Abstract
This chapter offers a comprehensive treatment of Hegel’s assessment of Islam in terms of its fundamental beliefs, its philosophical traditions, its aesthetics, and its place in the history of philosophy and in world history generally. Hegel’s accounts of Islam adumbrate a long period of Western thinking about Islam that reaches into our own era. Islam, according to him, is characterized by caprice, lack of restraint, and fanaticism—all focused in an intrinsic impulse toward world conquest. Hegel did see Islam’s assertion of an utterly transcendent Divinity as an essential stage of world history but one which had to be superseded by a more dialectical conception of God as embodied in the Christian Trinity. In fact, he explicitly saw Islam as the “antithesis” of Christianity.
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Notes
- 1.
The many works which have documented the portrayal of Islam as an orientalist phenomenon beyond Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) include Albert Hourani’s Islam in European Thought (1991), Frederick Quinn’s The Sum of All Heresies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), and Ian Almond’s History of Islam in German Thought (London and New York: Routledge, 2010).
- 2.
Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: Vol. III: The Consummate Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1988), p. 243. Hereafter cited as LPR III.
- 3.
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), pp. 356–357. Hereafter cited as PH.
- 4.
It should be acknowledged that, as Kevin Thompson notes, a “proper examination” of Hegel’s views on Islam is currently beyond us since those views are scattered through various works and since we do not yet have adequate critical editions of all those works . Nonetheless, it is possible, I think, to evince from those various texts a fairly coherent perspective. Thompson’s own focus is on using Hegel’s discussion of Islam to explore the connection between the theological and the political in Hegel’s work (Kevin Thompson , “Hegel, the Political and the Theological: The Question of Islam,” in Hegel on Religion and Politics, ed. Angelica Nuzzo (New York: SUNY Press, 2013), p. 101. Some of the other analyses are addressed below; almost none of them—Ian Almond being the exception—engages with the actual views of Islamic thinkers or the traditions of Qur’anic exegesis.
- 5.
The other, more general, source was Gottlieb Tennemann’s Geschichte der Philosophie. See Hegel: Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825–1826: Vol. III: Medieval and Modern Philosophy, ed. Robert F. Brown, trans. R.F. Brown and J.M. Stewart (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1990), p. 36, notes 48–49. Hereafter cited as LHP. Hegel: Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825–1826: Vol. III: Medieval and Modern Philosophy, ed. Robert F. Brown, trans. R.F. Brown and J.M. Stewart (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1990), p. 36, notes 48–49. Hereafter cited as LHP.
- 6.
Averroes: Faith and Reason in Islam: Averroes’ Exposition of Religious Arguments, trans. Ibrahim Najjar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 111. Hereafter cited as FR.
- 7.
Ira M. Lapidus , A History of Islamic Societies (1988; rpt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 88.
- 8.
Alfarabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, trans. Muhsin Mahdi (London: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 46–47.
- 9.
Moses Maimonides , The Guide of the Perplexed (2 vols.), trans. and ed. Shlomo Pines (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1963), I. 57, II. 1, 22, 40, III. 20, 51.
- 10.
Hegel’s Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 164. Hereafter cited as Logic.
- 11.
G.W.F. Hegel, Early Theological Writings, trans. T.M. Knox, Introd. Richard Kroner (1948; rpt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), p. 273. Hereafter cited as ETW.
- 12.
Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1827, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1988), p. 115. Hereafter cited as LPR.
- 13.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), p. 356. Hereafter cited as PH.
- 14.
G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art: Volume I, trans. T.M. Knox, Vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 362–363 Hereafter cited as Aes, I.
- 15.
G. W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, Volume II, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 1097–1098. Hereafter cited as Aes II.
References
Brown, Robert F., ed. 1990. Hegel: Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825–1826: Vol. III: Medieval and Modern Philosophy. Trans. R.F. Brown and J.M. Stewart, 36. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press.
Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. 1956a. The Philosophy of History. Trans. J. Sibree, 356–357. New York: Dover Publications.
———. 1956b. The Philosophy of History. Trans. J. Sibree, 356. New York: Dover Publications.
———. 1971. Early Theological Writings. Trans. T.M. Knox and Introd. Richard Kroner, 273. Reprint 1948. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
———. 1975a. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art: Volume I, vol. I. Trans. T.M. Knox, 362–363. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1975b. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, Volume II. Trans. T. M. Knox, 1097–1098. Oxford University Press.
Hodgson, Peter C., ed. 1988a. Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: Vol. III: The Consummate Religion. Vol. 243. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
———., ed. 1988b. Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1827, 115. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
Lapidus, Ira M. 2002. A History of Islamic Societies, 88. Reprint 1988. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mahdi, Muhsin, trans. 1962. Alfarabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, 46–47. London: Macmillan, 1962.
Maimonides, Moses. 1963. The Guide of the Perplexed, vol. 2. Trans. and Ed. Shlomo Pines, I. 57, II. 1, 22, 40, III. 20, 51. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Najjar, Ibrahim, trans. 2001. Averroes: Faith and Reason in Islam: Averroes’ Exposition of Religious Arguments, 111. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tennemann, Gottlieb. 1990. Geschichte der Philosophie. See Hegel: Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825–1826: Vol. III: Medieval and Modern Philosophy. Ed. Robert F. Brown and Trans. R.F. Brown and J.M. Stewart, 36. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press.
Thompson, Kevin. 2013. Hegel, the Political and the Theological: The Question of Islam. In Hegel on Religion and Politics, ed. Angelica Nuzzo, 101. New York: SUNY Press.
Wallace, William, trans. 1982. Hegel’s Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), 164. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Habib, M.A.R. (2017). Hegel and Islam: Orientalism. In: Hegel and Empire. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68412-3_9
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