A Jewish orientalist admired Islam as rationally superior while still seeking to reform Judaism

Evidence

Goldziher was deeply moved by his encounter with the Arabs, achieving a level of affinity with Islamic culture that went beyond the mere academic, as had been the case with Geiger and Graetz. And it certainly outstripped the “one-sided rationalism of Christian scholars who, while safeguarding the sacrosanct character of their own Scriptures and beliefs, subject those of Muslims to rigorous and even captious criticism.” Instead, Goldziher’s scholarship displayed an unparalleled degree of compassion, respect, and admiration for the Muslim world. In 1890 he wrote of his stay in Damascus: “I truly entered in those weeks into the spirit of Islam to such an extent that ultimately I became inwardly convinced that I myself was Muslim and judiciously discovered that this was the only religion which, even in its doctrinal and official formulation, can satisfy philosophical minds.” But never far from his scholarly and personal appraisal of Islam was his critical view of Judaism: “My ideal was to elevate Judaism to a similar rational level.” This ideal remained because he saw in Islam a purity and essence—religious characteristics so valued by Jews dedicated to a reformist agenda—that to his mind, was closest to prophetic Judaism. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 401

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The layered structure here — a Jewish scholar embracing Islam as the only philosophy-satisfying religion while simultaneously using it as a mirror to critique his own Judaism — is a dense, self-contradictory stance worth sitting with.
• XREF: Parallels the dynamics of the outsider orientalist adopting the subject culture ‘more authentically than the natives,’ as in Said’s critique of orientalism and Homi Bhabha’s mimicry.
• SEED: Angle: ‘Islam as a reformist mirror’ — how 19th-century reform Jews used Islam as a rhetorical yardstick to critique their own tradition, a model for how marginalized groups borrow an admired other to indict the self.
• QUESTION: Did Goldziher really convert inwardly or maintain both identities? What became of this ‘ideal’ in his later writing about Islam’s decline?