Ameen Rihani's Juhan: An Arab Christian Author between Islam and Nietzsche

Abstract

'Who can reconcile the words of Muhammad […] with those of Zarathustra?' wondered Ameen Rihani (Amīn Fāris al-Rīḥānī, 1876-1940) in his notebook on travel in Bombay, India, in September 1922 (cf. A. F. Rihani, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in Id., The White Way and the Desert, Washington, D.C., Platform International, 2002, p. 123). The strong interest of the Lebanese Maronite Christian author in - and, according to some scholars, even his inclination towards - Islam is evident in several of his writings and public speeches. He was also an attentive reader of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), whose philosophy exerted a deep influence on him. All this is well-known, but is it possible to reconcile Islam and the German philosopher's thought? Could Rihani achieve such a difficult aim? His references to Islamic religion and Nietzsche's philosophy, already numerous especially in his masterpiece The Book of Khalid, would seem to find their perfect synthesis in the novelette Juhan.