A Japanese Asianist's View of Islam: A Case Study of Okawa Shumei

*:¥$1H::tov>"'C~~~tt.t.:~.JHt, ~··fl . .-~ B*l=j:IJ!t$~G9-J! ;b.QH;;tf!Jmf~OC~i".Q ~G9"t'l;;t<b ~ ;:-tt-!vo Opinion expressed in AJAMES are solely those of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or judgements of Japan Association for Middle East Studies.

~Wf«iilt1itll: No Reproduction without Authorization

AJAMES volumes are available on the website called "CiNii" provided by the National Institute of Informatics of Japan. http://ci.nii.ac.jp

~fiB 2013:¥ 1 J1 58

~ff B*q:tJI(~~

$Bl.lie :;= 223-85211lll*lll!ll!<~~m~~t!R B 'E 4-1-1 !11\U.Mfl,:k~illi~$

ftfi& *:lt7:t-v::d-7iJ'1:.-

EPIPJ

*H ::IHil It liJf~~1n: 1-.f Tel & Fax 045-566-1247

I!ij!J1+fft§i~Uif:

( 7'-if1 /~~~) '-*i\:~:f±~ '\'A 7.

:;= 160-0023 JRJXtl5*fim~R29*fim 4-14-4 n 'Y 7 ~:: Jv 4F Tel :03-5388-8360 Fax :03-5388-8365

Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies, No.28-2 (Nihon Chuto Gakkai Nenpo)

Published by Japan Association for Middle East Studies

January,2013/Tokyo

Printed in Japan

Cover & Format Design: KUDO Tsuyokatsu+ITO Shigeaki

Printing: Shams Co. Ltd.

ISSN 0913-7858

The AJAMES No. 28-2 is published through the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Grant-in-Aid for Publication of Scientific Research Results) for the year of 2012 from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

59

Special Feature (Article)/~· (~)[)

A Japanese Asianist's View of Islam A Case Study of Okawa Shiimei

USUKIAkira

I . Introduction

II. Okawa ShOmei's Academic

Career in Islamic Studies and

Asianism

Ill. Okawa ShOmei's Essay on

Sufism in 1910 and His View of

Islam

W. Okawa Shomei's Changing View

of Islam during WWII

V. Okawa's Translation of ai-Qur'an

into Japanese

VI. Concluding Remarks

~QB*A7Y7±fi~~1A7AU :*:JII mJ ~ O)t~r€t

A Japanese Asianist's View of Islam (Usuki)

0)7Y"7.±~~t L."C~G:tl"Cv'~i.J\ 1 A7-AliJf~~-z"bib·::d::o f.J1UiJIO§'l1i'f::klfif1-t

A-71 7-:'M:IMJ•L''i- b0t::o L.i.J' L., {~li 19131!0, I*Ji'J9$(ti]0):¥1jt$1'191 A 7-,L.,i.J>G:$'~

1'19it:rtiJm&:mi'l91 A 7-,L., {-O)IMJ•L'Hi~ ~-1±-t::o i"llfifWL I :::1-7 ~i.J,~Ui.J'J 'i-ffl§~ ,L.,

J\ ~7 J"O)Hlji)Gi'J9~V'J!.t! t ~X. "Cv>t::o L.i.J' L., :t A 7 ~Wfi!IIi/ll#H~Ii 1 A 7-,L., I:IM) L.

"C::kJII!J:7tllv.\'i-i~bf_:o f.J 201JOf~O) 19421JO, ::kJII IJ:~~IJ: f@]~j!llt~.J 'i-fiJ'fT L.f::o i"Ji!f

li~JE~O)Wjf,fl:!ll L. "C, B*O)lji)G{j\-'§:fi'i-~~T ~ >b 0)-z'lild:i.J'-?t::o i"Ji!rli B *1'19:t 1J

.:r:. ~ 7 1) A r O)Wl,,¢.i:i.J>G:fll!~~i'l91d: 1 A 7-,L., t 1 A 7-,L.,Wfi!I~JlMO):fll!;tt.\1~~ nt:: 1

A 7-,L., i!I*O)~'i-11/iv't:: >b O)f!-?t::i.J'G -z'ib~o llilG1~, JI!:J?-1ilt'¥UO)~~t id:-?t::i.J{*'it$

m.'it1,0)t::lb*.Jt~nt::o ::k!lllit~rR$Jil'JG1''7 Jv7-~0)a:JlW\Hl'ld: -7 -:JJ, 7\:;~ld: Ar~t

