Listen to the article
In his latest work, Victor Hugo and Islam, published by Erick Bonnier Editions in the “Encre d’Orient” collection, historian and diplomat Louis Blin explores and analyzes the little-known relationship of the great writer, poet, and playwright Victor Hugo with both Islam and the figure of the Prophet. At first glance, this seems unexpected from someone who “wanted to be Chateaubriand or nothing.” Blin unveils this mystery in his interview with This is Beirut.
Louis Blin is a writer with a Ph.D. in contemporary history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. He is a specialist in the Arab world and has led various diplomatic missions in different Arab capitals, including Cairo, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. He has authored several essays, including Alexandre Dumas: Tales of Arabia and The Arab World in Tintin’s Albums, both published by L’Harmattan, and Saudi Arabia: From Black Gold to the Red Sea by Eyrolles. Reading Victor Hugo and Islam first reveals the place of Islam in Hugo’s poetic work. In the latter part of his life, Hugo showed immense interest in spirituality and mysticism. This translated into the composition of two major poems about Islam in 1858-1859, which are central pieces of The Legend of the Ages. The positive portrayal of this religion in this new collection contrasts with the Islamophobia of the previous period. Written between 1855 and 1876, the 25,000 verses that make up The Legend of the Ages were published in three stages in 1859, 1877 and 1883. The first series, The Little Epics, includes three poems about Islam: The New Year of the Hegira, Mohammed, and The Cedar. Each poem is precisely arranged; the Islam cycle is third in the first series, following From Eve to Jesus and The Decline of Rome. What drove the fervent admirer of The Genius of Christianity to passionately delve into the Muslim religion? In what context did he cite the Quran and the Prophet a hundred times in his work? Why was he fascinated by the message of Islam? Did he convert to Islam at the end of his life, as some claim? Blin generously answers all of This is Beirut’s questions.
Regarding Victor Hugo, you say in your book, “Deeply religious, but impossible to confine to a given religion, he sought to overcome his contradictions not through dialectics or Cartesianism, but through mystical poetry. This explains why he equated his spiritualist sessions with revelations, akin to those of Mohammed” (page 27). Did he consider himself a prophet?
Like Goethe, Hugo was impressed by Muslim mysticism. His era attributed prophetic gifts to great poets. Characterized by a sense of self-importance and egocentrism, he believed he had a message to deliver to humanity. He therefore saw himself as a prophet for his time and society, not to be confused with the universal meaning of the word. For Hugo, among the prophets, Mohammed had delivered a message closest to what he felt.
You discussed Hugo’s inclination towards Muslim mysticism. However, Christian mysticism also exists. How do you position his choice?
He had an understandable complex against Christianity, leading him to seek wisdom from the East, a theme present among Romantic poets. Therefore, whenever references to Islam and the Prophet Mohammed appeared, they were indeed found in his poetic works. This indicates that he perceived this religion as poetic. For him, inspiration aligned with mysticism, making mystical poetry the best path to God. I inferred this from my analysis of his poem The Cedar. For Hugo, only through the paths of mysticism can one approach God. In his view, this role is bestowed upon the poet-creator.
From 1853, all of Hugo’s poetry serves as a hymn to the divine, “a dream of a religion free from religions” and, more specifically, from a distorted Christianity as portrayed by the clergy. This clergy did not accept the abstract and infinite God of the writer, whereas such a concept of God exists in Islam. Could you clarify this conception?
The Christianity he knew was the traditional nineteenth-century Catholicism, which was allied with unjust power. Initially, he rejected all religions; he wanted “a faith without laws,” believing that man did not need laws to approach God. Subsequently, “he mellowed,” acknowledging that man cannot do without religion. There is naturally a gap between principles and reality.
He was a pantheist. Did he believe in some form of religious syncretism?
He was a pantheist who believed in divine transcendence. This brought him closer to the Islamic understanding of the divine, particularly among Sufis. In Islam, everything is believed to possess a soul, including trees for Hugo, which contradicted the Catholicism of his time. One could say he had a syncretist ideal. He was more fascinated by the personality of the prophet and the text of the Quran than by the Muslim dogma, which he knew little about. He did not advocate for syncretism. However, he had a syncretist approach to religions.
