SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Three Orientalists on Judaism and Islam: Ernest Renan, Julius Wellhausen and William Robertson Smith

In the second lecture, I shall focus on three towering nineteenth-century scholars. While they were all excellent Hebraists and Arabists, Renan, Wellhausen and Robertson Smith had different approaches to the study of religion. These three scholars had serious problems with the religious authorities in their respective countries, which impacted dramatically on their careers. These three figures were close to developing comparative ways of studying Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and yet they did not quite do so. The reasons for their failure are to be found in the growing Islamophobia and Antisemitism in nineteenth-century Europe, precisely at the time of secularization.