Video Title: The Influence of the Qur'an on Western Literature. YouTube Video Description - [Channel: SchAdvStudy. March 23, 2012]:
16-03-12 The Warburg Institute"The impact of the Qur'an on Western literature has been relatively slight, so my subject today is not a big one." - Robert Irwin (an excerpt from the video below).
http://www.sas.ac.uk/
http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/collo...
Launch Conference for the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe: Translating The Qur'an - The Influence of the Qur'an on Western Literature
Speaker: Robert Irwin (London)
The Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe (CHASE) is dedicated to the study of the reception and understanding of Arabic and Islamic culture, science and religion in Europe from the Middle Ages to the modern period. This one-day conference, Translating the Qur'an, is devoted to the European reception and understanding of the Qur'an, the sacred text of Islam.
"Apart from Goethe's - the poet's - fascination for the language of Qur'an, its beauty and sublimeness, he was mostly attracted by its religious and philosophical meaning: the unity of God, the conviction that God manifests in nature/creation is one of the major themes in Goethe's work. During his first intensive Qur'an-studies Goethe copied and partly put right the text of the first direct translation of the Qur'an from Arabic into German in 1771/1772.
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Thus it can be clearly accepted that Europe's greatest poet, and the glory of the German language and intellectual life is also the first of the Muslims in modern Europe, re-awakening in the hearts of people desire for knowledge of God and His messenger, a knowledge that had lain dormant since darkness had descended on Islamic Spain." - Shaykh 'Abdalqadir Al-Murabit, "Was Goethe a Muslim?" (December 19, 1995).