L. "(O)ffl§~ ,l.,J\ ~7 t-·'-"O)$l9X'i-Jm L. "( 1 A 7-,L.,A...O)!Mj{''i-~I)~ L.t::o IJ$B1JOO)::kJII

li!mt!l 'i-Jm L. "C 'f- 1J A r ~, 1 A 7-,L.,, 11~1d: c<O)~i*~>i-:fii!M-9 ~:ll[:lt!!I:J! L.t::O)-z'

ib~o

I. Introduction

Okawa Shumei (1886-1957) was a famous right wing ideologue and Asianist

who advocated the unification of Asian people against European and American

colonial rule before and during World War II. In 1932, he was involved with Japanese

military officers in an anti-government plot known as the May 15th Incident. His

books on Japanese history and Anglo-American aggression in Eastern Asia were

widely read during World War II. In fact, it was Okawa who helped to popularize

the idea of the inevitability of a military clash between East and West, one in which

Japan would champion the East and do battle against the United States. After the

Pacific waJ.; broke out, he published An Introduction to Islam (Kaiky6 Gairon) [Okawa

1942],0l a book that gained renown even after World War II. Okawa was arrested as

a propagandist after the war and tried as a Class A war criminal in the International

Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo war crime trial), but

he was declared unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity. He was committed to

Matsuzawa Hospital in Tokyo, where he translated al-Qur'an into Japanese [Okawa

1974] and wrote a biography on the Prophet Muhammad [Okawa 1962c].(2)

After the Cold War ended, Okawa was reevaluated as a scholar of Islamic

studies in Japan where he was seen neither as an ultranationalistic political activist

nor as an advocator of the confrontation theory between East and West in the prewar

AjAMES no.28-2 2012 60

61

period. Against the backdrop of post-Cold War debate on the clash of civilizations,

as advocated by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, Okawa is remembered as a

forerunner of the confrontation theory in Japan.

In this article, I will critically discuss Okawa's works on Islam and the Muslim

world, viewing him as a scholar and Asianist. I will do this, first, by explaining his

academic career related to Islamic studies. I will then critically analyze his first essay

on Sufism and discuss his articles on Islam and the Muslim world. After this, I will

pay special attention to his changing view of Islam in the period between World War

I and World War II in terms of his interpretation of the concept of "the Koran and the

Sword." Finally, I will explain how and why he translated al-Qur'an into Japanese

while he was in the hospital immediately after World War II.

II. Okawa Shumei's Academic Career in Islamic Studies and Asianism

Okawa Shilmei was born in Sakata, a port city in Yamagata Prefecture

located in the Tohoku (Northeast) area of Japan. While he was taught under the old

education system at Shonai junior high school in Tsuruoka city, he studied French

at Tsuruoka Catholic Church and Confucian classics under a private teacher as well.

At Tokyo Imperial University, he wrote a graduation thesis on Acharya Nagarjuna

(150-250), a Buddhist philosopher credited with founding the Madhyamaka school

of Mahayana Buddhism. After graduating in 1911, he acted as German translator for

the Japanese Army General Staff. At the same time, he participated in Dokai (The

Way Association), which was an indigenous Japanese Christian movement founded by

Matsumura Kaiseki ( 1859-1939) in 1907. In the 191 Os and the first half of the 1920s,

he contributed many articles to the Dokai journal, Michi (The Way).

He thereafter published numerous articles on Islam in journals and magazines.

Among these were "Nanyo (i.e. Southern See; that is, Asia and Oceania south of

China) and Islam" and "Muslims from the viewpoint of Colonial Policy." In 1920,

he was appointed professor of Takushoku University at the request of Goto Shimpei

(1857-1929), then principal of Takushoku University. Because of his highly regarded

academic articles on Islam, Okawa joined the East Asian Economic Bureau (Toa

Keizai Chosa Kyoku), which was affiliated with the South Manchuria Railway

Company, in 1917.


