Andrew Higgins says, Blame It on Voltaire, as Muslims demand that the French cancel a production of Voltaire’s 1741 Play, “Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet”:
“Fanaticism,” the play that stirred the ruckus in Saint-Genis-Pouilly, portrays Muhammad as a ruthless tyrant bent on conquest. Its main theme is the use of religion to promote and mask political ambition.For Voltaire’s Muslim critics, the play reveals a centuries-old Western distortion of Islam. For his fans, it represents a manifesto for liberty and reason and should be read not so much as an attack on Islam but as a coded assault on the religious dogmas that have stained European history with bloody conflict.
When Voltaire wrote the play in 1741, Roman Catholic clergymen denounced it as a thinly veiled anti-Christian tract. Their protests forced the cancellation of a staging in Paris after three performances — and hardened Voltaire’s distaste for religion. Asked on his deathbed by a priest to renounce Satan, he quipped: “This is not the time to be making enemies.”
Jean Goldzink, a scholar who edited a French edition of “Fanaticism,” sees in today’s tumult a repeat of the polemics aroused by Voltaire in his lifetime. “It is the same situation as in the 18th Century,” Mr. Goldzink says. “Then it was Catholic priests who were angry. Now it is parts of the Muslim community.”
Voltaire, the pen-name of François-Marie Arouet, peppered his writing with irreverent barbs that riled the Church. He described God as “a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh,” and wrote that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Mr. Goldzink, the scholar, says Voltaire mocked all religions but had some sympathy for Islam, which Voltaire described as “less impure and more reasonable” than Christianity and Judaism.
Banned from Paris by France’s Catholic king, Voltaire moved to Geneva. He quickly irked Swiss authorities, who burned one of his books. He then moved to a château a few miles from Saint-Genis-Pouilly and wrote a “Treatise on Tolerance.” He later campaigned in vain to reverse a blasphemy conviction against a French noble, who was tortured, beheaded and then incinerated — along with a copy of Voltaire’s “Philosophical Dictionary.”