Did Luther have an opinion about Islam and the Quran prior to the intensification of the Turkish military assault and the Siege of Vienna in 1529?    

A sample of Martin Luther’s early views about the Quran, Mohammad and Islam before the Siege of Vienna (1529)

 

er to understand Luther’s early inclination about the Quran and its adherents prior to the Siege of Vienna in 1929, the following are quotes and writings of Martin Luther, that the authors have collected from different sources. These quotes reveal his early outlook with respect to the Quran and its adherents before the intensification of the Turkish attacks. It is important to note that Luther did not start his adverse writing campaign against Islam until 1529 when he was “…impelled to publish his own Türkenbüchlein in 1529 when the armies of the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent besieged Vienna.”  At that same time the Ottoman threat reached Germany when their raiders managed to cross the Alps into Bavaria and Bohemia, “sending Germany into a panic”. (source Francisco, Adam. Martin Luther and Islam: A study in Sixteenth-Century Polemics and Apologetic. Boston: Brill, 2007, page 159):

A. Luther understood that there is truth in the Quran:

Luther suggested that the passages he thought “…were open to Christian interpretation were implanted by the Holy Spirit.”[1] This rather unusual idea could be the reason why Luther believed that if Muslims did truly follow the Quran they would eventually come to the truth and be saved.[2]

(Source: Francisco, Adam. Martin Luther and Islam: A study in Sixteenth-Century Polemics and Apologetic. Boston: Brill, 2007, pages: 235 and 204).

B. Luther spoke admirably about some of the moral values contained in the Quran:

“They do not touch wine, do not drink or overeat as we do, do not dress themselves in a frivolous and loud fashion, do not build as magnificently, do not show off, do not swear or curse, display excellent obedience, discipline, and honor to their emperor and Lord.”

(Clark, Harry. The Publication of the Koran in Latin: A Reformation Dilemma. Sixteenth Century Journal XV 1. 1984. p. 5).

C. Luther was willing to compare the role of Muslim clerics to that of Christian clergy. He noted that the Muslim clerics are far superior:

“The first thing that Luther thought one should be aware of was the devotion displayed by Muslim clerics. Compared to the clergy of the papacy and even the most austere monastic orders they were by far superior in devotion and spiritual demeanor. ‘Their priests or clerics lead such a serious, courageous, strong life that one might take them for angels and not men. All our clerics and monks in the papacy are a joke compared to them’.”

(Francisco, Adam. Martin Luther and Islam: A study in Sixteenth-Century Polemics and Apologetic. Boston: Brill, 2007, page 159)

D. Luther believed that exposure to adherents of the Quran could be life-changing for Christians: he was worried about how Islam may impact those who are Christians noting that:

“Not even true Christians, nor Christ himself, not the apostles or prophets ever exhibited so great a display of religiosity. This is the reason why many persons so easily depart from faith in Christ for Muhammadanism and adhere to it so tenaciously. I sincerely believe that no papist, monk, cleric or their equal in faith would be able to remain in their faith if they should spend three days among the Turks.”

(Sarah Henrich and James Boyce (Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota). Martin Luther—Translations of Two Prefaces on Islam: Preface to the Libellus de ritu et moribus Turcorum (1530), and Preface to Bibliander’s Edition of the Qur’an. Word & World Volume XVI, Number 2 Spring 1996, p.259).

E. Luther spoke of the rational simplicity of the Islamic faith and compared it to the more complicated Christian dogmas stating:

Luther “…also remarked that the underlying theology of Islam appealed to men and women since its doctrine, unlike the Christian teaching on the incarnation and Trinity, presented no offence to reason.”^[3]

(Francisco, Adam. Martin Luther and Islam: A study in Sixteenth-Century Polemics and Apologetic. Boston: Brill, 2007, page 89).

F. Luther acknowledged the role of the Quran in teaching regular daily prayer in the minds of the Muslims:

Luther, in his early remarks about Islam, was willing to directly express his positive opinion about the Muslim prayers, stating that “Turkish Muslim religious culture that might make Christianity appear inferior to Islam was, its humbling devotion to prayer.”^[4] He also admitted that the source of such important daily commitment to God was the Quran, affirming that: “The Turks followed the Koran in disciplining themselves to pray regularly and that their outward conduct had inspired Christians to embrace Islam.”

(Clark, Harry. The Publication of the Koran in Latin: A Reformation Dilemma. Sixteenth Century Journal XV 1. 1984. Page: 5).

