Goldziher felt inwardly Muslim yet sought to raise Judaism to Islam’s rational level.

Evidence

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.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 373

Categorization

• QUESTION: A scholar who ‘became Muslim in all but name’ while remaining an observant Jew — what does this fluid religious identity imply about fin-de-siècle Jewish self-fashioning?