4) and after the turn of the century the comparative ‘Kulturgeschichte9 concept became limited to the study of the religion of Islam as a reflection to the rough conditions in Hungary and his personal miseries. This was a resignation very much like the silence of Lészlô Arany or the suicide of Péterfy and Béla Grünwald. But resignation of ones desires is one thing and rejection of ones early ideas is quite another. The former suggests the objective impossibility to realize while the latter suggests the subjective weakness of mind. 1Goldziher expressed his views on what constitutes the real scholar, especially within the field of Oriental studies in his famous commemorative speech for Renan. "W hat in fact, does, the w ord‘orientalist9mean? First of all it means a scholar who made up his mind to study the spiritual customs of the Eastern Man.The relative value of his studies is determined by the points of view and aims he ob­ serves and their relationship with the great questions in the history of human thinking. There are people who produce the tiny little bricks with admirable industry which did not suggest anything of the future building9s proportions and purpose to be built from them, but they have an undoubtedly enormous importance in the creat­ ion of science's materials and aids. Many of the scholars of the Orient are in­ dustrious specialists who elaborate the details which are fundamental to outstand­ ing works. There, however, scholars of the Orient who do not excel in independent research but do their utmost to find and publish those literary details which provide the basic data for research... Consequently, the publishers of source books are the most important auxiliary workers of scientific research."

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Having quoted the apt characterisation, from 1755, of Michaelis, a professor o f Göttinga, namely: “ This branch of science was misfortunate enough to become uninteresting for the learned men of the literary sciences because of the machines who were labelled Professores Linguarum Orientalium” then he desdrbed the task o f the study of the Orient as follows : “ we must find out what sort of influence the Eastern world had on the develop­ ment of human thinking. In other words, by studying Eastern literatures we are able to bridge gaps in our history. We should highlight the inner history of move­ ments and the great events of culture in the East from a world historical point o f view.“ (1894, PP. 21-22) To comment on this still valid characterisation 1 can only say this: Goldziher declared in his commemorative speech what he had told Eötvös in 1868 was the program of his promising Wanderjahre. 17 Reference was made earlier to the Islamist Goldziher's Leitmotiv as well as to how deeply rooted it was in the Hungarian conditions. It entailed the transformation of a group of peoples or an empire made up of heterogenious elements into an organic community. This East Central European starting point proved to be exceptionally fruitful in the analysis of the Arab empire that was founded by conquest after the victory of Muhammad's Islam since the most im portant elements in this formation could be distinguished from one another with its help. The elements' interaction could be investigated, the relationship of community/society and state could be analysed, the organization of community as a predominating element and the development o f the community's consensus as a principle of ideological hegemony could be followed. (This is, in fact, the subject of the epoch-making study on tfadlth (1890). For more on the Leitmotiv see my study on 'The Development o f ffadlth'). u In this respect it is enough to refer to the treatise published in 1873 under the title The Question o f Nationalities among the Arabs which was the metaphorical presenta­ tion of the problems of nationalities in Hungary. This manifesto, that remains valid today, was written by a young scholar who travelled throughout Europe, observed Hungarian conditions from a European perspective and endorsed the reform ideas of Eötvös. He sharply confronted inherited privileges and nationalism that legiti­ mized oppressive and retrospective particularism by historical and ancestral rights with the notion of the community of various nationalities. (Functionally, it is in accordance with the above standpoint that in his studies of that period he emphati­ cally confronted the liberal and universal tendencies of the anafis with the Muslim orthodoxy's rigid, reclusive and particular tendencies of the Mftlikis and the Qanbalis. See: for example 1874, pp. 66-69; 1877, pp. 21-34)

C h a pter T

w o

II. COMMENTS ON GOLDZIHER’S SEVEN WORKS N o m a d ism a n d A g r ic u l t u r e ( 1876) **Nomadism and agriculture” is perhaps the most controversial chapter in Goldziher’s early and controversial work, the M ythos bei den Hebräern (1876). It is controversial on two counts: firstly, for the abundance o f questions to be discussed; secondly, for the abundance o f questions that proved to be cliffs—if another meaning o f the Greek word “problem” is used—many sporting scholars tried to climb but none could holler “ sea” . The book investigated one o f the fundamental and still unsettled questions o f prehistory: the development o f myth, the mythical world view as the immanent element o f socialisation generally valid at certain stages and the specific expressions o f this world view. The chapter in question attem pted to give a historical outline o f the latter problem by way o f analysing certain modes o f social production. It made an attem pt to establish a typological order in the development o f mythical world views both in nomadism and agriculture. The anthropological, psycho* logical, structural and other approaches to all these questions have bequeathed us an endless series o f unsolved problems and ethnological trends. Goldziher’s work cannot be fitted into any o f the patterns o f the 19th century trends without reservations. The controversial character o f the work derives, among other things, from the fact that it is situated at the crossroads o f several trends: the evolutionism o f ethnological unilinearity, A. Kuhn’s and Max Müller’s mythological approach, based on philological linguistics, and, most im portant o f all, Steinthal’s psychological approach to language and history. Goldziher attempted a difficult task which is expressed in the first place in the extended title he chose. Its additional section did not make the title any more precise because it pointed further than the actual subject-matter. The full title is Der M ythos bei den Hebräern und seine geschichtliche Entwickelung. Untersuchungen zur M ythologie und Reli­ gionswissenschaft. The main section “The M yth with the Hebrews” is followed by a subtitle that refers to the mode o f approach “and its H istorical Development.” Then comes another subtitle that tried to highlight a broader contact o f the subject-matter: " Research into M ytho­

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logy and theology” . Thus the title is an obvious polemic and declaration o f views. First Goldziher dealt with the Hebrew myth not discussed before him with earnest scientific accuracy by anybody, by which he provoked vehement protest both from the Jews and the non-Jews— although for different reasons. (From H. Steinthal’s book review: ” 1 am compelled to call the book I have in front o f me now an epochmaking one on Hebrew mythology/* [Zeitschrift fü r Völkerpsych. und Sprachwiss. IX, 1877,p. 272] As the next step he declared that he consi­ dered his subject-matter to be a historical phenomenon by which he straighforwardly suggested that it was more than a scientific work. It bore the marks of the author’s world-view which differed as much from the ahistorical rationalism of the enlightenment, liable to take religion for some genuine nonsense or, even worse, plain infamy (infamie), as from positivism which was at the opposite end o f the ahistoric spectrum. Religion, a primarily metaphysical form o f mind cannot be approached through basic, positivist principles, be it through phenomenalism (that postulated the identity o f phenomenon and essence), nominality (that by denying the existence of general notions rejected what Marx put as the “categories that are the forms o f a defined existence, ie. the definitions o f existence) or the uniformity o f scientific method (the identity o f social and natural sciences). It is not fortuitous that positivism has no theory o f religion. The third section o f the title, although it carries a generalising tone, sharply distinguished between myth and religion. In my view the controversial character o f Goldziher’s work stems from the inequality o f development in East Central and Western Europe, namely from the fact that in the 1870s Goldziher was still able to believe that the Jewry, this specific nationality, could have become assimilated by following the pattern o f bourgeois development is Western Europe; and he wanted Judaism to become the ethical element o f private life. While, Spinoza 200 years before Goldziher, fulfilled a revolutionary action by the similarity of his behaviour and certain kindred elements in his concept o f Judaism and became an influential herald o f bourgeois emancipation, Goldziher remained isolated despite his efforts in the Hungary o f the nobility. A t first sight the controversial character o f the work may be attributed to the special blending o f two methods (on the one hand the immanent psychological, cultural and historical evolu­ tionism of social and historical movements and, on the other hand, the explanation o f the existence o f myth, this specific form o f mind by the development of linguistic psychology—ie. polyonymy, meaning that the common nouns o f natural phenomena, or part o f them, became proper

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names. In connection with this Goldziher sharply criticized Max Müller’^ concept o f myth labelled ‘the scandal o f language’ because it said that myth began where the forms o f linguistic expression became unintelli­ gible. (See: Mythos, 1876, p. SO) A t a closer look it turns out that the controversial character o f the work originates in the embeddedness o f the scholarly analysis in the hic et nunc o f the social and political chal­ lenge. Consequently, a fair knowledge o f the contemporary and laterdevelopment o f the criticism o f the Bible is insufficient to uncover the hard core o f the work even though Goldziher mastered the latest achieve­ ments o f the modem and critical, 19th century sciences. By focusing in his work on the historical development he brought up new points o f' view compared to the critical research into the biblical sources (with Goldziher’s words: the history o f literature) by de Wette, F. L. George, W. Vatke and K. H. Graf. In his historical hypotheses Goldziher anti­ cipated the research o f Robertson Smith and J. Wellhausen. Thus in my view, the key to this work is that it is neither one o f the numerous, scientific works concerned with the criticism o f the Bible nor a systematic vade mecum to the Hebrew mythology. A fter Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus it should be called a Tractatus mythologico-politicus. The political and scientific feature o f the work did not make its purely scientific evaluation any easier. The immanent evolutionistic approach to Jahve’s faith (Max Weber’s view o f the concept of religion by J. Well­ hausen, the great researcher o f the Bible, contained in Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie III, 1971, pp. 2-3 can be more justifi­ ably applied to Goldziher’s one) described myth as an unsophisticated and heathen thing which represented a centrifugal force when blended with religion (M ythos, 1976; Einleitung XXIII-IV). The dissonant bour­ geois standpoint did not satisfy the secularized theology or the Jewry that fought against secularization. The qualitative separation o f myth from religion gave rise to the duality o f scientific methodology in the work since Goldziher applied the most advanced evalutionistic ideas o f his time to the whole of the historical movement. (These dominated in the social sciences o f the last century from Darwin’s Origin o f the Species (1859) through Tylor’s Prim itive Culture (1871) and Morgan’s Ancient Society (1877) to Engels’ Origin o f Family, the Private Property and the State (1884) and became’ laws o f nature’ in the concept of history o f vulgar marxism.) This methodological trend found its expression in such brilliant analyses as 'Nomadism and Agriculture' in which the author investigated the production o f material goods and ideologies as well as their interaction. Although with vital reservations and criticism,.

