II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

II.
Fig. 10: Johann Bernhard
Fischer von Erlach, ground
plan of the Karlskirche, Vienna
(Entwurf einer historischen
Architektur, Vol. 3, 1721).
52
II. Schwetzingen – A Prince Elector’s Eighteenth-Century Summer Residence
represent nothing but itself. 33 Pigage built two
structures, refl ecting a wholly new view of the
Orient and a serious contemplation of Islamic
issues, rather than decorative shells for some
unrelated purpose.
Johann Gottfried Herder’s statement that the
East had been the cradle of all religions refl
ects the late 18th century’s growing scholarly
interest in the Orient. Earlier on, due to the
centuries-long Ottoman wars, Christianity and
Islam had merely perceived the “imperialist”
aspects of each other, and thus, the opposite
and different. The age of Enlightenment
looked for convergences both on the praxeological
and the epistemological levels. The
result was a “sympathetic identifi cation”, as
the scholar Edward W. Said called the growing
willingness towards the end of the 18th
century, to discover aspects of relationship or
shared attitudes within the “other” and alien. 34
Fischer von Erlach’s view of Mecca is much
more than a document of the Oriental fashion
popular in the 18th century. In fact, the architect
stresses the importance of a knowledge
33 Gaier 2002, p. 59. Another explanation that does not apply
here is the possibility of the mosque’s representing a triumph
over the Ottomans, and thus a symbol of political and religious
victory. This is how Ulrika Kiby interprets the Ottoman
elements in the architecture of the Belvedere in Vienna.
Ulrika Kiby, Die Exotismen des Kurfürsten Max Emanuel in
Nymphenburg, Hildesheim 1990, pp. 167 ff.
34 Edward W. Said, Orientalismus (transl. L. Weissberg),
Frankfurt a. M. 1981, p. 110.
of Oriental languages, history and religion for
the understanding of one’s own origins and
those of others, when he writes in his caption
that “according to the Mohammedans this is
where the house built by Abraham and the
well of Ishmael are, and where Mohammed
wrote his Alcoran”.
Further surprising discoveries were that of a
common philosophical heritage derived from
antiquity, and numerous parallels, such as
the Islamic and Christian interpretations of
Aristotle’s De anima. 35
Most of all it was probably the aspect of
reason, that the era of Enlightenment found
in the Koran, which had become available in
translations into many European languages. 36
The discovery of a near-rational faith in
God, based on the reasoning and all-proving
“Alcoran” left many thinkers, and some deists
in particular, with an impression of Islam as
an “ideal”, “reasonable” religion. 37 Many books
were written about the issue. One of them was
a tract by Henri de Boulainvillier (1658-1722),
La vie de Mahomet, published posthumously
in 1730 and translated into German in 1747. 38
It argues that the Koran addresses believers
as sensible, thinking individuals and appeals
to their reason. However, Islam is in accord
35 Nizar Samir Gara, Die Rezeption der Philosophie des
Aristoteles im Islam, Diss. Heidelberg 2003, pp. 15 ff. Cp. also
Carl H. Becker, Das Erbe der Antike im Orient und Okzident,
Leipzig 1931.
36 As early as 1746, a German translation of the 1734 version
by George Sale, an English lawyer, was available to interested
readers. In 1772, the fi rst direct translation from Arabic was
published in Frankfurt am Main, entitled “The Turkish Bible”
(Die türkische Bibel, oder des Korans allererste teutsche
Übersetzung) and translated by David Friedrich Megerlin.
There is no proof that this edition was in the Mannheim court
library; however, it was spectacularly successful, and it may
be safely assumed that the Palatine court was aware of its
existence.
37 Diethelm Balke, “Orient und Orientalische Literaturen.
Einfl uß auf Europa und Deutschland”, in: Reallexikon der
deutschen Literaturgeschichte, Berlin 1965, vol. 2, pp. 816-868,
particularly p. 828. At the same time, there were very different
interpretations of Islam too. In Voltaire’s writings, it became a
paradigm of the fanaticism inherent in every religion, and was
described in terms considered anathema to Enlightenment:
“superstition”, “enthusiasm” and “fanaticism”. “Enthusiasm”
may describe a state of religious frenzy but also and more
generally an unhealthy, feverish imagination. “Fanaticism”, in
Voltaire’s eyes a synonym of “superstition”, was aimed mainly
at the unenlightened obscurantism of the Catholic church. To
Leibniz, “fanaticism” was evidenced by a tendency to rely on
immediate strong feeling, unchecked by reason – fanaticism
was thus a lack of clear thinking. In applying these terms to
Islam, Islam becomes a religion devoid of reason.
38 Henri de Boulainvilliers, Das Leben des Mahomeds mit historischen
Anmerkungen über die Mahomedanische Religion
und die Gewohnheiten der Muselmänner, Lemgo 1747.