G. That Luther spoke of the need to spread the traditions of Muhammadanism, but later changes his mind:

Before the Turkish siege of Vienna “Luther continued to urge that in whatever way possible the religion and customs of ‘Muhammadanism’ be published and spread abroad.” Later, Luther would revise his position regarding Mohammed by stating that: “The abominable Muhammed almost became my prophet!”

((Sarah Henrich and James Boyce (Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota). Martin Luther—Translations of Two Prefaces on Islam: Preface to the Libellus de ritu et moribus Turcorum (1530), and Preface to Bibliander’s Edition of the Qur’an. Word & World Volume XVI, Number 2 Spring 1996, p. 255)).

Based on the above accounts that transpired during the 1520s, we can certainly underscore the nature of Luther’s impressions of the Quran and his earlier more positive state of mind before the siege of Vienna in 1529.[5]

It is also during that period before the siege of Vienna “Between 1520 to 1525, he published a series of influential books on faith, the sacraments, and the church, attacking papal authority and the sacramental system as symptoms of ‘the pagan captivity of the church.’”[6] 

Furthermore, in 1525 Luther totally rejected the concept of celibacy (monastic life), and he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun.[7] This rejection of a major Catholic dogma that stood unchanged for hundreds of years is in line with what the Quran teaches in Chapter, The Iron 57:27: “Then we caused our apostles to follow in their footsteps; and we caused Jesus the son of Mary to follow them; and we gave him the Evangel (the Gospel), and we put into the hearts of those who followed him kindness and compassion: but as to the monastic life, they invented it themselves.”[8] This verse in the Quran, revealed more than 800 years prior to Luther’s writings, elucidates that celibacy was actually an innovation in Christian spiritual practice and that God had not ordained for believers in the Gospel, which is a conclusion later adopted by Luther. (We will further investigate other similarities in part the second part of the book).

 

– Considering the impact of Luther’s early views of the Quran on his Reformation ideas: Establishing a comparison scheme to compare the details of Luther’s reformation ideas to concepts explained in the Quran (609 to 632 CE)

In answering the first question,[9] the findings of the authors demonstrated that Luther continued to have a positive articulated view of the believers of the Quran until the 1529 Ottoman onslaught against Vienna. He was then was impelled to start writing against the “Turks” and their perceived version of Islam.[10] We will proceed by answering the two remaining questions that we posed in the beginning:

 

1. How Luther understood the concept of God in the Quran? and how it may have has impacted his perspective of the divine away from his views when he was a Catholic priest?
2. With respect to other revolutionary Reformation ideas advanced by Luther, such as celibacy, statues in areas of worship, the position of Mary, the need for regular daily prayers, the importance of scripture, salvation, usuary and the priesthood of the believers: we will compare it to how the Quran spoke of these issues. We will also see how Luther positioned himself in comparison to how the Quran spoke of Mohammed. This is justified by the fact that Luther read the Quran and wrote the introduction of the second Latin translation of the Quran (along with Philip Melanchthon), bearing in mind that the Quran appeared at least 800 years before Luther’s time.

Finding answers to the above questions:

It is important to note that, with few exceptions, the focal point of religion, in general, usually begins from its very perspective on who is God.^[11] Therefore, it would be most beneficial that we comprehend Luther’s understanding of the concept of God in the Quran and how it may differ from his previously held fundamental Catholic views, since he had previously been a devout Roman Catholic priest.^[12]

When we evaluate Luther’s own explanation of God in the Quran to his followers and how it may have impacted his opinion of the concept of God in the Reformation, we have to take into consideration the total lack of religious freedoms and the shifting contextual political realities;[13] Luther lived while the Muslim Turkish attack on Europe was escalating. Accordingly, the writers decided to divide Luther’s expressive language about who is God in the Quran into two periods: 

First: the period prior to the Ottoman Siege of Vienna (1529):   

During this time, we note that Luther emphasized the Quran’s untainted monotheism. In this respect, “he was completely aware of Islam’s monotheism and in several places, he referred to the Turks’ belief in One God.”^[14]

According to Adam Francisco, Luther further wrote that “a Muslim ‘names and has in mind the true God who created heaven and earth.’ He even informed his readers that the Muslims call God Alla.^[15] ‘In the Arabic language Allah means God’, he wrote and speculated that, etymologically, it was ‘a corruption from the Hebrew Eloha.’”^[16] 