Okawa published his first book on the Asianist cause, Some Issues in Reviving

Asia, in 1922 [Okawa 1922]. In this book, he advocated liberating Asia and uniting

Asians against European colonial rule. The book was a compilation of articles and

essays that he had previously published primarily in the Dokai journal Michi. In

it, he dealt with the awakening of Asian countries-such as Tibet, Thailand, India,

Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and North Africa, including Libya, the

Zionist movement in Palestine and Iraq (although the North African countries are

geographically not Asian but Muslim countries under European colonial rule)

against imperialism.(l) He anticipated that Muslims, as a "nation," would unite to fight

against the oppressing White imperialists in the context of liberating oppressed Asians

from colonialism after World War I. He also stressed that Soviet Russia could play a

significant progressive role against Imperialism.

In 1926, he received a doctorate of Law from Tokyo Imperial University. His

doctoral thesis was titled "A Study on the System of Chartered Companies." His

mentor was Yoshino Sakuzo (1878-1933), a professor of the Faculty of Law at Tokyo

Imperial University, who was known as a liberal-minded Christian scholar of the

theory of politics of the people (Minponshugi).

Yet although Yoshino was his mentor, Okawa derived his idea on Asianism

from Okakura Kakuzo (Tenshin, 1863-1913) after attending Okakura's lecture on

Western Art History at Tokyo Imperial University. He published his first Japanese

history, A History of Japanese Civilization, in 1921. In this book, Okawa expressed

his personal view on Asianism as follows:

Japan could preserve Asian thought and civilization due to the unbroken

succession of Tenno or Imperial family that was unusual in world history,

the noble self-reliance of Japanese who were never conquered by foreigners,

and the geographical location of Japan that was made possible to inherit our

ancestors' ideas and instinct. Accordingly, our consciousness today is indeed a

synthesis of Asian consciousness. Our civilization is the expression of all Asian

thought. The significance and value of Japanese civilization consists in this

[Okawa 1921: 8-9].

Okawa interpreted Okakura's famous slogan "Asia is One" by explaining that,

since Japanese culture and history accepted various cultural heritages of all the Asian

AJAMES I no.28-2 2012 62

63

areas, Japan represented Asia as a synthesis. However, Japan could not play a leading

political role as a liberating power against Europe in Asia if it was rotten and corrupt

in domestic politics in its advocacy of "Asia is One." According to Okawa, Japan

should therefore reform itself from within if it wanted to lead Asia. This constituted

a call for a Taisho Restoration (Taisho !shin) followed by a Meiji Restoration. After

reformation, he argued that Japan represented the Oneness of Asia perfectly as

follows:

Asia is one as a harmonious whole and constructs Eastern civilization against

Western civilization when Asia stands opposite Europe. From the beginning,

Eastern spirits represented themselves differently from one country to another.

However, they are like small waves moving up and down in one ·ocean. All

civilizations of Asian countries tell us a unified story of Asia. Japan has an

honored privilege to represent the Oneness of Asia perfectly as an ideal of

"unity-in-complexity" [Okawa 1921: 9].

Okawa can be regarded as a disciple of Okakura in Asianism because he based

his discussion of Asianism on Okakura's work. Okakura wrote, of Japanese privilege,

that "It has been, however, the great privilege of Japan to realise this unity-in

complexity with a special clearness. The Indo-Tartaric blood of this race was in itself

a heritage, which qualified it to imbibe from the two sources, and so mirror the whole

of Asiatic consciousness. The unique blessing of unbroken sovereignty, the proud self

reliance of an unconquered race, and the insular isolation which protected ancestral

ideas and instincts at the cost of expansion, made Japan the real repository of the trust

of Asiatic thought and culture" [Okakura 1907]. Okawa believed that, since Japan

accepted Asian civilizations, such as those of China and India, and then assimilated

them into Japanese civilization, this meant that Japan represented the Oneness of Asia.

He confirmed that "Japan was not an advanced country in any meanings. Japan didn't

develop by itself. Unless we had not imported Chinese civilization and then had not

been influenced by Buddhism, we couldn't imagine how our civilization became. But

we surely affirm that Japanese spirit would never have perished even though we were

affected by other civilizations" [Okawa 1921: 10].

However, Okawa's understanding of Islam is ambiguous in terms of the

Japanese assimilation of Asian civilizations. For example, he wrongly suggests that


Japan accepted West Asian culture in the Nara Period through the Western Regions at

the time of the Period of Disunity in China. In fact, it was the ancient Persian culture,

not Islamic culture, that Japan accepted at this time [Okawa 1921: 59]. In other words,

Japan has never accepted Islamic culture at any time in its history.