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Goldziher accepted A. Kuhn’s and Max MUller’s comparative mytholo­ gical method in the evaluation o f myth as well as in his direct philological analyses which, after all, resembled the rationalistic criticism o f religion by the Enlightenment. To form a clear view o f this duality we must know that the 19th century philosophical criticism o f religion had the same ambivalence in the analysis of the nature o f its subject-matter as the ethnological research in the second half o f the century. As regards the former, it must be noted here that it survived in the duality o f Hegel’s standpoint until Nietzsche. In between, M arx was the only exception. Nietzsche, in his early theological writings published only in 1908 (Volksreligion und Christentum, 1792-94; Das Leben Jesu, 1795; Die Positivität der christlichen Religion, 1795-96; Der G eist des Christentum s und sein Schicksal, 1798; and in his treatise: Glauben und Denken, 1802) attem pted to incorporate religion into his philosophy. He stripped away the subjective feelings and sensuous notions which were the imperfect expressional forms o f religion and emphasized that religions and philosophical forms o f mind possess conceptual similarities and formal dissimilarities. In order to maintain totality he discarded the contradiction between belief and knowledge, or religion and philos­ ophy. He endorsed the truthfulness o f the religious sphere by criticizing its imperfect forms. That was the footing o f the post-Hegelian criticism o f religion: the contradictions between the rightist old-Hegelians, the leftist neo-Hegelians and Hegel himself were rooted in the ambivalent approach to religion. The contradictions were deepened by the fact th at most o f the critics o f the Bible were (German) protestant theologians who carried out their criticisms o f Christianity and Judaism on the basis o f a somewhat more sublime and anthropological basis. As K. Lowith aptly put it, in the post-Hegelian movement o f religious criticism everybody was justified to accuse the others of some covert or modified religiousness: “W hat was taken for atheism by one critic, was identified by the other as theology or something religious or Christian. Bauer regarded Strauss as a “monk” ; Stim er called Feuerbach a “pious ateist” ; Marx considered Bauer to be a critic who exercised criticism merely in his theologian’s capacity. Bauer, who believed to have won over everybody else, was made subject of ridicule by M arx in the H oly Family by being called a “patriarch” or “Saint Max” ; Feuerbach declared that Stirner’s “Nay” was yet another heavenly predicate

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and his single “ me” contained the idea o f individual Christian redemp­ tion” . (Von Hegel zu Nietzsche, 1969, pp. 366-67) The theory o f unilinear evolution by the outstanding representatives (H. S. Maine, E. B. Tylor, J. B. Phear, L. H. M organ, or M. M. Kovalevszky, a follower o f Maine) o f scientific ethnology, which began to develop in the mid-19th century was, in fact, the evolutionistic aetiology o f bourgeois society that facilitated the compilation o f the so-called positive facts and their classification in accordance with the customs o f the time, (material cultures, the economy o f coexisting communities, social and political structure, kinship, legal traditions and so on). The answer to the questions, how development actually happened, would have been given by the implicit or explicit acceptance o f the organic teleology that attempted to solve problems o f changes in the various phases o f historical movement with specific duality and which was originally elaborated by Aristotle and constituted an integral principle o f Hegel’s philosophical system. On the one hand development was identified with the amassing o f technical means (which is the most marked element o f development in bourgeois societies) while on the other hand either biological or moral causes were given which have triggered ofT develop­ ment. All in all, the evalution o f the material element was the organic entelechy o f certain ideas. It is sufficient to refer to the dualistic approach o f Morgan’s Ancient Society which was almost endorsed as a Marxist work by post-M arxian thinkers. “As we re-ascend along the several lines o f progress towards the primitive ages o f mankind, and eliminate one after the other, in the order in which they appeared, inventions and discoveries on the one hand, and institutions on the other, we are enabled to peicieve that the former stand to each other in progressive, and the latter in unfolding relations. While the former class have had a connection, more or less direct, the latter have been developed from a few primary germs o f thought. (M organ: The Ancient Society) This sketchy criticism o f ideologies was all the more necessary to uncover the true values in Goldziher’s work because he consciously stopped his analyses, which he faithfully admitted, where that o f the complete forms o f religion should have begun. (See: prophetism and Jahve’s faith) Goldziher stuck to brief notes and sublime confirmations (the inclusion into the notions o f religion’). Nevertheless, he was able to produce a

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scientific criticism o f myth, which was the form o f mind o f feeling and imagination, without subjective tuas. (See: M ythos, 1876, Einleitung, XIX-XX) Consequently, all the opinions that allocate minor importance to the Der M ythos bei den Hebräern in Goldziher’s oeuvre either because the A. Kuhn’s and Max Müller’s exaggerations or because Goldziher later, allegedly, retracted the subject-matter or the content o f his work (which is obviously not true), or that regard his work as a blind alley o f research are either based on the insufficient knowledge o f the scientific life o f the period or on the misinterpretation o f Goldziher’s lifework. To illustrate the first part o f the statement (that Goldziher never retracted his work) let me quote a passage from Goldziher’s Diary (and disregard his numerous articles, introductions and lectures in Hungarian on this subject). In an entry o f his work, in 1890, he said o f his world-view and scholarly method: “I have never observed the religious consequences o f my method and achievements any way other than it happened from the point o f view I have declared in the Introduction. Ecclesiastic or denominational considerations never mattered for m e ...’’ (Tagebuch, pp. 86-87). This time let’s mention only two facts to highlight an exceptionally correct evaluation o f the work. One o f them is the reaction o f M icha Josef Berdyszewski (1865-1921) who became famous under the pen name o f Bin Gorion. He fiercely attacked all forms o f Zionism and by collecting Hebrew myths, legends and tales (D ie Sagen der Juden, 1912-16; Der Bom Judas, 1916-23) he wanted to serve directly the spiritual emancipation o f the Jewry in East Central Europe. During his activities under outrageously difficult conditions he wrote several letters to Goldziher to ask for his help. In one o f his letters (dated 3rd M arch, 1913) he mentioned that it was Goldziher’s Der M ythos bei den Hebräern gave him the first and strongest stimulations to his decisions. In another of his letters, which was undated, he said that Goldziher was not only the most talented scholar in his field but the founder o f the research o f biblical myth and legend. The second is H. H. Schaeder’s (1896-1957) review o f the Der M ythos bei den Hebräern. The great historian o f religion realized with astonishing sensitivity the book’s historical functions in the emancipation o f the Jewry. Having stated that Goldziher participated in a peculiar way in the comparative research into myth at the beginning o f his career, he went on like this:

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“The Der M ythos bei den Hebräern published in 1876 and mostly forgotten by now, was an exceptional experiment to disprove Renan along with Max M üller and A. K uhn—that the Semitic people had no mythology. Actually, the book comprises a history o f Israeli-Jewish religion. It ceased to be inspiring for today’s research despite the fact that it contained numerous and valuable comparisons o f Arabic and Hebrew sources thanks to Goldziher’s fabulous knowledge o f the Arabic literature. All the more so, the work possesses exceptional value as a document in the history o f science and as evidence o f Goldziher’s spiritual development. It is a crucial paradigm o f the process whose significance can hardly be over-estimated, regarding the way the Jews entered modern European culture. Nevertheless, the unbiased evaluation o f the process obviously leaves a lot to be desired. (Orientalische Literaturzeitung, 31, 1928, p. 119) The historical scheme o f unilinear evolutionism made not only a gradual distinction between nomadism and agriculture but a sharp caesura as if the various elements o f the two ways o f life (regarding legal and marital conditions and those o f proprietorship) represented the contradiction o f societas versus civitas or its development. In this respect he endorsed the opinion that dominated in the ethnology o f his time. “The cultural level o f nomadism everywhere and every time preceded the level o f agriculture“ (NY. K. X II, 1876, p. 1S8) and “the creation o f laws, the development o f social systems, arts and crafts, being connected to the emergence of agriculture, are improvements ascribed to the God of the Sun’.* (ibid. p. 1S6) Instead o f a detailed review o f this complex problem let us now refer to Morgan’s (and Engels') scheme o f historical movement. As is known, M organ had two equal branches of development at the intermediary level o f barbarism (in the Americas—irrigations! agriculture and garden­ ing after maize was discovered; in Europe—animal husbandry, after animals were domesticated) but at the upper level o f barbarism societas, based on kinship was replaced by civitas, based on territory and private property that gave rise to political statehood. There is only one more step to take and connect everything to agriculture at the dawn o f civiliza­ tion: the second great division o f labour (the separation o f agriculture from the crafts), and the third one in which the class o f merchants was born to conduct the exchange o f goods, and the state was established as

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the repressive organisation o f society with antagonistic class structure. Viewed from that point, private property, the state and the monogamous family are the achievements o f civilisation in general, and the immanent elements o f agricultural civilization in particular, while nomadism could make its reappearance in that phase only as a dusty remnant o f history. This scheme is the product o f unilinear evolution, the exactitude o f which has been questioned by historical and ethnological research as well as Marxist research into history and the history o f philosophy that reconed with unequal or multilinear development. (M ention must be made o f the Centre . However, these forces did not follow this set pattern either in the past or in the present. As is known in the Muslim reform movement after the 1860s, called n a h fa the traditional intelligen­ tsia (followers o f öam äl ad-din AfgänTs pan-Islamism and Mubamad Abdu’s Islam modernism) were antistate, just as were the modern (technocratic) intelligentsia that was bom when the Muslim world got in touch with Europe. The latest events in Iran again exemplify the apparent paradox that the traditional Islamic intelligentsia fought against the state together with students. (This state functions, as a link in the chain o f international capitalism by way o f one sector of its economy and society, and represents neither the society in question nor the real, value-forming function o f social development.) W hat was more o r less typical in traditional societies has by now become regular so that in case o f emergency the state relies heavily on the military, in certain cases they even protect each other. To facilitate the correct evaluation o f the study phenomena have to be scrutinized more closely. The first one is the historical change in the relationship between the theocratic community and the state. The other one is the relationship between the groups o f intelligentsia that maintai­

