A pioneer of Qur’anic scholarship ended in confessed bewilderment at its subject.

Evidence

In the long run, however, Nöldeke became disillusioned with Qur’anic studies: ‘It is my ultimate wish not to be harassed by Muhammad 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 am too modern a European to see clearly into that world of dreams.’ — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 351

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly did Nöldeke find ‘mysterious’ — the text itself, or the entire cultural world he couldn’t access? His confession complicates the confidence usually imputed to positivist Orientalists.
• FICTION: The image of a supremely confident philologist confessing he is ‘too modern a European’ to see into that world of dreams is rich character material — a scholar undone by his own object.