Jackson Roy - Nietzsche and Islam

Background to the debate and work outlined

This book has two interconnected aims. First, it sets out to demonstrate that, contrary to many perceptions on the matter, Friedrich Nietzsche is not the standard bearer for atheism. In fact, it shall be argued, both the man and his philosophy are imbued with a deep religiosity. Second, I will argue that Nietzsche's philosophy has particular relevance for how Islamic identity is perceived in the modern world. Whilst Nietzsche rarely spoke specifically on Islam, his admiration for it as a religion is in sharp contrast to his criticism of Christianity. What I set out to determine is why Nietzsche felt inclined to be so generous towards Islam and, in the process of this determination, what this tells us about Nietzsche's own views on the importance of religion.

In the light of current events, particularly the post 9/11 debates with much focus on aspects of the clash of civilisation thesis, the issue of Islamic identity is a crucial one. Whilst Nietzsche was addressing an audience of a different culture and age, I aim to show that his philosophy can make an important contribution to this ongoing debate.

In achieving these aims, I want to focus on what is considered to be Islam's key paradigms: that of the Qur'an, Muhammad, Medina as the first Islamic state, and the four Rightly-Guided (Rashidun) caliphs. The focus is on these paradigms as they tend to dominate in terms of Islamic identity amongst Islamic revivalist scholars. In that respect, returning to Islam in what is perceived as its Golden Age is nothing original nor would be seen by Islamists as unorthodox. However, the originality lies in how one is to approach a study of these paradigms. It is in this respect that, I will argue, Nietzsche's own originality, creativity, psychological, philological and historical insights allows for a fresh and enlightening understanding of the Islamic paradigms within the context of our modern era.

The West as a concept of civilisation has seen its centre of gravity move from Western Europe to America to Eastern Europe. Israel represents the projection of this centre into the East to wipe out its specific character, its spiritual wealth, and humankind's hope for a new renaissance.

The above quote by the exiled leader of the Islamist movement in Tunisia, Rashid Ghannushi, is typical of a concern amongst many Muslims that there is a growingcivilisational conflict between Islam and the West. Rather than being presented with the theological view of Islam as a member of the same family as the Judaeo-Christian tradition, we have conflict and difference. Such a perception, of course, does not lie only with Islamist commentators, but many Western writers are just as guilty, if not more so, of portraying Islam as an Other.

Edward Said's well-known study, Orientalism, We can, in fact, learn much from Western scholars of Islam from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Albert Hourani noted:

There isrunning through the work of the great [Western] Islamic scholars one central strand of concernwhich attempted to articulate what Muslims believed to be the revelation given to mankind through the Prophet Muhammad: tradition, law, theology, mystical thought. A hundred years of study of these matters have produced a body of work which cannot be regarded as badly done.