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ned and enriched classical sciences in set forms, and the above two elements as well as the other groups o f intelligentsia. (1) In the Umayyad-period power and rule based on kinship could delay the explosion o f antinomies within the empire for about a century through the relatively long process o f conquests. (O f the many examples in the context o f our subject, suffice it to mention that the traditional intelli­ gentsia, ie. the clerks o f the conquered territories and the organically developing Muslim intelligentsia, ie. the theologians o f Medina and cIräq, were againts the Umayyads.) If we want to characterise the two basic elements in accordance with the category o f social development, namely the theocratic society and the state, obviously the former would dominate over the latter. In practice, the state o f the Umayyads was only the greatest among the ruling political groups but it did not posses hege­ mony. The decisive point in the relationship between the heterogeneous communities and the uniform state was reached when the cAbbäsids came to power. The hegemony that controlled the social practice was also decided in that period when two basic alternatives presented themselves (not counting the possibility o f cAbbâsid rule based on kinship which did not have much perspective.) One was the dominance o f despotism whose opressive, administrative and ideological organ would have been the body o f Aramean scribes o f Träq sufficiently Iranianized and con­ siderably transformed by Islam and inherited from the Sasanids. Its ideology was not a maintained, or revived Zoroastrism (a monopoly o f the clergy within the cast-like hierarchy of the Säsä nids) but manicheism which followed Islam’s autocratic trends with exceptional flexi­ bility. (Eg. the extremist trends of S fa and perhaps rmftazUa that stemmed from the tenet o f charismatic imäm or wanted the community’s social practice to be regulated from above.) (On the research into the develop­ ment o f early cAbbäsid manicheism see the works by M. Guidi, H. C. Nyberg, G. Vajda, and W. M. W att’s attempts at the criticism o f ideol­ ogy.) To demonstrate the seriousness o f this alternative it is sufficient to refer to certain phenomena. Let us have a closer look at ideology. The standpoint o f this body o f Iranian or Iranianized scribes was most concretely and precisely formulated by Ibn al-Muqaflac (died in 142/759 AD) who was most probably an Iranian mawlä (client) converted from manicheism to Islam. His works, the first masterpieces o f Arabic prose, concentrated on the almighty monarch. As the community’s future depended on the monarch and not the other way round, Ibn al-Muqafifac’s task was to suggest or reveal in diverse forms the principles o f correct ruling (of Indian and Middle -Iranian origin) to the caliph. His work.

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entitled Kitab al-adab al-kablr was the vade mecum o f proper behaviour. His KallJa and Dimna a Fürstenspiegel (the adaptation o f the middle Ira­ nian translation o f Panchatantra), besides being an anthology o f negative and positive tales, expressed a cultural concept rather foreign to Islam. It is more or less justified to say that it offered a counter-culture instead o f the Koran which was much lighter to read and much more popular in the acient East. His Kitäb af-fafßäba (About the Caliph’s Retinue) written between 136-142 AH (754-59 AD) has much greater importance than the above two. It is a memorandum w ritten without comission for alM anfûr, the second cAb3ssid caliph about the requirements o f a centra­ lized state that relies heavily on the military and clerks. (Following the Egyptian Ahmad Amin, S. D. Goitein conscientiously analyzed this work). In I bn al-Muqaffa**s opinion the military had to be subdued to the caliph and it should have nothing to do with land and tax. Diverse, local practices must be made uniform; if any quarrel occurs the caliph m ust be invited to make a decision. It shuld also be the caliph’s task to draw up a strict catechism for the benefit o f his soldiers to avoid deviation from religious norms. The caliph should do this with the aid o f satisfactory helpers ie. his retinue (fahäba) that comprised o f brave officers, theologi­ ans and noble men. It is obvious from the momorandum that the question o f the relationship between state and theocratic community is not yet decided (ie. the consensus o f the community versus the opinion o f the monarch) including the character and relations o f the ruling and admi­ nistrative group, there is no developed Islamic orthodoxy (it is the caliph’s task to draw up a catechism); the question o f ideological hege­ mony is still unsettled. That was all wanted to present about ideology. (I must add that during the reign o f al-Ma’mûn and al-M u'tafim muctazila decided dog­ matic questions from above and acquired temporary dominance; ideo­ logical struggle ran through the 9th and the 10th centuries, see the h fü b lya movement that attacked the cultural hegemony o f the A rabs after the political and religious struggle was decided). As a further note 1 must add that the two concepts o f science together with their appropriate branches o f learning reflecting qualitatively differenc world views were bom in the second half o f the 8th century when the ideological element was elaborated in the struggle for power. One set included the cuJüm (the Islamic studies) which was concerned w ith various aspects o f Islam. The study o f the K oran was both the point o f departure and the goal called Koranic exegesis via Arabic grammar and lexicography. The latter was unimaginable without the study o f

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pre-Islamic poetry. The other branch o f the Islamic studies was the study o f traditions together with its numerous disciplines: the study o f the prophet’s life and struggles and o f the depositories o f the traditions. Besides the Islamic studies the Greek sciences formed an independent set. They summarized the classical and late-classical bits and pieces o f knowledge in the field o f medicine, astronomy and various philosophical studies. The complementary and usually inseparable Greek sciences were opposed to Islamic studies which were actually created in the fight against them. The second set o f sciences reflecting two different world views developed individually until al-Gazftlfs time and compromises were made only by the Greek sciences both in earlier and later periods. Sociologically, this obvious relationship can be unequivocally explained. A t first sight it concerned the duality o f various communities and that o f state plus the bureaucratic elite. The relations o f the theocratic commu­ nity, that made traditionalism a practical and theoretical standard, are to the Greek sciences and their representatives as plain and complex and unsettled in detail as the relations o f the S fa groups attaching primary importance to statehood and charismatic imam, o f mutakallimün intend­ ing to govern life on earth and salvation with rigid dogmatism from above, and o f the Iranianized Aramean scribes maintaining classical Eastern traditions are to one another and to Greek sciences. It is all the more so because all three elements had undergone constant changes (while the latter was gradually eliminated in the 10th century when the Muslim society was militarized.) The highly unstable character o f this relationship is expressed by the fact that the first block can be justifiably labelled as traditional while the latter one’s rationalism contained a lot more exceptions and reservations than actual rules. (This dichotomy is represented by an authoritative trend in the specialist literature). Although the Muslim state was never characterised by the totalitaria­ nism (in Precapitalist^ societies a contradiction in adiecto), postulated by K. Wittfogel (in O riental Despotism, 1957, subtitle: A Comparative Study o f Total Power) it nevertheless sympathized with the tendencies that preached the idea of charismatic ruler against the theocratic community. (To mention but a few examples: it found direct expression in caliph al-Ma’mûn’s famous attem pt to win over the Sfa. In 816 he nominated cAli ar-R idi, who died in 818 and was the 8th imam, as his suooessor to the throne. He too made nuftaliza the established religion o f his state and tried to control ideology directly through mihna, his Inquisition. The radical reform o f the army that began under al-M a’mûn and ended

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under al~Mucta$iin served the same end. As a result o f this reform the Arabic tribal troops which lived in camps and had their share [cafff] from the tax paid by the populace o f the conquered territories, were replaced by mercenary troops comprising mamluks, the Turkish slaves. The foundation o f Baghdad, the new capital in 762 is also related to this phenomenon and the same applies to Sämarra, built exclusively for the caliph and his body guards, that served as the monarchial seat for SO years after 836. The establishment o f various dlwâns (ie. minis* tries) the administrative organs o f state and the gradual strengthening o f the position o f vizier pointed to the same end. In Max Weber’s words the legitimacy o f these bureaucratic administrative organs was not rational but charismatic, with varying success from al*Man$Or to alMa’mQn, in accordance with the 'AbbSsids* intentions; this is the key to, among other things, the vehement disturbances in the first century o f the 'Abbftsid rule. A fter al-M a’mün’s failure to achieve ideological and political hegemony the legitimization o f power and the operation o f bureaucratic and administrative organs became traditional again. This was expressed by the total victory o f surma that finalized the con­ sensus o f the Muslim community. All ensuing charismatic attempts th at occured periodically had to be legitimized by traditions). Despite the charismatic tendencies o f the monarchs the cA bissid state had to make greater and greater allowances to traditions that represented the Muslim community’s practice, and to the traditional intelligentisa o f theologians and scholars o f canon law (culama>, fuqahff). The decay o f the caliphate, that began in the 9th c. and ended in the middle o f the 10th c. can be regarded as a homologous element o f this process. The persecution o f heretics between 779-786 (during the reign o f caliphs al-M ahdl and al-Hädl) and the establishment o f an office to investigate and to fight against the dangerously strengthened Manicbean tendencies can be related to the Iranian uprisings that started at the beginning o f the cAbässid rule because o f unsettled demands of Iranians. The systematic classification o f the prophet’s sum a (ie. the consensus o f the Islamic community), the development o f the four orthodox religious rites (the M ilikite, the Hanafite, the Hanbalite and the Sfificite), the unofficial and the official legitimization o f their practice and the crystallization of Islam orthodoxy through the lifework o f al-AS'ari and al-M ipiridi can be regarded as the termination o f the struggle for hegemony between the state and the theocratic community. In this process the second alternative won over the first. The hegemony o f the theocratic community was the winner, with the reservation that cthe storms in the upper political region9

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were the sure signs o f the political power’s transitional strength in the early phases o f the dynastical state (dawla). Thus« the cyclic movement that brought no change was inherent in the dynastical state as declared by I bn HaldQn. This cyclic movement (well-known from classical historiography as the anacyclosis o f Polyhios) which a t the begin­ ning represented the priority o f the charismatic ruler so that in indefi­ nite moment o f the dynasty’s rule the state should become the protector o f the community’s consensus if there is no actual hegemony. This underdeveloped state regarded the representatives o f classical sciences ambivalently as o f nature because their political ideas were based mostly on Platonian and Stoic traditions. (2) Compared to the above problem the interrelationship among the various groups o f Muslim intelligentsia and their role in influencing the hegemonic world views o f the community and their participation in the ups-and-downs o f political struggle is even more complex and unclear. (As we have seen, ideological hegemony, in its widest sense, and political power coincided only by pure chance). Naturally, there is no room for a detailed discussion here. W ithin traditional Islamic society three different groups o f intelli­ gentsia can be differentiated grosso modo which actually are tendencies that often intermingle and undergo considerable changes during social movements. From the point o f view o f the Muslim society’s normative ideological hegemony the most im portant group o f intelligentsia com­ prise the theologians and scholars o f canon law. A fter the anti-dynastical beginnings o f the Umayyad period this group o f men, mentioned earlier more than once, produced in the first century o f the cA bbisid rule a coherent system o f the classical Islamic dogmas and canon law in the form o f the orthodox rites and transformed the prophet’s sunna into the legitimate norm o f the social practice. The carriers o f this normatic corpus are regarded as the basic intel­ ligentsia o f classical Islam whose relations to the state have already been discussed. Now let us add the following. In their relations to community and state the following im portant changes shifts are observable. It can be stated as a fundamental principle that the normative corpus o f Isla­ mic traditions was created against the will of the charismatic dynasty o f rulers in order to limit its power and to express the consensus o f the community. Up to the middle o f the 9th c. the underlying tendency o f their activity was to protect and represent the practice o f the community. Obviously, the elaboration o f the normative and ne varietur sunna (by selecting and codifying the authentic pieces o f Uadlth), the termination

