Nicholas of Cusa and Muhammad

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Introduction: Contradictory Texts, Idealist Scholars

In his philosophical or theological works, Nicholas of Cusa did not deal with Islam. Except for a few sporadic mentions, there is no systematic treatment of Islam or Muhammad in Cusanus’ major works, namely On Catholic Concordance (De concordantia Catholica, 1433), On Learned Ignorance (De docta ignorantia, 1440), and On the Vision of God (De visione Dei, 1453), as well as in his other philosophical or theological works.

Interestingly, in his On Learned Ignorance, among other things, Cusanus writes: “The Saracens, who are ignorant of the mysteries of Christ, are, without reason, persecutors of the cross of Christ. They will not taste the divine fruit of his redemption, nor do they expect it on the basis of their law of Mohammed, which promises only to satisfy their desires for pleasure.”¹ To those who study Cusanus’ attitude towards Islam, as I do, and are familiar with his A Scrutiny of the Koran (CA), this assertion is of no surprise. In essence, it is a short introduction to CA some twenty years before its appearance.

In another work, A Defence of Learned Ignorance from One Disciple to Another (Apologia doctae ignorantiae discipuli ad discipulum, 1449), Cusanus has a somewhat more appreciative assertion: “For so great is the strength of long-established observance that many people’s lives are erased sooner than their customs, as we experience with regard to the persecution of the Jews, the Saracens, and other obdurate heretics who assert as a law—which they prefer to their lives—an opinion which has become established by prolonged acceptance.”² Still, Muslims (and Jews) are defined as “obdurate heretics” – Cusanus was not free of the spirit of his time concerning “others.”

Two of Cusanus’ works are exceptional in terms of their contents: DPF (1453), and CA (1461). Both deal with Islam; the CA more extensively. The DPF is irenic in contents and spirit, while the CA is polemical. Generally speaking, Islam was not on Cusanus’ contemplative agenda. However, it was on his “here and now” agenda. It occupied his mind and his writing list following contemporary actual events, namely the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in May 1453 and the Ottoman expansion that followed. DPF and the CA were his intellectual responses to these cataclysmic occurrences; fundamentally in accordance with his superior, Pope Pius II.³

In his attempt to explain the fundamental contradiction between DPF and CA, Joshua Hollman relates these works to Cusanus’ principle of dialectical synthesis (coincidentia oppositorum) allegedly enabling “even the complicated connection of crusade and dialogue” – as if the time factor (some eight years elapsed between the publications of these works) is of no significance at all when attempting to solve such a problem. However, suh an attempt is utterly futile without referring to the time factor. Furthermore, Hollman himself, in his treatment of Cusanus’ notes on a copy of Robert of Ketton’s translation of the Qurʾan, admits that these “pastiche of references to peace fails to cover some of Cusanus’ more polemical points on Islam in the Cribratio Alkorani, it nonetheless behooves careful readers to place condemnations of Islam in the context of the belligerent times […].”⁴ No wonder Hollman fails to integrate the two works as oneness in any Cusan philosophical theory – the two were Cusanus’ intellectual responses, almost ad hoc responses, to eventual military and political occurrences or needs. However, Hollman is in good company. So far, Cusanus scholars have not explained the changes in Cusanus’ thinking about Islam and its relation to holy war (the abortive crusade of his time), if such changes occurred and such relation existed. The chronological order of events reflects the problem: in May 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks; in December 1453, Cusanus responded irenically and moderately (DPF); in May 1454, he was deliberating a crusade in the Diet of Regensburg; in 1459 onward he was the Pope’s lieutenant in setting a crusade in motion – until he died in 1464. During this last period, he released his polemical CA (1461). Unfortunately, no researcher has so far convincingly explained that by December 1453 Cusanus demonstrated irenicism and moderation toward Islam, and some five months later, he was active in planning a holy war against the very same Muslims.⁵

Unlike other medieval polemicists, Cusanus was very much a philosopher and theologian who was driven into dealing with Islam due to historical events in his time. To demonstrate this point, one may think of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536). He flourished shortly after Cusanus’ time and did not philosophize on Islam, except when the Ottoman Turks laid siege to Vienna in 1529, which was menacing the heart of Christendom. Only then Erasmus drew attention to Islam – quite superficially – and wrote his A Most Useful Discussion Concerning Proposals for War Against the Turks (Utilissima consultatio de bello Turcico inferendo, 1530).⁶

Cusanus responded to the crucial events of his time in a sophisticated manner, which concerns both DPF and the CA. My book deals with this sophistication. However, sophistication does not rule out employing harsh polemical writing, and Cusanus’ CA is a harsh polemic, as elaborated in the following pages. Indeed, Cusanus’ scrutiny of the Qur’an with a theological intention may be unprecedented in the Christian West, as one of Cusanus’ admirers declared.⁷ However, simultaneously it is a polemic sophistically written against Islam. Norman Daniel has already pointed out the very thing that Cusanus’ scholars tend to forget, i.e., that Cusanus was rhetorically following medieval polemical conventions, including attacks on Muhammad as a prophet (thus rejecting his prophethood) and pointing to contradictions in the Qur’an.⁸

According to the dictionary, an agenda is a particular program of action, often one not directly expressed.⁹ Since the subject of this work is scholarly writing subject to an agenda, I need to replace “action” with “scholarly writing.” In such cases, an agenda often fashions a narrative, a particular way of explaining or interpreting events, texts or historical protagonists. But, of course, a narrative based on biased writing, whether stemming from an agenda or not, is a problematic narrative, to say the least. The following cases demonstrate that.

A collection volume that has recently appeared pretends to shed new light on the development of the perception of the Other within the different philosophical, religious, and cultural traditions in the late Middle Ages and early modern era in Christian and Islamic thought. Inter alia, it boasts dealing with “the flourishing tradition of a constructed interreligious dialogue such as that between Christians and Jews.”¹⁰ In this volume, Walter Andreas Euler is the scholar who constructs “Dialog and toleration in Cusa.”¹¹ He does that simply by omitting from his analysis both the CA and the crusade that Cusanus was engaged in its preparation. In other words, in his piece, there is no reference whatsoever to the CA and the crusade. Thus, Cusanus comes out dialogical and tolerant. Such a construction provides a demonstration of my argument concerning scholars who tend to overlook Cusanus’ bellicose activity or his polemical CA, both of which do not fit their agenda, namely, fashioning the received image of Cusanus as a dove of peace and a champion of interreligious dialogue and tolerance.

Another significant volume dealing with Christian-Muslim theological relations appeared a few years ago, a collection based on a progressive agenda of interreligious dialogue and tolerance.¹² Pim Valkenberg, the Cusanus scholar whose paper seals the volume, describes his protagonist as “quite exceptional in the history of Christian–Muslim encounters,” and asserts that “Nicholas of Cusa’s decision to study the Qur’an with a theological intention is certainly unprecedented in the Christian West.”¹³ However, the very term “Christian–Muslim encounters” is misleading concerning Cusanus. Unlike the exceptional Francis of Assisi, Cusanus did not meet Muslims, nor were his texts written for Muslims. Moreover, at least one of his works, CA, is considered anti-Islamic by at least two experts in the field.¹⁴ Nevertheless, many Cusanus scholars use “interreligious dialogue” in referring to Cusanus, primarily in reference to his irenic DPF, yet some continue these terms into their discussions of his polemical CA.¹⁵