For him, all religions are equal and subject to distortion by theologians. Thus, while he mentions all religions and does not diminish their significance, he firmly believed in the essential connection between the believer and God. This leads you to say somewhere in the book that he might have been influenced by the Sunni confession, which admits no mediator between man and God.
This sense of distrust essentially stems from a lack of faith in religious men, who interpret the Holy Scriptures to distorte them: the thinker never protests against a religion itself but against the excess of human alloy that falsifies it. Where there is too much of man, there is not enough of God. Yes, indeed, like with the Sunnis. Theoretically, for him, there is no intermediary between God and man.
But you say later that he found a messianic dimension in the Muslim religion. This recalls the Shiites who believe in the return of the Mahdi, without delving into Muslim confessional divergences.
He was poorly acquainted with the two Muslim sects. I do not know if he was aware of the existence of Shiites. He did not go beyond the message of the Quran and the person of Mohammed. He probably had discussions mainly with Lamartine on the details, but that did not interest him. For him, sects constituted human perversions of a message that is essentially the same across all religions. He was, for example, very attracted to Buddhism.
What distinguishes Lamartine’s vision of the Muslim religion from that of Hugo?
I delve into this in my next book, which is about Lamartine and the Muslim religion and will be published in a few months. In short, Lamartine knew Islam and Muslims, particularly during his travels in Lebanon and Palestine. This exposed him to people admirable for their conviviality. When he wrote the biography of the Prophet, The Life of Mohammed, he portrayed him as a deeply human figure with qualities and flaws. In contrast, Hugo, to my knowledge, never mingled with Muslims. It was Lamartine who introduced him to this realm. Hugo was fascinated by the message of Islam.
What particularly fascinated him in the Muslim message that he did not find in the Christian message?
First, the divine mercy in Islam, whereas in several poems, he castigates the punitive and vindictive God of the Judeo-Christian legacy, who threatens everyone with hell. Again, he greatly respected Christianity but not what men had made of it. Secondly, he saw the Quran as a vast poem. Since the Quran is the word of God and God speaks in poetry, this could only deeply touch the great poet Hugo, unlike the Gospels. What seduced him, in the poem The Year IX of the Hegira, was that Mohammed had been ostracized, like him, by his original environment. Obviously, Hugo’s egocentrism is evident. One must not forget that Cocteau said, “Victor Hugo, that madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.”
What faith did Hugo adhere to after having read all the sacred books and shown a particular interest in one of their aspects?
“A faith without laws” that combines transcendence and immanence. The Trinity bothered him, as it was antithetical to his conception of God. This was one of the things that distanced him from Christianity. His interest in different religions was not without contradictions. He did not always master what he was doing or saying. In The Legend of the Ages, composed in 1825, the poet denounces Muslim barbarism against Christians, who then seek retribution, mirroring the actions of the Crusaders in their time: “The priests who prayed have perished by the sword, Casting their holy book as a vain shield. The little children, crushed under the stones, have lived; their blood still nourishes the iron. Ah! It is a victory! – Yes, defeated Africa, The true God under its feet trampling the false prophet.” There are poems against Islam, while just before, there were extraordinary poems about Islam. He was full of paradoxes. His vision of Islam and Muslims was not unequivocal or unilateral. One must not forget that the Romantic movement in which he was involved was viscerally tormented. Hugo was the embodiment of this torment. What led him to lean towards Islam was the tragic death of his daughter. He could not understand how the God of Love could allow evil. His religious philosophy was to reconcile good and evil. And he understood that without evil, there would be no good. God is everywhere, but we see Him nowhere.
However, he shows his fascination for the Prophet, and his soul tormented by evil finds serenity through prayer, as when he says in The Orientals, “Prophet! If your hand saves me from these impure demons of the evenings, I will prostrate my bald forehead, before your sacred censers!” But, the devil exists among Christians and is not an abstract symbol of evil. Among Christians, evil is conjured in the name of the Cross, while among Muslims in the name of God.
Hugo wrote poems about the devil. But here, in this case, he speaks of the Djinn, these demonic creatures akin to fallen angels. In today’s Europe, Djinn are considered something folkloric. For Hugo, they were a tangible reality, against which one must be guarded. Indeed, he did not note in his writings or literary production the intersections between Eastern Christians and Muslims. For him, Christianity was Western Catholicism.