With respect to the issue of the trinitarian concept of God,^[17] a notion unacceptable in the Quran,^[18] and in view of the Reformation’s new perspective, we read in the third volume of The Penguin History of the Church: The Reformation, by Owen Chadwick, that “it was inevitable that the doctrine of Trinity should be re-examined and criticized since there was no direct biblical reference to the concept.”^[19] In this respect, it has been noted by Steven Paulson, professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, that “Lutherans, at the beginning at least, were the most uncompromising monotheists around…”.^[20]

Here it is important to note that, in the early reformation years before the Siege of Vienna, Luther himself was willing to declare that “words like Trinity and of one substance were not necessary to Christian language.”^[21] At that period Luther also expressed sympathy to the Islamic perspective of God; he observed “that the underlying theology of Islam appealed to men and women since its doctrine, unlike the Christian teaching on the incarnation and Trinity, presented no offence to reason.”^[22]

 The above quotes mean that Luther, at this stage, had a positive view of the Qur’anic perspective of God and was able to gain important insights in ways that differed greatly from the Roman Catholic views.[23]

From a contemporary Christian perspective of the nature of God in the Quran the renowned evangelical professor of religion Houston Smith notes that when we come to the “Koranic depiction of God’s nature, the first thing that strikes us is his awe-inspiring power. Unlimited power inspires fear, and it is fair to say that Muslims fear Allah. Theirs is not, however, a cringing fear in the face of capricious tyrant. It is, rather (they argue) the only realistic emotion when people face to the magnitude of the consequence that follow from being on the right or wrong side of an uncompromising moral universe.” Smith continues his explanation of the nature of God in Islam indicating that “…the holy dread that Allah inspires is more than out-weighed by His love for His creature. Allah’s compassion and mercy are cited 192 times in the Koran against 17 references to his wrath and vengeance. He who is the Lord of the worlds is also the Deliverer from affliction, the friend of the bereaved, and the Consoler whose love is more tender than that of the mother-bird for her young.[24]

All in all, the above is especially noteworthy to our research, since one of the main contributions of Luther to the Reformation, according to a number of writers, is that he had redirected Christian theology about the divine away from traditional Catholic intermediaries between God and man. The earlier Catholic perspective that had once clouded the Christian faith—confusing the singularity of God’s nature about which Jesus spoke in the first commandment. (“Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one’” [Mark 12:29]).^[25]

Here we note that the above major points of departure in Luther’s understanding of the concept of God, has been also delineated by professor Diarmaid MacCulloch of Oxford University in a fashion very similar to how the Quran explained the divine. He wrote that Luther saw God in a different light, stating that for Luther, “God was all-powerful, and therefore He was the Lord of Death as well as life: nothing that human beings could do, nothing of the intricate structure of intercessory prayer for the dead maintained by the late medieval Western Church, could alter His decision, born of His own mercy and judgement. That is the thought that seized the German friar Martin Luther…”.^[26]

From a more Lutheran perspective, Luther’s theological contribution to the concept of God has been summarized by Steven Paulson in his book Lutheran Theology. Paulson tells us the nature of God, according to Lutheran logic, is that “Almighty means almighty, and is the proper attribute of God’s nature without which God is not God and one must go look for another.”^[27]

Paulson further explains what we may call purification of our perception of God by Luther from all sorts of human reductionism stating that: “This (and all things) happen by divine necessity. There is no free will, no choice, no decision, no acknowledgement, acceptance or any other verb you could try to give the human in relation to the Creator.”^[28]

This major shift of how to think of God by Luther, was also outlined by the prominent, contemporary writer Eric Metaxas who emphasized Luther’s contribution into a new reconceptualization of God away from the Catholic views. Eric Metaxas titled his book Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (New York: Viking, 2017).^[29]

In simple terms, during this period, Luther’s expressions about who is God differs greatly from his previously held Catholic views with so many intermediaries, and is identical to the singular independent One God that is spoken of throughout the Quran.

 

The following verses from the Quran are to show how the concept of the Divine is expressed in the Quran as an independent, sovereign and grand Creator of all:

1. “For He is God, beside whom there is no deity. Unto Him all praise is due, at the beginning and at the end [of time]; and with Him rests all judgments; and unto Him shall you all be brought back” (The Quran 28:69, M. Asad).
2. “Blessed is He who sent down the criterion (discerning book) to His servant, that it may be a warner to the world. He to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth: no son has He begotten, nor has He a partner in His dominion: it is He who created all things, and ordered them in due proportions. Yet have they taken, besides him, deities that can create nothing but are themselves created; that have no control of hurt or good benefit to themselves; nor can they control death nor life nor resurrection” (The Quran, 25:1-3, Yusuf Ali translation).
3. “Say: Allah knows best how long they stayed: with Him is (the knowledge of) the secrets of the heavens and the earth: how clearly, He sees, how finely He hears (everything)! They have no protector other than Him; nor does He share His command with anyone” (the Quran 18: 26, Yusuf Ali).

