فيكتور هوغو والإسلام

Blanc, who published a summary of his research in the book “Victor Hugo and Islam,” does not hide that his goal in writing the book was to stand against the wave of fear of Islam “Islamophobia” that spread in Europe, and because this interest in Islam represents the importance of Hugo’s great position in French and international culture. Blanc talks about his book and points out that Hugo was a follower of Islamic culture and admired it, and he sees this as evidence of Islamic influences on human culture, and that there is no truth to the saying that “Islam is outside our culture,” as is promoted in the West. Because of these allegations, Blanc believes that his book did not receive enough attention and was only read by those interested in the Middle East and the history of Islam. Erick Bonnier published the book after 67 French publishing houses rejected his project. Blanc confirms that Hugo was a "racist" against Islam in his youth, but at the age of fifty-six, he began writing his epic, "The Legend of the Ages", shortly after a crisis he experienced following the loss of his daughter, and going through a spiritual period from 1853 to 1856. He wrote his poem "The Ninth Year of the Hijra", whose subject was the biography of the Prophet Muhammad. It dealt with many aspects of his life until his death with an Islamic reference, and it is a poem that some Muslims consider to be evidence of Islam. Hugo's conversion to Islam, which Blanc denies, considering that the French writer's relationship with religion was mystical. While he did not agree with Catholicism because of its alliances with political authority, he was inclined towards the spiritual aspects, and he took the Prophet Muhammad as a model for him, and his poem about him falls within the framework of his admiration for the Islamic religion, like the poem “The Cedre”, whose pronunciation in French is close to “Sidrat al-Muntaha” mentioned in the Qur’an.