In 1929, Okawa assumed office as president of the East Asian Economic

Bureau, which had gained independence from the South Manchuria Railway

Company. He was arrested in 1932 for complicity in the May 15th Incident and was

jailed in 1935. After his release in 1937, he founded the "Okawa school (0kawa

Juku)" that was attached to the East Asian Economic Bureau in 1938. There he

educated junior high school graduates for 2 years to nurture capable activists who

could work for Asian causes. After this, in 1939, Okawa took up the post of chief

editor of the East Asian Economic Bureau's new journal Shin Ajia (New Asia). He

wrote the foreword in every issue of Shin Ajia from October 1940 to the end of World

War II in August 1945.

Following the outbreak of war in the Pacific between Japan and the United

States in December 1941, Okawa published An Introduction to Islam in August, 1942

[Okawa 1942]. He also delivered a series of lecture on the history of the British and

American invasions of East Asia over the radio and put together the lectures in A

History of Anglo-American Aggression in East Asia (Beiei Toa Shinryaku shi) in

1941, a book that went straight to the top of the best-seller list [Okawa 1962a]. During

the Pacific War, he also published some books on Asianism in which he did not touch

on Islam except, again, as he had done in An Introduction to Islam.

After World War II, Okawa's books on Islam were ignored for a long time

because he was a war criminal and, due to his political belief, ultranationalist.

Takeuchi Yoshimi did not ignore him, however. It was Takeuchi who was the first

to object to silencing Okawa's works on Islam. Takeuchi worked as a researcher of

Islam in China at the Institute for Islamic Area Studies (Kaikyo Ken Kenkyiljo) from

April 1940 to December 1944. He met Okawa at a joint meeting with the East Asian

Economic Bureau when he worked at the Institute. After the war, Takeuchi abandoned

Islamic studies and devoted himself to modern Chinese literature, especially the

literary works of Lu Xun (1881-1936). Almost a quarter of a century passed before

he delivered a lecture titled "Okawa Shiimei's Asian Studies" at the Institute of

Developing Economies in 1969. In this lecture, he criticized the fact that Okawa's

works on Islam were treated as an academic taboo by saying:

A]AMES no.28-2 2012 64

When we discuss Islamic studies in Japan, we cannot ignore Okawa's works.

His book An Introduction to Islam can be regarded as a purely academic work.

I am sure that his book is at the highest level in Islamic studies in Japan. His

works have nothing to do with Japanese imperialists' invasion of Asia. As far

as I know, no scholars of Asian studies have not mentioned Okawa's works

on Islam. · · · I want to ask the scholars to accept the fact that Okawa made

a contribution to Islamic studies even though they deny his achievement in

academic works [Takeuchi 1969; 1980: 183-184].

More than 40 years have passed since Takeuchi lectured on Okawa. After the

end of the Cold War between the US and the USSR in the 1990s, Okawa's theory

on confrontation between East and West combined with Samuel Huntington's Clash

of Civilizations in Japan became the center of attention. Okawa's works have thus

been reassessed and reappraised in recent years.<4l However, a reassessment of Okawa

as a scholar of Islamic studies has lagged because there is still a tendency among

researchers not to accept Okawa as an Islamic scholar due to his past political career

[Misawa 2003: 73-83; Aydin 2006: 137-162]. The reinstatement of Okawa as an

Islamic scholar started when Izutsu Toshihiko (1914-1993) was interviewed by a

famous popular novelist, Shiba Ryotaro (1923-1996), in the magazine Chiii5 Ki5ron.

Izutsu was professor at the Institute of Cultural and Linguistic studies, Keio University

in Tokyo, McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and the Imperial Iranian Academy

of Philosophy in Tehran before he returned to Japan in 1979. Prior to World War II,

he had worked at the library of the East Asian Economic Bureau when Okawa was the

bureau president. Izutsu, just before he passed away in 1993, reflected on Okawa as

follows.

The reason why I got interested in Okawa was that he was really interested

in Islam on his own initiative. When I got to know him, he told me that it was

very urgent to organize Islamic studies in Japan and that he did his best to

promote Islamic studies in order to provide us with every convenience at his

disposal [Izutsu 1993: 379].