 

Second: the period after 1529 as the Turks attack on Vienna was underway and the Ottoman threat to Germany became more imminent

It was at this politically critical state of affairs in German history, when Europe was under attack by the Muslim Ottman Empire, that Luther had to face the reality of the Turks’ aggressive military campaign. He himself became ill when he heard about the Siege of Vienna.^[30] It was only at this time that Luther had to start writing against the Turks and their religion. According to the research of F. Volker Greifenhagen of Luther College, “Martin Luther was impelled to publish his own Türkenbüchlein in 1529 when the armies of the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent besieged Vienna.”^[31] In 1530 he also gave his Military sermon against the Turks.^[32] Contrary to his previous opinions, Luther began making critical arguments using harsh judgmental words against Islam. He accused the Turks of “lies, murder and disregard for marriage”, which he expounded as attacks on the God-ordained spiritual, temporal and domestic estates.^[33]

At this phase Luther’s attacks on Islam sought to prepare the German people to defend themselves rather than to have a logical explanation of the Quran or Islam. For such an opinion Adam S. Francisco observed that Luther’s analysis “…although highly polemical and from a contemporary standpoint idiosyncratic, if not propagandistic, served to defend the Christian faith…”^[34] It simply means that Luther had to relinquish any previous positive feelings towards the religion of the Quran.

On a more personal level, Luther had to explain the drastic shift in his views (reviewed in the first part) so “he informed his friend Philip Melanchthon in 1530 that he began to grow agitated with the Turks and Muhammed, and propelled him to begin formulating arguments against the religion of the Turks.”^[35]

 

Doctrine of the Trinity and Luther’s change of mind:

With respect to the issue of the rejection of Trinity in the Quran, Luther, in the beginning of the Reformation took the same position of the Quran when he clearly stated that “…that the underlying theology of Islam appealed to men and women since its doctrine, unlike the Christian teaching on the incarnation and Trinity, presented no offence to reason.”^[36]

Following the Siege of Vienna, Luther drastically shifted his position in defense of Trinity, he “… boasted that it is “tantamount to idolatry. He alleged that Muslims ‘invent a god such as they wish to have, not as God has revealed Himself’. Here Luther explained that, the allegation of shirk (to have partners with God), prompted by the doctrine of tawhid in Islam (the doctrine of strict monotheism of One God), was a false allegation when directed at Christians. Luther defended this position stating that “although the Quran says: ‘You should not take three Gods for there is one God’ this does not counter us and proves nothing. For we say ourselves that there is only one God, in addition, he is also singular and indivisible, nothing could be more singular.”^[37]

Again, what we should be emphasizing here is that the political nature of his argument was evident by the fact that it only came after the Siege of Vienna and in view of the mounting pressure by Luther’s supporters that he can no longer remain silent.

It was only after this politically delicate juncture of German Turkish conflict that Luther wrote all his five successive works, published after 1530. In these writings Luther provided a host of arguments for Christians to be used in arguing against Islamic Unitarianism.

Yet, we have to note here that even at this politically critical juncture, while Vienna was being besieged by the Ottomans, the nature of Luther’s approach to Islam shows that he was resistant to making the response based on religious grounds. He reasoned that it should be a response based on self-defense and not a religious crusade.[38]

Based on the above, a plausible conclusion could be drawn: that the change of Luther’s concept of God into an independent power beyond any human intervention was due to his exposure to the Quran and its clear-cut sovereign presentation of the Suprem One God. At a later stage Luther only modified his opinion with respect to Trinity moving back to the Catholic view.  

 

In the following we will deal with other revolutionary Reformation ideas advanced by Luther, including celibacy, statues in areas of worship, the position of Mary, the need for regular daily prayers, the importance of scripture, salvation, usuary and the priesthood of the believers: we will compare it to how the Quran spoke of these issues. We will also see how Luther positioned himself in comparison to how the Quran spoke of Mohammed. This is justified by the fact that Luther read the Quran and wrote the introduction of the second Latin translation of the Quran (along with Philip Melanchthon), bearing in mind that the Quran appeared at least 800 years before Luther’s time.

 

 ————————————

[1] Ibid., Francisco, 2007. Page 235 and page 201.