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of igtihäd, ie. the formulation o f individual legal opinion, gave priority to the theocratic community against the unlimited power o f the charis­ matic im&m and the despotism o f the monarch. Sunna, in the form o f Ijadlth, decided the question o f hegemony within the traditional Islamic society by the legitimization o f the community's priority. All other ele­ ments were floating in this 'other'. This phenomenon implied the relative backwardness o f state and its embeddedness in the community. A t the same time the flexibility o f sunna and its exegesis and the diversity o f the six canonic Hadith corpora refer to the heterogenious character o f the communities and the possibility o f legalizing the constant social practice on the basis o f repristination. But the relationship between the commu­ nity’s consensus as the predominant element and the groups o f theolo­ gians and scholars o f canon law as the potential carriers o f hegemonic ideology determined by the actual community underwent crucial changes. First o f all, Sarfa, the Muslim canon law, elaborated and codified by its scholars was an ideal system that in varying degrees differed from local practice and case law. fu r f, cädat). This state o f affairs implied the alie­ nation o f scholars o f canon law from the community's practice that resulted in the decay o f organic unity which was easily observable up to the 9th c. This process, that reached it a climax at the end o f the 11th century, can be observed in the documents o f theologians. (See al-G azàlfs paradigmatic lifework. He began his career as a brilliant representative o f Sarfa and ended up as a mystic; his lifework was the blend o f ortho­ dox Islam, mysticism and certain philosophical elements). One equally im portant phenomenon was both the cause and the effect o f the shift in the relation o f the traditional intelligentsia to communal consensus: traditional Muslim society did not produce a bureaucratic authority or a bureaucratic service that would function continuously as an authority with a set scope o f activity, as Max Weber put it. W ithin the traditional Muslim society the monarch temporarily delegated an executive functi­ on wäll, amir) to someone whom he was able to recall at any time without notice (tafwltf); and this delegation o f authority had nothing to do with the requirement o f rational bureaucratic rule. Consequently, the groups o f scholars o f canon law were given certain functions by the monarch which usually meant a sharp division in the obligations o f scholars o f law entrusted with clerical tasks. (It must be mentioned here in parentheses that the community's consensus and the local practice found its expression in the cadi’s adm inistration o f justice in the course o f which the contending parties, using Max W eber's phrasing, did their best to influence the court by

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eloquence, tears and curses on each other. The phenomenon th at the jurist receives his office from the monarch with unspecified tenure was unmistakably reflected in orthodox Muslim theories on the caliphs* power elaborated by the Sifi'ite al-M äwardl (died in 1031), al-Ga-zäli (died in 1111), Badr ad-din Ibn öam äca (died in 1333) and the fianbalite Ibn Taymiya (died in 1328) who undertook to fulfill the diffi­ cult task o f squaring the circle. They attempted to legalize the 'storm s in upper politic* on the basis o f canon law based on K oran and sunna legitimized by the theocratic community’s ne varietur igma* during the time when the caliphate had fallen apart politically. (The only exception in this field was Ibn Haldfln (1332-1406) who declared the priority o f the strong and undivided political statehood.) As a result o f the above two phenomena (the theoretical orientation o f normative orthodoxy and the delegation o f clerical functions by the monarch) the traditional intelligentsia was gradually alienated from Muslim community and was forced to accept compromises, ie. to endorse certain elements o f classical sciences. (Think o f the development from al-AScari to al-G azili.) Scholars o f common law were forced to turn to mysticism, ie. Sufism that thoroughly penetrated various layers o f Muslim society. This new and still widely known and significant trend within Islam comprised numerous elements o f Hellenistic and late-classical philosophies. (Above all via the radical S fa through ism iflllya, but also through the popular breakdown o f Platonism via neo-Platonian, neoPythagorean and gnostic explanations.) A fter all Muslim philosophy could have certain impact on social practice. From the point o f view o f our subject it must be emphasized that the rapid growth o f mysticism’s popularity gave rise to a third type o f Muslim intelligentsia (the influence o f which often exceeded that o f the theologians) who were called Sayfrs and were the leaders o f mystic orders or brotherhoods. The mainline o f Muslim philosophy was influential mostly through Plato’s roetaphisics and theory o f state, revalued by the Hellenistic age and late-classicism. Through this theory o f state Muslim philosophers dinged to statehood and drew up a hierarchic, pyramidal sotiety in their own theories, following al-Färäbi, that were based on Plato’s Politeia concept. Through neo-Platonic metaphysics they played a promi­ nent role in elaborating the religious philosophy o f i f a extremism: th at o f Isnw ftilya. (A basic and im portant document is Ifewän aç-Çafà’s com­ prehensive encyclopaedia written in the 10th century for the ism ä'üite Fatfmides.) Later, when S fa connotations were abandoned, they became known in the 12th century as part o f Islamic mysticism endorsed and

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legalized by wide layers o f society in which gnostic and neo-Platonic elements were overwhelming. This was true for a higher form incorpo­ rated in one system: the contemplative mysticism by as-Suhrawardi, Ibn al-cArabi and others. Naturally, in this lengthy sketch I have called attention to elements which seemed to posses some significance for our subject, to provide some background information to Goldziher’s somewhat one-sided pict­ ure. I think it has turned out that Islamic orthodoxy is not an institution­ ally homogenous phenomenon either in time or space. During its early development (the first phase o f which was the elaboration o f aFarism that ended the great struggle o f the first century o f the cAbbfisid rule) and later too, the immanent contradiction between the theocratic community and the caliph, the sultan and the imkm, ie. the personifications o f the state, always ended with the acknowledgement o f overwhelming principle o f the community’s consensus. I have duly emphasized in this sketch that a number o f groups have to be differentiated within Islamic intelligentsia. The traditional scholars o f canon law who, at the beginn­ ing, unequivocally represented the theocratic community, elaborated its fundamental principle and carried it to victory, underwent significant changes. I have indicated that on the one hand philosophers and scholar o f classical sciences were isolated and only exerted considerable influence on exceptional occasions. (See: Ibn Sink). All o f them worked in courts o f monarchs. (Some examples: al-Kind! (died in 252/866) served the caliphs al-M a’mün and al-M u'tasim and was the tutor o f the latter’s son; al-Fârâbi (died in 339/950) had close contacts with the (lam dänide monarch Sayf ad-Dawla o f Aleppo; Ibn Sink (died in 428/1037) was the vizier o f the Buwayhide monarch o f Hamadän between 1015-22 and lived under the protection o f the monarch o f Isfahan from 1023 untill he died. In the Muslim west Ibn Bkgga (died in 533/1139) was the vizier, friend and doctor o f the Almohade AbQ Y a'qüb Yttsuf and even Ibn RuSd (died in 595/1198) had similar functions.) It is to be emphasized that apart from Ibn RuSd who elaborated the principle o f duplex veritas but had no effect on Muslim social practice, Muslim philosophers were more deeply rooted in Islam than one might think considering how the Platonic-Aristotelian inheritance was transm itted to posterity and utilized. Finally I must mention that through metaphysic, based on the Platonic and neo-Platonic theory o f emanation, they played a significant role first in the development o f the religious philosophy o f ismcFllIya, then in he elaboration o f the diverse system o f Islamic mysticism. (As is know, all outstanding Muslim philosopers from al-Fàràbï to Ibn Sink and Ibn

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Tufayl flirted with mysticism for some reason or made it an integral part o f their philosphies. By confronting intuitive enlightenement with the standard ritual o f religion based on revelation they gave the way to con­ templative mysticism.) Al-Gazäll (450-501/1059-1111) was among the last o f the great figures in the development o f Islamic orthodoxy. When he was converted to Sufism in 488/1095 he used mysticism to supplement earlier Islamic orthodoxy and made peace between the two. It is not fortuitous that Sufi orders sprang up shortly after aM jazälTs epochmaking lifework which had an overwhelming effect on a considerable portion o f Muslim society and defined their world views. Characteristically, Qädiriya was founded by cAbd al Qädir al-öiläni (1077-1166) a tfanbalite philologist and scholar o f law; R iffflyo was founded by his nephew, Ahmad ar-R ifift (died in 1182) whose order was even more fanatical than the former and borrowed certain elements from Mon­ golian shamanism; Badawtya or Alpnadlya was founded by Ahmad al-Badawi (died in 1276) who was a student o f al-R ifâl; Bayümlya and Dasüqlya derived from the above two. Ahmad al-Badawi played an important role in mobilizing the great masses o f Egypt against the army ofL ouisIV during the 6th Crusade. W ith a certain amount o f exaggera­ tion this movement, and the development o f the Sayfes, ie. the third element o f intelligentsia, can be regarded as a specific metamorphosis o f the ancient sciences which in fact is the result o f double transforma­ tion: The first one was the scientific Muslim reception o f these sciences; the second was the process in which certain elements o f this response were incorporated in popular Islam.

