Affirmative Orientalism: August Bebel, Islam, and World History

In 1884, during the period of the Socialist Laws, August Bebel took the time to publish a historical work entitled Die mohamedanisch- arabische Kulturperiode. In it Bebel positioned Islam and the early caliphates as the unacknowledged link between Greco-Roman traditions of knowledge and the blossoming of European culture that, he argued, had occurred since the Renaissance. He also used the book as an opportunity to reject claims that Christianity had played this key role in world historical progress. Through an examination and contextualization of Bebel's writings on Islam, this article shows how he viewed the role of different religious traditions within world history and how his views intersected with contemporary questions regarding the relationship between religion and socialism. The article also examines how Bebel's work fits within a longer tradition of socialist solidarity with the Ottoman Empire.