[2] Ibid., Francisco, 2007. Page 204

[3] Ibid, Francisco, 2007, p. 89.

[4] Ibid, Francisco 2007, 160

[5] In 1530 Luther was nearly forced by his friends to write against the Quran and its adherents.

*See: F. Volker Greifenhagen “https://www.luthercollege.edu/university/academics/impetus/winterspring-2017/

[6] Ibid., Chidester, 2000, page 317.

[7] John Thornton and S. B. Varenne (editors). Faith and Freedom: An invitation to the Writing of Martin Luther. New York: Vintage Books. 2002, p. 245

[8] Quran translation by John Medows Rodwell

[9] Did Luther have an opinion about Islam and the Quran prior to the intensification of the Turkish military assault and the Siege of Vienna in 1529?

[10] Greifenhagen, F. Volker. Why did Luther want the Qur’an to be published? 2017.  https://www.luthercollege.edu/university/academics/impetus/winterspring-2017/ why-did-luther-want-the-quran-to-be-published

[11] For such a position see: Paulson, Steven. Lutheran Theology. London: Bloomsbury. 2011. He emphasized that: “Theology always begins with God, unlike philosophy or any other sciences that order thoughts.” page 18.

[12] Luther was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1507. He remained as a Catholic priest for more than 10 years after ordination.

[13] For the most recent book about the contextual realities at the time of Luther see the book edited by David Whiteford:  Martin Luther in Context. Cambridge Uni. Press, 2018.

[14] Ibid, Francisco 2007, page 120.

[15] See Ibid, Francisco2007, page 120. (The word Allah is used as the name of the One God for Jews, Christians and Muslims of the Middle where all the three religions originally appeared).

[16] Ibid, Francisco, page 120.

[17] From the Catholic perspective “The trinity is One. The Church does not believe in three gods, but one God in three persons. These persons do not share one divinity- each of them is God, completely and utterly.” Ibid., Keeler 2003, page 65. However, Trinity became a Christian dogma that cannot be questioned in the Constantinople council in 381 where the Holy Spirit became the third person in the God head . More explanation were made to the creed later on but it remind a mystery.

[18] The emphasize on strict monotheism in Islam can be found across the Quran. A short summation can be found in sura no. 112 in which God is defined as: “Say he is God, the Uni One, the absolute who is thought by all. He neither begets nor was begotten, and there are nothing  equal to Him.” 

[19] Chadwick, Owen. Penguin History of the Church: The Reformation (3). Middlesex: Penguin Books. 1990, page 197

[20] See Ibid, Paulson, 2011. Page19

[21] Chadwick, Owen. Penguin History of the Church: The Reformation (3). Middlesex: Penguin Books. 1990, page 41

[22] Ibid, Francisco, 2007, page 89 (this statement by Luther was quoted earlier).

[23] In this regard we have to note the influence of the Romans in the first three councils (Council of Nicaea in 325, the Council of Constantinople in 381, and the Council of Ephesus in 431 in which Mary was elevated to be the Mother of God)

[24] Ibid, Smith, Page 157.

[25] For similar views in how Luther brought a new perspective to the Christian concept of God see Ibid,  Paulson, 2011. Page 20; Ibid., MacCulloch, 2016. Page 3.

[26] Ibid., MacCulloch, 2016, page 3.

[27] Ibid., Paulson, 2011. Page 20

[28] Ibid., Paulson, 2011, page 20

[29] Metaxas, Eric. Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World. New York: Viking. 2017. The entire book is about how Luther brought a new grand perspective of God away from Aristotle philosophy

[30] “Given the severity of the Turkish threat, Luther reported that the news of the siege of Vienna made him physically ill.” See: Miller, George. From Crusades to Homeland Defense. The article was originally published in Christian History Issue #74 in 2002. See: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/from-crusades-to-homeland-defense. P. 2.

[31] Greifenhagen, F. Volker. Why did Luther want the Qur’an to be published? 2017.  https://www.luthercollege.edu/university/academics/impetus/winterspring-2017/ why-did-luther-want-the-quran-to-be-published

[32] Ibid,  Miller, 2001. P. 2

[33] See Ibid, Francisco, 2007, page 147

[34] See Ibid, Francisco, 2007, page 149

[35] See Ibid, Francisco, 2007, page 128.

[36] Ibid, Francisco, 2007, p. 89.

[37] See Ibid, Francisco, 2007, page 121-122.

[38] Ibid., Hendrix, 2010, p. 27.