Of all European countries...

Of all European countries, it was perhaps Germany where the influence of Oriental teachings was greatest partly because the Romantic movement possessed a greater intellectual content there than elsewhere and also because, as already mentioned, something of the Boehmian heritage still survived in his native land.

To take one example, the translation into German of such masterpieces of Sufi poetry as the Rose-Garden of Divine Mysteries (Gulshan-i rāz) by Hammer-Purgstall had a profound effect upon notable German poets and created an avid interest in Oriental poetry and wisdom in a wide circle.

Rückert was himself a translator of Persian and Arabic poetry as well as a poet of great quality who was influenced in his own works by Persian poetic symbols and images.6 The most notable figure of this period in Germany who was touched seriously on both the artistic and the intellectual planes by Oriental traditions, particularly Islam, was Goethe.

He was intimately familiar with both the Quran and Islamic poetry, especially the works of Ḥāfiẓ, and even wrote a tragedy whose hero was the Prophet of Islam.7 Goethe's grand response to that perfect wedding between metaphysical truth and poetic beauty which is the Divan of Ḥāfiẓ is the West-östlicher Divan which is unique in…