Hegel linked Islam’s so-called fanaticism to terror and to love

Evidence

It makes the individual into “one passion and that alone.” The individual is, he becomes, in fact, one passion. There is, therefore, only one principle in Islam, one principle that is not one, but double: “La religion et la terreur,” says Hegel in French, religion and terror. Such would be the French name of Muslim enthusiasm, then, and it may therefore be compared not only to the Terror of Robespierre, but to love, in which “an equal abandon,” a total recklessness, and a lack of consideration and concern takes precedence and, indeed, dominates. One is simply riicksichtlos, inconsiderate and unconcerned (359/G432). This lack of concern does not preclude action, for “never has enthusiasm, as such, performed greater deeds,” and yet, through its comparisons, this particular enthusiasm becomes incomparable. It becomes or remains wholly singular, since it is “restrained by nothing, finding its limits nowhere,” since it is an enthusiasm that is “absolutely indifferent to all beside” (ibid.). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 643

Categorization

• DEFINE: Hegel’s concept of Muslim ‘fanaticism’ — the individual as one passion, doubled as religion-et-terreur — is defined and unpacked here.
• XREF: Ruptures the received meaning of ‘terror’ and links Islam in Hegel to Robespierre’s Terror and to love as abandon.