PART TWO

SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE OF I. GOLDZIHER AND T. NÖLDEKE

THE LETTERS When describing the life o f Ignace Goldziher, the important role o f his correspondence with contemporary sholars has been mentioned. This is also reflected in the following piece o f advice he offered to one o f his students: “Two things I enjoin on you if you want te prosper in life. Answer every letter or card you receive, even if your answer be negative; and take part in the Orientalists* congresses with lectures. This is as important as literary work.** (J. de Somogyi, M y reminiscences o f Ignace Goldziher, Muslim W orld, LI, 1961, 9). This activity, which Goldziher pursued with ardent fervour should be looked upon not only as part o f his scholarship, but also as something inherent in his personality. Let us remember here T. Nöldeke, whose portrait was depicted by C. Snouck Hurgronje based on his extensive and valuable correspondence with his youthful friend M. J. de Goeje, one o f the greatest figures o f Arabic philology and with Snouck Hurgronje (see ZDM G, 85, 1931, 239-281). This is also true for Goldziher, for whom letter writing was a true need, and in whose letters the objectivity o f scholarly treatises mingled with the almost confusing subjectivity o f personal confession. In recent years the exploration o f the common roots o f the marxist theory o f the “Asiatic mode o f production*’ and European oriental studies, and the criticism directed at Europe-centricity have all contri­ buted to the demand o f our outlook concerning the Orient, and for an ideological-critical analysis o f oriental studies, which had earlier been regarded as a purely philological discipline. Let me only mention a few recent works like P. Anderson’s im portant historical synthesis (Lineages o f Absolutist State, (London, NLB, 1974), B. S. Turner thought-provok­ ing works (Weber and Islam. A critical study, London, RKP, 1974 and particularly M arx and the End o f Orientalism, London, Allen and Unwin 1978), E. Said’s polemic and controversial book in which he refutes orientalism (Orientalism, New York 1978), or the sober and objective summaries by M. Rodinson published in his volume La fascination de risla m (Paris, Maspéro, 1980), etc. In fact, we know o f a few attem pts, th a t have been made at a profound analysis o f earlier research and at

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elaborating more reliable principle o f research. Such work must, by necessity, rely on a systematic exploration o f all the available sources, principally those with a historical and ideological relevance. This is why the publication o f the correspondence between Goldziher and Nöldeke appeared so im portant to us, since Goldziher is well known, as one o f the founders and most important personalities o f islamic studies, whose influence is feh even today, and also because these two giant scholars had a firm and coherent Weltanschauung—no m atter how this is judged today—which can hardly said o f researchers o f later generations. The fate and afterlife o f the correspondence should also be briefly mentioned. It was announced in the 1932 October-November issue o f Akadémiai É rtesitô (Bulletin o f the Academy) (XLIIm fasc. 4SI, p. 274) that in the same year K iroly Goldziher, Ignac’s son, bestowed the manuscripts and enormous collection o f letters left behind by his father on the Academy (for the description o f the collection see J. de Somogyi, A Collection o f the Literary Remains o f Ignace Goldziher, JRAS, 1935, 149-154). The 1933 June-September issue reported that 217 letters written by Goldziher to Nöldeke had been borrowed from Tübingen through the mediation o f Aurél Stein for copying. A t the same time 287 letters o f Nöldeke to Goldziher were also copied and added to the collection. On 18 October 1933 the collection was presented to the public by Albert Berzeviczy, President o f the Hungarian Academy •of Sciences. We quote his words here which summarize the most impor­ tant informations regarding the material published: “The collection o f manuscripts o f our Academy has recently been enriched with a new valuable acquisition. Dr. Kâroly Goldziher, Professor o f the Technical University, son o f the late Ignac Goldziher, our member, has bestowed upon the Academy—fulfilling also the wish o f his widowed mother—the manuscripts left behind by his late fa th e r.. .including his extensive correspondence, altogether fourteen thousand letters from 1650 persons. In connection with this bestowal Aurel Stein, our associate member, has in 1931 called the attention o f the presidency o f our Academy to the fact that the letter written by I- Goldziher to T. Nöldeke, university professor at Strassburg, are to be found at the university library o f Tubingen and when he approached the management o f the library, exchange, the board o f directors requested our Academy te send them the copies of the letters written by Nöldeke to I. Goldziher. When our Academy approached the director o f the library o f the university o f Tübingen, the 217 letters were sent to us. They were copied by one o f

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the employees o f the Secretary General’s office, Miss M âria Csénki, after official hours. The copies were checked by Professors D r. Bernât Heller and Dr. Béla Pukénszky, and the Arabic words occuring in the text were inserted into the copies by Dr. Zsigmond Telegdi, scholar o f Arabic philology.” (AkadémUü Értesitô, v. X LIII, fase. 455, 347-4). O f course, I thoroughly checked and corrected the 1932-1933 manuscript before publication. The selection which was necessary because o f the limited space avail* able was made so to highlight im portant scientific facts on the one hand and the human aspects on the other. From the point o f view o f science history we have selected letters which throw light on the facets o f the activity o f the scholars and their contemporaries, which had perhaps not been quite so obvious from their printed works. These may still lessons to be drawn from these. On the other hand, those letters have been included in the selection from which transpires the judgement o f values upheld by the two scholars as well their ideological outlook. The letters heve been reproduced without any alteration, keeping also the abbreviations they used (for instance, d., s/e, or n = nn, m = mm used by Nöldeke). For transciption the generally accepted usage o f the Handbuch der O rientalistik has been adopted. This applies for the transciption o f Arabic, Hebrew, Syrian, Aramean and Ethiopian words occurring in the letters. Words transcribed by the Editor invariably appear in italics. Transcriptions found in the original have naturally been left inchanged— including some inconsequent usages.

(1) Strassburg i. E. 14/3 81 MOnsterg. 7.

Sehr geehrter Herr College! Besten Dank für d. Zusendung Ihrer interessanten u. inhaltreichen Ab­ handlung!1 Ich habe mich zu viel mit den schmutzigen christlichen Heili­ gen Syriens abgeben müssen (neuerdings auch den ganz seltsamen Abes­ siniens), um nicht gleich beim ersten Anfang der Lectüre sofort wieder daran erinnert zu werden, dass dieser muslim. Heiligendienst zum grös­ seren Theil (direct oder indirect) christlicher Herkunft ist. Als ich vor einigen Jahren den Ibn Schibne* las (oder vielmehr den Auszug daraus in d. G othaer Hdschr.) fiel es mir auch auf, welch christliche Colorit die darin erwähnten Localheiligthümer und Feiern der Umgegend von Haleb zum Theil zeigen. Dass von den christl. Heiligthümer wieder Vieles altheidnisch ist, versteht sich. Ueber heilige Fische in Syr. u. Mesop. konnte ich noch manches geben, aber das Seltsamste, was ich in dieser Beziehung kene, ist, dass die Christen in Tür cAbd!n noch heute die im Sterne verwandelten Fische mit Christus zusamen in die Cosmogonie hineinbringen; (s. Socin-Prym, Dialect des Tür-cAbdin nr. LV.) Sehr mit Recht weisen Sie einmal darauf hin, dass die gelehrten arab. Schrifsteller über Leben, Glauben und Denken der niederen Volksklassen sehr wenig bringen, wie sie ja auch die Existenz von Nichtmuslimen in islam. Ländern nur ganz gelegentlich zu erwähnen pflegen. Bei der Entstehung muslim. Heiligen möchte ich übrigens der halb­ gelehrten Deutung einerseits u. der bewussten Erfindung anderseits einen etwas grösseren Raum anweisen, als Sie. Die Identificationen im Ganzen sind mir sehr bedenklich. Ich bemerke noch zu S. 63, dass mir Halevy schon vor längerer Zeit die Identität von A rsüf — Apollonia mit RSF mitgetheilt hat,3 daraus folgt nothwendig, dass nicht R esefauszusprechen, sondern R osuf oder R osof (die Vocalisation des r lasse ich ganz unbe­ stimmt, da wir ja nicht wissen, wie d. Phönizier die kurzen Vocale in offner Silbe behandelten. S. 64. Die Legende von den 8 (i. d. christlich. Form, statt der 80 der muslim.), w. in Thamanon aus d. Arche gestiegen (Noach mit d. 3 Söh­ nen + resp. Frauen), kann ich Ihnen aus vormohamad. Zeit nachweisen,

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u. zwar ist sie aus einer ganz schlechten Ethymologie des Ortsnamens entsprangen, w. nach einem Kurdenstame so heisst. S, 69 Bantogabris—B it Gubrën etc., heisst nicht „Riesen* oder Helden* o rt“ , sondern „M ännerort“ . Jenes hiesse B ith Gabbärin. Vom H i4r möchte ich wohl das älteste Vorkommen konstatiert haben ! W as er eigentlich ist, ist mir räthselhaft. Die Identificierung mit St. Georg und Elias beruht doch nur darauf, dass er nicht stirbt. Gegen die letzten Partien Ihrer Schrift hfttte ich einige Einwendungen. Dass d. Beduinen actu keinen relig. Sinn haben, ist sicher, aber potentia ist er doch in ihnen, denn sobald sich Beduinen angesiedelt haben, wer* den sie fromm. Doch genug der Bemerkungen, von denen einige red it unbedeutende Dinge betreffen! Empfangen Sie noch einmal meinen Dank. Ihr ergebener Th.Nöldeke.

(2) Strusburg i. E. 3/11 t t Halbsg. 16.

