Nietzsche's peace with Islam: My enemy's enemy is my friend

This article examines the many references in Nietzsche's work to Islam and Islamic cultures, and situates them in the general context of his thought. Nietzsche's praise of Islam as a 'ja-sagende semitische Religion', his admiration for Hafiz, his appreciation of Muslim Spain, his belief in the essentially life-affirming character of Islam, not only spring from a desire to find a palatable Other to Judaeo-Christian-European modernity, but also comment on how little Nietzsche actually knew about the cultures he so readily appropriated in his assault on European modernity. Nietzsche's negative comments on Islam--his generic dismissal of Islam with other religions as manipulative thought systems, his depiction of Mohammed as a cunning imposter, reveal to Nietzsche not only the same ambiguities towards Islam as we find towards Christ or Judaism, but also a willingness to use the multiple identities of Islam for different purposes at different moments in his work.