Goethe's Message to The 21st century: "Islam is the Rescue for Humanity" "Stupid that everyone in his case Is praising his particular opinion! If Islam means submission to God, We all live and die in Islam." Johann Wolfgang Goethe

This essay collection embarks on a historical voyage into the idea of the West, while contextualising its relevance to the contemporary discourses on cultural difference. Although the idea of the West predates both colonial and Orientalist projects, it has been radically reshaped by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks. In the wake of these developments, this collection attends to the nebulous paradigm shifts that account for a reconfiguration of the conventional coordinates of the West (West vs. Rest, Orient vs. Occident). The essays featured in this collection draw upon a wide range of theories from a comparative perspective. Taken together, the collection covers a vast terrain of textual and non-textual sources, including novels, political and poetological programs, video-clips and hypertexts, while exploring the formal-aesthetic representations of the West from interdisciplinary perspectives as diverse as German classicism, (post-)modern Britain, Canada, China, Ireland and the postcolonial world.

The thirteenth volume based on the Giorgio Levi Della Vida conference reassesses the role of the Iranian peoples in the development and consolidation of Islamic civilization. In his key essay, Ehsan Yarshater casts fresh light on that role challenging the view that, after reaching a climax in Baghdad in the ninth century, Islamic culture entered a period of decline. In fact, he maintains, a new and remarkably creative phase began in Khurasan and Transoxania, symbolized by the adoption of Persian as a medium of literary expression. By the mid-sixteenth century, Persian literary and intellectual paradigms had spread from Anatolia to India, encompassing the greater part of the Islamic world. Yarshater also challenges traditional assumptions about the 'Islamization of Persia'. In the essays which follow, six distinguished scholars consider the historical, cultural, and religious aspects of the Persian presence in the Islamic world.

One of the most prolific and versatile writers of all time, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) made an impact that continues to extend far beyond his native Germany. The variety of human questions and experiences treated in his works is arguably without parallel. He also had (for his era) an unusually long life, which spanned the French Revolution, the end of the Holy Roman Empire and subsequent reshaping of the German-speaking world, and the rapid onset of industrial modernity. In thirty-seven short essays, leading international scholars explore Goethe's life and times, his literary works, his activity in the realms of art, philosophy and natural science, his reception of – and indeed by – other cultures, and, finally, the resonance of his work in our time. The aim of this collection is to open as many windows as possible onto Goethe's wide-ranging intellectual and practical activity, and to give a sense of his ongoing importance.

This book reflects upon the political philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal, a towering intellectual figure in South Asian history, revered by many for his poetry and his thought. He lived in India in the twilight years of the British Empire and, apart from a short but significant period studying in the West, he remained in Punjab until his death in 1938. The book studies Iqbal's critique of nationalist ideology and his attempts to chart a path for the development of the 'nation' by liberating it from the centralizing and homogenizing tendencies of the modern state structure. Iqbal frequently clashed with his contemporaries over his view of nationalism as 'the greatest enemy of Islam'. He constructed his own particular interpretation of Islam - forged through an interaction with Muslim thinkers and Western intellectual traditions - that was ahead of its time, and since his death both modernists and Islamists have continued to champion his legacy.

For most Urdu speakers in the Indian subcontinent, Iqbal has long been one of the most loved and admired poets. Much has been written about his poetry and philosophy . This book stays away from his politics. Iqbal first received recognition in the West in 1920 when his translation of Asrar-e-Khudi by R. A. Nicholson (The Secrets of the Self) first appeared. Most of the recurring criticism was on his concept of Khudi which Iqbal addressed then and later, explaining the basic nature of influence of much older Sufi philosophy on khudi versus Nietzsches bermensch. Several authors, both from the subcontinent and the West, have translated Iqbals poetry before, and in this book have highlighted the positive outcomes over some controversies and confusion. This book presents translation of well over 150 of Iqbals Urdu poems from Kuliyaath-e-Iqbal and about 30 or so from Payam-e-Mashriq (PM), in Persian. Iqbal offered PM as a response to Goethes West-stlicher Diwan, in German. Goethe had long been interested in Eastern (rather, Middle Eastern) culture and his Divan was inspired by the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafez/Hafiz/Hafis, which also involved some literary traverse through a different religio-philosophical territory. Translation from Urdu or Persian to English across a vast cultural, prosodic, and linguistic gulf presents enormous problems. Section On Translation discusses some of these issues. Although Iqbals philosophy has been covered from by many others before, some of Iqbals own explanation of Khudi in a larger historical Sufi context are discussed here. In addition, Iqbals own contribution to what Goethe called Weltliteratur (or world literature), is recognized in PM (mostly) and elsewhere in his Urdu Kuliyaath. Iqbal not just brought various Western themes and figures to Urdu literature, but presented them, with his own comments and interpretation, to a readership that may have been largely unfamiliar with these Western themes. The Appendices include important recognition Iqbal received in Germany.