Werther Freund! Meinen allerbesten Dank für Ihr schönes Buch! Ich habe sofort gelesen, und habe auch nach meiner schlechten Gewohnheit sofort eine Recension davon geschrieben, die ich mit diesem Brief zugleich absenden werde; sie w ire ohne einige Störungen sogar schon eher fertig geworden.1 Ich will sie an D. H. Müller nach Wien schicken. Dass ich im Ganzen mit Ihnen übereinstimme, können Sie sich denken. Im Einzelnen giebt es hie und da Differenzen, allerdings durchweg nur über Secundäres, um nicht zu s a g e n ........ nfires. Hoffentlich nehmen Sie es aber nicht über auf, wenn ich Ihnen grade in solchen Kleinigkeiten widerspreche, z. B. rücksichtlich ibwän ay-ÿq/a3und halbwegs al-öähiltya. Über Ihre Belesenheit staune ich. Die Mehrzahl der Bücher, w. Sie verwenden, habe ich ja auch gelesen, aber ich habe nur wenig sachliche Notizien aus dieser Lectüre. H ätte man doch einen Index zu d. Aghänil Ich habe sie jetzt durchgelesen, aber grade jetzt empfinde ich am meissten das Bedürfniss nach einem Index des Werkes, aus dem man doch über d. Omaijaden* u/A bbasidenzeit unendlich viel lernen kann, wenn auch, bei Lichte besehen z. Theil red it unerfreuliches. Was für ein grosser Mann muss dieser ruchlose Mangür gewesen sein, dass er das Reich so fest gestellt unter den allerschwierigsten Verhältnissen, dass seine Nachkommen es trotz ihrer Liederlichkeit und ihres Mangels an Herrschergeist so lange noch halten konnten! U nter den ‘Abbäsiden nach M. ist, soviel ich sehe, Ma'mOn der Einzige, der bedeutenden Geist hat, aber doch keineswegs ein grosser Fürst war; es gemahnt mich mit seinen theol. Liebhabereien etc. z. Theil an Friedr. Wilhelm IV. von Preussen, und dazu hat er die ganze Unredlichkeit, welche dieser Familie eigen ist. Der Abbaside welcher den Gedanken gefasst hat, sich auf d. Chorasanier zu stützen, und wenn alle Araber darüber zum Teufel gingen, war ein genialer M ann, aber schauderhaft!!! Ein Schüler von mir hat die kleine Schrift MaqriçTs über den Streit der Abbas. und Omaijaden herausgegeben (als Dissertation hier).3 Ich will sehen, ob ich noch ein Exemplar für Sie kriegen kann. M.’s Stand* punkt ist ganz teologisch, aber der M ann hat so viel echte und unechte

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Traditionen und ist auf seinem Standpunkt so unpartheisch, dass d. Lectttre die Mühe lohnt. Ohne es zu wollen, stellt er den Omaijaden ein glänzendes Zeugniss aus, in dem er darauf aufmerksam macht, wie’s ihnen der Prophet u. s/c Nachfolger alle wichtigen Posten anvertraut haben. Zu Ihrem Werke noch einige Kleinigkeiten, w. ich in der Recension nicht erwähnt habe. Über al-aswad wa'-aijmar (S. 268 0 bin ich noch nicht im Klaren. Aus Kämil 30 3 geht doch wohl hervor, dass man das „R oth“ auf d. Haarund Bartfarbe beziehen muss? A uf Abu Nuwäs würde ich in Sachen der cAfabtya nicht gern verweisen (S. 83 unten). Dem war’s sicher nicht ernst, und für gute Zeche und gute Bezahlung in Geld, Frauenzimmern oder Knaben hätte er Jede Partei genommen. S. 86. Der psychol. Gegensatz in jener Stelle geht nur scheinbar auf die Gesammtheit. Die B. ‘Ämir waren allerdings Beduinen in d. Wortes verwegenster Bedeutung (Leute, von denen die Bezeichung jjilf; jjäfin gel­ ten): mit «Jenen Jemeniem“ meint der M ann aber nur die cOdhra, welche ja als der Stamm gelten, der die unglücklich Liebenden liefert („und mein Stamm sind jene Asra, welche sterben, wenn sie lieben“). Dass dieser in W ädilqurä fe st angesiedelte Stamm aber auch noch etwa Anderes konnte, als vor Liebe zu sterben, bezeugt ihnen an Näbigha die in m /n Gafniden S. 38 angezogenen Stelle; vrgl. Agfa. 7,78. Es wäre wohl der Mühe werth die Liebesgeschichten von d. cOdhiTs und von M agnün, soweit sie in alten Quellen vorliegen, zu sammeln und auf ihren Kern zu untersuchen.9 Etwas einförmig wäre das allerdings. Wie viel interessanter wäre es wohl, wenn man das Kitäb al-hifüf wieder­ herstellen könnte, aus dem uns in W right’s Opusc. arab. wenigstens ein Abschnitt ganz erhalten ist. Dies Buch würde uns sicher auch zeigen, wie stramme Polizei die früheren Omaijaden in der Wüste gehalten haben. S. 264. *im l Zuläman ist scherzhaft, als sagten wir für „guten Abend“ oder „gute Nacht“ : „gute Düsterheit“ ! M it Zuläm begrüsst man sich von Rechts wegen nicht; das Dunkel passt nur in diese speciell grausige Situation. Ibid. Warum soll Saläm calay-kum nicht auch schon in der heidn. Zeit gebraucht sein: woher käme sonst sallama „grüssen“ ? Aus haiyä ist zu folgern, dass früher auch ein Gruss von hayiya vorkam. Ibid. ult. nasitu und nussltu (nicht mit hamza) und nicht „m an hat mich verg. lassen“, sondern „G ott h. m. v. 1.“ Das nicht genannte Jd'iJ von nussltu kann im Sinne der Hadit nur Allah sein.

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Snouck's Buch schreitet tüchtig vor.4 D er 2. Abschnitt des 2. Bandes (welcher u. A. die intimissima der Ehe darlegt usque and modum coeundi) ist im Msc. druckfertig; gedruckt sind 5 Bogen. Schade d. Sn. nach Indien geht, oder vielmehr nach den Biläd ai-Gäwa. Noch einmal meinen schönsten Dank! Herzl. Giüsse von Haus zu Haus Ihr ThNöldeke

(3) Stiaasburg i. E. 9/11 88 Klabsg. 16.

Lieber College! Ich hatte gehofft, dass Bd. II. Ihrer Studien schon so gut wie druck­ fertig sei. Na, aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben. Aber zu lange dürfen Sie uns nicht warten lassen! D er 1. Tbeil wird übrigens grade deshalb besonders interessieren und wirken, weil er nicht Theologisches u. drgl. betrifft, sondern die grossen K räfte darstellt, welche in der Völkerge­ schichte mit einander ringen. Ein Buch wie Ihre ?ähiriten kann eigentlich nur Snouck beurtheilen. Nun versteht sich freilich von selbst, dass für eine wissenschaftliche Untersuchung, die eben fertig geworden, in gewis­ sem Sinne, immer nur der Verfasser selbst competenter Beurtheiler ist, denn so wie er, hat keiner das M aterial bei der Hand, aber doch distinguendum est. Bei Ihren Zähiriten muss jeder, der das Buch liest, so ziemlich mit alles Wichtige von Ihnen selbst lernen: das ist Ihrem neues­ ten Werke gegenüber doch ganz anders. Und doch fördert es unsere Kenntnis jener Zeit ungemein. Sie irren sich durchaus, wenn Sie meinen, ich legte irgend einen mildernden Maasstab* an Ihr Werk, nein so eine Arbeit verträgt die schärfste K ritik. An Widerspruch fehlt’s nicht, aber nur in Kleinigkeiten. Ich hatte beinahe gehofft, Sie beschäftigten sich mit der einen Preis­ frage des Kgs v. Schweden (übr. d. Cuhurzustand der alten Araber). Die Studien, die Sie, wie ihr Buch zeigt, über diese Leute gemacht haben, setzten Sie ja ganz dazu in Stand. Nach dem, was Sie schreiben, fürchte ich fast, ich habe m idi getäuscht. Sie dürfen m ir's übrigens nicht schrei­ ben, wenn Sie darin arbeiten, da ich zu d. Preisrichtern gehöre. Es ist ein Jamer u. ein Elend, dass man in Ungarn für wirkliche W is­ senschaft gar keine Schätzung zu haben scheint. Dass man Sie in einer Stellung lässt, für die Sie viel zu gut sind, und Ihnen keine giebt, wo Sie ganz Ihre K räfte entfalten könnten, ist ein Skandal ersten Ranges. Übrigens finde ich es auch äusserst bedauerlich, dass ein Gelehrter, wie Immanuel Löw in Szegedin sitzt, statt an einer Universität zu lehren oder eine Akademie zu zieren.1 Ich kann mir allerdings wohl denken, * Verzeihen Sie das abscheuliche, unreine Bild, das m ir da in d. Feder kommt!

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dass es bei Ihnen zu Lande nur sehr Wenige geben mag, die von Low’s „Aramäischen Pflanzennamen“* wissen, geschweige das Buch benutzen können. Ich habe m idi Ober das Buch bald nach seinem Erscheinen ja öffentlich ausgesprochen und kann es jetzt, nachdem ich es sehr, sehr viel benützt habe, noch besser schätzen. G ehört der Verfasser eines soi* eben Buches als Rabbiner in eine Provinzialstadt? Also Ihr 2ter Band wird wesentlich die Geschichte des Hadith behan­ deln? Aufrichtig gestanden, ist das ein Gegenstand, der mich lange nicht so anzieht, wie der Antagonismus von Araberthum u. neuer Religion, Araberthum u. Perserthum etc. Zum Theologen bin ich gründlich ver­ dorben und zum Faqth erst redit. Als id i vor 2 oder 3 Jahren den Buchärf systematisch las, allerdings auch nur wesentlich des Lexikons wegen —, da fiel es mir auf, welch subalterner Sinn da vielfach herrscht. Die her­ vorragenden u. gar d. grossen M änner, welche beim Bau d. Islam’s u. s/s Staates hauptsächlich gewirkt haben, kommen da wenig zu W ort; es heisst ja gradezu, dass die zu Lebzeiten des Propheten zu viel m it ihren Geschäften zu thun gehabt hätten. D a treiben sich nun in den Hadith-Sammlungen die Laufburschen und Hausknechte des Proph. herum, Leute, wie AbQ H uraira, Anas b. M älik, Ibn MascQd u. drgl. u. berichten, wie sich s/e Heil’gkeU geräuspert u. w»e Sie gespuckt haben. Und d. brave M utter ‘ÄiSa lügt dazu in d. W ette mit Ibn 'A bbäsl Das glaube ich allerdings wohl, dass in den grossen H-Sammlungen ein z. Theil stark umgewandeltes M aterial vorliegt. Wo ich histor. Angaben vergleichen konnte, habe ich durchweg die „authentische“ Nachricht Buchärfs als weit schlechter befunden, denn die in Büchern, w. die Theologen nicht für voll ansehen, wie Ibn Isfiäq und selbst Aghäni. A fter all muss man sagen: es wäre hübsch, wenn man die Urgeschichte u. das Wachstum des Christenthums nur annähernd so gut kennte, wie die des Isläm. H at man doch noch nicht einmal eine sichere Vorstellung über d. Entstehung der altchristl. Gemeindeverfassung ! Noch eine Kleinigkeit. Wie ich’s auch gethan, dtieren Sie irgendwo MasüdTs Werk als „goldene Wiesen“ . Nun hat aber Gildemeister vor nicht langer Zeit (ni fallor in der Ztschr. d. Deutsch. Palästina Vereins) darauf hingewiesen, dass er schon früher festgestellt habe, dass M urüg addqhab „Goldwäschereien“ sind. Das passt haarscharf zu M tfädin algawhar und Mas. wird so von einer Geschmacklosigkeit freigesprochen. Ich lese jetzt mit einem überaus tüchtigen Schüler Labid’s Diwän. D a ist mir heute wieder recht d. merkwürdige Gedicht S. 10 ff. (E dit. Wien 1880)* aufgefallen. Der alte Beduine, lebensmüde u. doch starken Sinnes, malt sich da u. A. die Freuden des Paradieses in seiner Weise