Izutsu's remarks suggest that Okawa was not only a researcher but also a

manger of Islamic studies in Japan. It should be noted that Izutsu, at 27 years of age,

65 A Japanese Asianist's View of Islam {Usuki)

published A History of Arabic Thoughts: Islamic Theology and Islamic Philosophy in

1941 [Izutsu 1941]; this was before Okawa published his An Introduction to Islam in

1942.

Izutsu, after he returned home from Iran in 1979, published an article on the

"Two faces of Islam" [Izutsu 1980]. According to this article, one face of Islam turns

outward; this is the face of the Umma or the Muslim community. It attaches great

importance to the outer life of a Muslim community ruled by Islamic law (Shari'a).

The other face oflslam, which turns inward, is Sufi or Shi'ite Islam; and it is this face

that attaches great importance to the spiritual inner life of individuals.

Okawa was also interested in the two faces of Islam at various stages in his

life. At first, he was interested in the inward face of Islam, of Sufism, when he was

a university student. However, his interest turned toward the outward face of Islam

in 1913 after he read a book on colonial India. His interest returned to the inward,

spiritual Islam during the war crime trial where he was declared insane after the defeat

ofJapan in 1945.

Ill. Okawa Shumei's Essay on Sufism in 1910 and His View of Islam

Okawa, when a student at Tokyo Imperial University in May 1910, published

in Dokai's journal Michi his first essay on Islam [Shirakawa 1910]. The article,

titled "Mystical Mohammedanism (Shinpiteki Mahometto-kyo)," was published

under a pseudonym, Shirakawa Ryutaro. Knowing this, we can see that Takeuchi

gave us incorrect information on the beginning of Okawa's studies on Islam when he

wrote: "We may assume that Okawa's first real research on the Islamic religion was

undertaken after he entered the SMRR (the South Manchuria Railway Company).

Gradually, his interest deepened. He completed his famous work Kaikyo Gairon (An

Introduction to Islam) in 1942" [Takeuchi 1969: 373]. We know that this is incorrect

because Okawa had already started his studies on Islam in 1910 when he was a

university student.

Okawa's essay on "Mystical Mohammedanism" was not original but was taken

entirely from Friedrich Max Muller's lecture on Sufism. Although it can be regarded

as an abridged Japanese translation of Muller's lecture, Okawa only touched on

Muller's name at the end of the essay without crediting Muller as its source. There is

AJAMES I no.28-2 2012 66

67

no question that Muller was its source as Okawa's conclusion is the same as that of

Muller. The following is from Max Muller's original text:

Sufiism (sic.), short of its extravagances, may almost be called Christian; nor

do I doubt that it owed its deepest impulses to Christianity, more particularly

to that spiritual Christianity which was founded on Platonist and Neo-Platonist

philosophy. We saw that the Sufis themselves do not deny this: on the contrary,

they appeal to Jesus or Isa as their highest authority, they constantly use

the language of the New Testament, and refer to the legends of the Old. If

Christianity and Mohammedanism are ever to join hands in carrying out the

high objects at which they are both aiming, Sufism would be the common

ground on which they could best meet each other, understand each other, and

help each other [Muller 1893: 359-360).

Why did Okawa focus academic attention on Max Muller's lecture? Perhaps

because Okawa attended the Sanskrit class of Takakusu Junjiro (1866-1945), an

internationally known Buddhist scholar in Tokyo Imperial University who had studied

Sanskrit under Max Muller at Oxford University in the 1890s. In his memoirs, Okawa

expressed kind gratitude to Takakusu for guiding him to ancient Indian philosophy and

recalled that he had read Muller's A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature So Far As

It Illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans and Muller's English translation

of Upanishads when he studied Sanskrit under Professor Takakusu.

In his essay on Sufism, Okawa consciously traced or followed Muller's text: He

first addressed the origin of Sufism by writing: "As the principal literature of Sufiism

is composed in Persian, it was supposed by Sylvestre de Sacy and others that these

ideas of the union of the soul with God had reached Persia from India, and spread

from thence to other Mohammedan countries." Then he continued on to the abstract of

Sufi doctrine, Rabia as the earliest Sufi, and connected Sufism with early Christianity.