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-aus. An der vollständigen Echtheit kann hier durchaus nicht gezweifelt werden: so hätte kein späterer Frommer gedichtet. Der von d. Jesuiten in Beirut hg. Diwän der Chansä* ist leider eine ziemlich unkritische Sammlung.4 Ich habe d. Berliner Text daneben. Die .2 Beiruter Hdschr. sind gewiss gut. Im Einzelnen schiessen die Herren viele Böcke. N. S. Noch Eins. Ich hätte beinahe in m /r Besprechung Ihres Buches •einen Satz aufgenommen, den ich für richtig halten möchte, aber doch erst weitläufig festzustellen hätte. Die grosse Bedeutung der Leute frem­ den Herkunft für d. Wissenschaft bei d. Arber scheint mir z. grossen Theil nicht so wohl in d. frem den Herkunft selbst, sondern darin zu liegen, d. es eben M awäll waren, Clienten vornehmer Geschlechter. D a erfuhren Sie Vieles aus Familienüberlieferung und hörten von aller* hand Leuten, die bei den Vornehmen ein und ausgingen. Die vornehmen Herren selbst waren natürlich eben zu vornehm zum Schriftstellern. Noch M ubarrad scheint mir in einem clientel. Verhältniss zur Familie d . M uhallab zu stehen, die er nicht bloss in ihrem vortrefflichen A nheim feiert. Quae Tibi de amico tuo scripsi, Tibi pladtura esse spero. Si ergo quid aliud optas, ecce praesto sum. Quicquid veri de eo scribere possum libenter scribam, sed forte quod fed satis est ad eum laudandum. Th.N.

(4) S trassburg i. E. 24/10 90 K albsg. 16.

Lieber Freund! Meinen allerschönsten Dank für diese neue reiche Gabe! Ich habe mich gleich an die Lectüre gemacht und sie so eben vollendet. Allerdings werde ich mir dies und jenes noch mal wieder ansehn. Dieser Bd. umfasst ja in seinem grösseren Theile Gebiete, auf denen ich wenig oder gar nicht zu Hause bin, so dass ich nur von aussen heraus darüber urtheilen kann. Aber wer, ausser Ihnen beherrschte das Gebiet des Hadith? Auch Snouck nicht. Ich werde mich bei der Besprechung in der Wien. Ztsch. wohl etwas kürzer fassen als bei der des 1. Bds.1 Einige meiner leisen Einwürfe, die ich bei dem 1. Bd. gemacht habe, könnte ich auch bei dem 2“° machen; item einige, die ich bei d. 1. Bearbeitung der islam. Hei* ligen erhoben habe, bei der jetzt vorliegenden 2**°. Zuweilen stellen Sie m. E. ihre Sätze etwas zu schroff hin. So scheint mir, dass der Gegensatz der Omaijaden gegen d. H üter d. Religion nicht so arg und nicht grade der A rt war, wie er in der Beleuchtung der cAbbäsidenzeit erscheint. Die S. 381 gegebenen Stellen liessen sich wohl noch ziemlich vermehren. Auch al-Im&m für den Omaij. Chalif. HiSäm z. B. suchte gewiss mit den Theologen gut zu stehen, u. nicht ohne Erfolg. Und war persönlich gewiss ein besserer Muslim, als die meisten der früheren cAbbäsiden. Das Hauptunglück für d. Omaijaden war, dass sie an d. rein arab. Form der Regierung und geographisch an Syrien gebunden waren. Da konnten nur bedeutende Herrscher mit bedeutenden Statthaltern im cIräq das Ganze Zusammenhalten. Als nun der vielleicht geniale, aber gänzlich verkommene u. nichtswürdige Walid II kurze Zeit herrschte, ging alles aus Rand u. Band und war nicht mehr zusammenzubringen. Persisches Nationalbewusstsein und persische Legitimitätsgefühle geschickt u. gewissenlos geleitet, waren d. Kräfte, welche d. Omaijaden stürzten, nicht der islamische Geist. Natürlich bestritte ich Ihnen durchaus nicht, dass sich mit dem Sieg der 'Abbäsiden auch d. Stellung der Traditionarier u. anderer Theologen änderte. Die Häupter derselben wussten natürlich so gut, wie es um d. persönl. Frömmigkeit der cAbbäsiden stand, wie Eusebius die Christi. Frömmigkeit des Constantius kannte (der vielleicht ebenso gross und ebenso ruchlos war wie Man$Qr), aber sie gingen alle

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auf die heuchlerischen Parolen mit guter Miene ein, was aus guten G rün­ den den Omaijaden gegenüber nicht so gut gegangen war. Dass der religiöse Gegensatz, den die gesammte Umma Muhammad gegen d. Omaijaden fühlte, nicht allzu stark war, zeigt sich darin, dass fast 100 Jahre lang kein nur an solche Gefühle appellierender Aufstand Erfolg gehabt hat. Auch der lange W iderstand des Ibn Zubair beruht nicht, oder nur nebensächlich, auf d. Abscheu vor dem gottlosen Herrscherhause. — Doch ich gerathe von Hundersten in Tausendste u. erzähle Ihnen Dinge vor, die Sie selbst wissen. Ein wenig weniger skeptisch gegen die Echtheit der Tradition möchte ich immer noch sein als Sie. Bei Ihnen sieht es fast so aus, als erkannten Sie kein einziges Ifadith als echt an. Ich möchte glauben, dass die Dozy’sche Schätzung d. so etwa d. Hälfte der B uchärfsehen Hadithe echt sein, doch ungefähr d. Richtige treffen könnte. Ich fühle mich gelegentlich ein wenig zum „Retter“ von Traditionen aufgelegt, die Sie als zu einem bestimmten Zweck geschmiedet ansehen, während es mir vorkommt, als hätte man sich bloss schon bestehender geschickt bedient. Sehen Sie mal zu, ob Sie nicht auch in ähnlicher Weise allerlei Koränstellen verdächtigen könnten, wenn deren Echtheit nicht sonst fest stände! Aber ich bewundere Ihre ganze Darstellung u. die Beherrschung des Stoffes. Ich sage „d. Beherrschung“ d. h. nicht bloss d. sichere Kenntniss, sondern die streng historische Beurtheilung. Auch die Geduld, w. Sie gehabt haben, so viel des ödesten Zeuges durchzulesen, u. zwar m it Aufmerksamkeit. (Wenn ich langweilige syr. Bücher lese, helfe ich m ir dam it, d. ich aufs Grammatische u. Lexikalische achte: freilich pflegt grade in den für nicht tödlichsten Schriften— denen über Christologie — weder für G r. noch für Lex. etwas abzufallen.) Das Edict des Mu*ta4id (Tab. 3,2164 ff) habe ich bei der Gelegenheit wieder durchgelesen. Das ist doch ein wahres Repertorium an Fälschun­ gen. Auch die Verse 2174. sind eine unverschämte Fälschung (1. 8 lies lefibaty, das Gedicht des Ibn Z iba'rä, das natürlich ed it ist, ist theils di­ rect dem Jazid in d. M und gelegt, theils erw eitert Jazid (+ d. 10. Nov. 683, während d. Schlacht an d. H ann d. 26 Aug. war) war vielleicht schon krank, als er d. Nachricht von d. Schlacht empfing. A uf alle Fälle war er ein gutmüthiger Lebemann, in dessen Mund d. crasse A ngriff auf d. Propheten durchaus nicht passt. Dass in s/e kurze Regierung der Aufstand Husains und d. Harraschlacht gefallen sind, hat d. M ann zum Abscheu der Frommen gemacht, aber uns darf das nicht beirren. Wäre er so klug, wie sein Vater gewesen, hätte sich als Prinz etwas

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zurückgehalten, so hätte er ein wirklicher Freigeist sein u. doch für leidlich fromm gelten können. Dass Moäwija wirklich geboten hat s/r Leiche ein H aar Muh.’s in d. M und stecken, halte ich für sehr wahrscheinlich. Grade solche Züge sind characteristisch. „Denn in solchen Dingen denken grade jene Herren sehr wenig folgerichtig“ (Snouck Mekka 1,177). Die Tradition des Ilm cUmar S. 96 bin ich z. B. geneigt zu vertheidigen (im Einzelnen mag daran gemodelt sein). D er Omarsohn hat sich immer von allen Aufständen zurückgehalten, ist überhaupt, obwohl keineswegs bedeutend, als d. seltne Typus eines durchaus rechtschaffenen Mannes unter den A Sräf für m idi eine interessante Figur. D er einfache Mann durchschaute d. Triebfeder des Ibn Zubair etc. G ut, dass Sie S. 59 den Begriff „Freisinn“ bei M a’mün so beleuchten, dass man nicht nöthig hat, dagegen zu polemisieren. Was Sie S. 59 sagen, ist vorzüglich. Ma’mOn ist mir überhaupt red it unsympathisch. Allerdings wohl der einzige geistig hervorragende Cabb&8idische Herrscher ausser Mangür, aber so unredlich, wie sie alle von Ibn cAbbäs selbst, an und dazu mit theolo­ gischen Liebhabereien, die m idi an Friedrich Wilhelm IV. erinnert. Er nahm wirklich Antheil an diesen Sachen, nicht bloss äusserlich, wie s/e Vorgänger. S. 121. Eine Tradition lassen Sie merkwürdigerweise gelten (wie es scheint), die ich unbedingt für erdichtet halte. Dass der Name Abü Turäb Anfangs nur ein Spottname gewesen den ihm d. Gegner gegeben, nach turibat yadä-hü etc., halte ich fest: grade dass ganz verschiedene Geschichten erzählt wurden, um den Spott daraus wegzubringen u. AT. als einen von M uh. selbst ausgegangen Ehrennahmen zu erklären, macht mir die Sadie sicher. Bei der Gelegenheit möchte ich Ihnen eine Frage vorlegen. Der Beiname D ät an-nitäqayn der Asmä* Tochter Abü Bekr’s, M utter des Ibn Zubair wird so thöricht erklärt, Ibn HiSäm 329, und grade der Dual unerklärt bleibt (als von M uh. selbst gegeben) dass ich vermuthe, d. wahre Bedeutung ist eine andre, u. es handelt sich um eine, vielleicht obscöne, Benennung der M utter des Gegenchalifen. Fein u. rücksichtsvoll war man damals nicht in der Polemik, und wenn yä Ibn D ät an-nifäqayn so etwas wie yä Ilm al-FcFila war, so war das d. ärgste Beschimpfung. Nun noch einige Einzelheiten, z. Theil Kleinigkeiten. Dass M utrn (S. 7) in dem Vers des Labid „Text” ist, bezweifle ich doch noch, obwohl Zauzani es durch Kitäba erklärt (leider hab* ich mir nicht notiert, ob Tebrizi dieselbe Erklärung giebt). Ich glaube „Oberfläche“ (der Phir. so cAmr. Mucall. 78) genügt: cfr. galä eanm otoi-hi Zuheir (Ahlw.) 1,29. Selbst das yu&iddu hier .erneuern* heissen müsste, ist mir durchaus nicht sicher;

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agadda heisst auch „neues machen“ (zum ersten M al); so grade La bid, Diw. 110,1. Das W iederauffrischen vergilbter Schrift ist doch kaum etwas gewesen, was der Beduinendichter gekannt haben sollte. (Das Bild, das gebe ich zu, passte für das Wiederauffrischen vorzüglich). — Die Stelle Agh. 8, 102, 4v. u. die Sie in d. Nachträgen geben, hat mutün vom gehörten Text, nicht vom geschriebenen. 91. 3v. u. (Text) lies gejnt1. In dergleichen Dingen hätte ich wohl hie u. da einiges zu verbessern. Aber etwas Principielles: warum citieren Sie arab. Sätze mit Vorlieb halb mit Icràb, halb ohne ? wie raguI tarfa cnhu-l-fitm etc. 99 Anm. 2. ; mä kann f i thawab wagejrihi etc. etc.? S. 98. M itte 1. ’an b§k|rati abihim3 S. 101. Den 3. Vers übersetze ich ohne Bedenken: Wenn nun Abb. mehr Recht hierauf hat (nicht „hätte“) „und cAli erst nachher etwas beanspruchen kann“) Sabah™ ist „was einen in Beziehung zu etwas setzt“, dahin führt). — Dann: „so sind die Söhne d. Abb. s/e Erben“ . Sehr dankbar bin ich dafür, dass Sie d. H adith über Abü Tälib richtig beleuchtet haben (S. 107). Freilich hat d. Prophet auch gesagt, s/e M utter sei in d. Hölle (das kann doch wohl kaum erdichtet sein!). Aber dieser Extra-Grausamkeit gegen s/n guten Onkel braucht man ihn nun nicht mehr schuldig zu halten. Grade den Abü Tälib aufs K orn zu nehmen, mochte man durch d. Beliebtheit der Bezeichnung al-Jäliblyün noch mehr angetrieben sein. Man kann sich etwa denken, dass jemand von d. hoch angesehen ! Abkömmlingen des Abü Lahab so etwas erfunden oder hervor­ gerufen hat: „wenn unsere Ahnen täglich v. Millionen als eines Höllen­ brandes gedacht wird: na so viel besser hat’s eurer auch nicht“ . Oder einer der öl Ibn öahl oder dgl. S. 130 Ceuta. Ganz wie d. christl. Hadith von d. Uneinnehmbarkeit Edesa’s. H at beiden Städten nicht auf d. Dauer geholfen. S. 247. Hier halte ich wirklich faiyibu-hä für allein berechtigt. Taiyib, nicht Jlb ist der Gegensatz zur „Schlacke“ H ub[; das reine Metall geht aus d. Ofen hell glänzend (näfi*) hervor.4 Und 245 sehe ich absolut nicht, wie man um h a y'af" (wie Krehl hat) herumkommt. Zugegeben, dass Buchäri hunaiyatm gesprochen haben mag: dann hat er einfach einen absoluten Fehler eines Vorgängers wiederholt, der nicht genügend arabisches Sprachgefühl hatte um OlAA i ? sines Heftes richtig auszusprechen. Ich bin von d. Dichtem her an manche Seltsamkeit gewöhnt, aber den Genitiv vor sein Regens zu setzen, das ist m. E. unmöglich. Die Umkehr gayr hunaiya uduni-hl ergäbe übrigens auch etwas Undenkbares „ausser dem Stückchen s/s Ohres“, denn hunaiya

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würde durch uduni-nl determiniert. Also ist erst f l (oder m in.) eingesetzt hajfatan im Tamjiz ist völlig in Ordnung. S. 248. Hängt das Sarf Buchärfs, welches Sie in Anm. 1 geben, nicht mit dem in Anm. 3. zusammen? Ich denke mir — vielleicht ganz ver­ kehrt — d. Sache so: Buch, begnügte sich mit der tm farfana. Da er von allen Gewährsmännern verlangte, dass sie nicht leichtgläubig seien. Auch wenn A eine Nachricht von B übernahm, der sie nur ean D hatte, also ev. durch eine M ittelsperson C, so konnte Buch, die Nachricht annehmen, wenn er sicher war, dass A im Stande gewesen war, sich der Zuverläs­ sigkeit dessen, was er von B übernommen hatte, resp. des nicht ge­ nannten C, zu vergewissern. Da ich mich aber mit U fül al-hadlt u. drgl. nie näher beschäftigt babe, so soil's mich nicht wundem, wenn Sie diese m/e Construction für Unsinn erklären. (Dass aus d. Prüfung des Isnäde nicht entfernt so viel herauskommt, als aus der des Inhalts, w ar immer m/e Meinung. Natürl. ist aber z. B. eine au f'Ä ila oder Ibn cAbbäs zurückgehende Angabe von vorn herein verdächtig etc. etc.) S. 272. Die Geschichte (unten) sieht doch sehr erlogen aus, um ent­ weder den berühmten Theologen zu entschuldigen, oder aber - - u. das ist das Wahrscheinlichere — s/m Buch die W irkung zu nehmen. 273. Ein Rationalist könnte d. heilsame W irkung des etwas bittersalzi­ gen Zemzemwassers zugeben. Sie, an der Hunyady Jänos-Quelle sitzend, müssten das zu würdigen verstehen. 393,6. Dass bi-ht „durch ihn“ heisse, ist mir sehr unwahrscheinlichZwar ist d. Gränze zwischen dem Begriff des Instruments, das durch ^/-bezeichnet wird, und dem des logischen Subjects beim Passiv, das im Altarabischen nicht stehn kann, etwas fliessend, aber dass bi- bei G ott als dem Thäter stehn könne ,glaub* ich nicht. Allerdings ist das nur so ein Eindruck; ganz sicher bin ich nicht. 393,3. Der Grundsatz ist auch als jüdisch. Irgendwo in Talmud steht ungefähr so TS Se-Cën lö *i§Sah ’Snenfl ’iS 4a; die von ehemaligen Juden, die zum Clerus gehörten, geübte Zensur hat für das erste 'IS ein yfhüdr gesetzt, u. so steht in allen späteren Ausgg. Dem ehelosen Cleriker durfte doch nicht nachgesagt werden, er sei kein Mann! Dies ist die amüsanteste Censuränderung, die ich selbst gefunden habe. Sie kennen wohl die Stelle, sonst könnte ich sie Ihnen, denke ich, leicht auffinden. Die gesunde Abkehr von der Askese rechne ich dem Islam hoch an, um so mehr, da Muhammed, namentlich in s/r ersten Zeit, gar nicht so ohne ascet. Neigungen war. Diese Askese hat wesentlich dazu bei­ getragen, die Syrer zu ruinieren.

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398. Ist es nicht interessant, dass der fromme Hasan v. Basra und der leichtsinnige Ovid (medio tutissimus ibis) so fibereinstimmen? Noch eine Brage. Was ist das T tfrfy al-BufyärP? Ein chronolog. biographisches Verzeichniss seiner Rigol? Existiert das Buch noch? Noch eins: S. 122 f. Diese Entschuldigungen cOthmän’s halte ich im Wesentlichen für richtig. Dass cOthmän bei Obod geflohen, steht fest, dass er grade s/e Frau begrub, als der Proph. von Bedr zurückkam, auch. Item, dass der Proph. ihn grade von Hudaibija nach Mekka schickte, weil er ein Omaijade, Vetter des anerkannten Saijid’s Abü Sufjän war, während "Omar, den er zuerst schicken wollte, darauf hinwies, dass s/e Gens, die B am cA dl nicht mächtig genug seien, ihn zu schützen. Wenn nun also auch Moss in nr 1 ein wirklicher Vorwurf liegt, so war bei der Ausserlichkeit, womit diese Dinge aufgefasst wurden, doch für d. Gegner Veranlassung, ihn auch m it 2 und 3 zu ärgern. Dass cOthmän auch bei Chaibar geflohen sei (122, 1. Vers), erinnere ich mich nicht gelesen zu haben (habe aber auch nicht nachgeschlagen) ; das dürfte allerdings erdichtet sein, um ihn gegen 'A ll, den Helden v. Ch., den Besieger M arhab’s herabzusetzen. So verschieden die Tonarten der beiden Abhandlungen des Bandes sind, darin stimmen Sie überein, dass si d. Riesenkraft des muslim. IgmäF zeigen. Es liessen sich viele Betrachtungen hieran knüpfen auch hinsichtlich der fundamentalen Verschiedenheit dieser und unserer W eltanschauung! H ätten Sie nicht Lust den AbiFl-cA la>al~M