He touched on prominent Sufi (Abu Said Abu! Cheir, who was the founder of Sufism),

Fakir (Abu Yasid), and Darwish (Junaid) philosophers. He also discussed the Mesnevi,

an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, the celebrated

Persian Sufi saint and poet. Finally, Okawa addressed topics such as the poetical

language of Sufism, the morality of Sufism, and so on.

Three years later, in the summer of 1913, Okawa suddenly changed his view


on Islam after he chanced on a copy of Sir Henry Cotton's New India or Indian in

transition (published in 1886 and revised in 1905), which dealt with the miserable

situation in India under British colonial rule. In the preface to his famous book Some

Issues in A wakening Asia in 1922, Okawa explained his change of mind as follows:

It was in the summer of the 2nd year of the Taisho era (sic. in 1913). One

evening I went for a walk in Kanda, a book-town, and happened to meet with

Cotton's book which was on display in the window of a bookshop. I didn't

know who he was and what he did. I didn't know that this book was a

masterpiece, either. Since I was fascinated with the title of the book New India,

I bought and read it. Then I was much impressed that India was too miserable

to be described as it was.

I had had no ideas about the contemporary India before I did read this

book. Having respected the dignity of ancient Indian thoughts and yearned for

mountains covered with snow that I had never seen, I pictured India to myself

just as Brahman's exercise place and Buddha's holy land [Okawa 1922: 4].

Okawa realized that the real India differed completely from the India that he

imagined. As for his interest in Islam, he explained this as follows:

It was in those days (in 1913) that I was much fascinated with the faith

of Mahomet who addresses "the Koran or the Sword" head-on and has no

separation between religion and politics [Okawa 1922: 6].

Okawa's understanding of Islam in 1913 was far from that in 1910 when he

wrote his essay on Sufism. He performed an about-face in his interest in Islam from

the inner spiritual face of Islam, that is, of Sufism, to the outer Umma's face of

Islam, that is, of the "Jihadist-like" offensive side of Islam (according to Okawa's

understanding at the time). He began to emphasize the fighting spirit of the Prophet

Muhammad in his article in 1915:

The surprisingly rapid expansion of Islam in its early years is an impressive

phase in world religious history. Some argue that it was due to mission work

by force of arms, and others discuss that it was due to a simple and easy

AJAMES no.28-2 2012 68

69

teaching of Islam or that Mahomet stole lofty doctrines from other religions

in order to adorn his religion. Nevertheless, we should not forget the fact that

the root cause of the rapid spread of Islam and the most distinctive feature of

Islam was the power lurking inside the founder Mahomet's character and his

strong personality. The true greatness of Islam lies neither in a moral code

nor simple doctrines. The most precious character of Mahomet is his powerful

fighting spirit to defeat all those who disobey the will of God. Islam advanced

unopposed and gained a great victory because Muslims had enthusiastic

fighting sprits [Okawa 1915b: 30-31].

After 1913, Okawa published a series of articles on Islam under the title

"Mahomet and his Religion." This series was written to educate and enlighten the

readers of Dokai's journal Michi and was part of a series of "Lecture on Religion"

[Okawa 1913a: 38-42; 1913b: 39-45; 1913c: 23-31; 1913d: 37-42]. Within this series,

he published individual articles such as "Muslims' anti-Christian Spirit" [Okawa

1915a: 76-78], "Islam and its Founder" [Okawa 15b: 18-31], and "What is Islam?"

[Okawa 1916: 42-54]. The article "What is Islam?" was in fact an abridged version

of An Introduction to Islam, which he published in 1942. He briefly explained in this

article the meaning of Islam, its current circumstances, Sunni and Shi'ite, Islamic

jurisprudence, al-Qur'iin, Allah and the Prophet Muhammad, and five pillars of Islam:

(1) the Islamic creed (shahtida), (2) daily prayers (saliih), (3) almsgiving (zakat),

(4) fasting during Ramadan (sawm), and (5) the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least

once in a lifetime. At the same time, he translated parts of Hadith into Japanese and

published these translations from January to November 1914.

It is worth mentioning that as an ardent Asianist, Okawa's attitude was severely

anti-Western or anti-Christian in his defense of Islam. In 1913, he praised Muslims in

China when he compared them with Confucians and Buddhists as follows:

In the spiritual world of China, only Islam gives religious vitalities to 23

million followers. While China has about 50 billion population, the number of

Muslims is 23 million, one twentieth of the population. Nevertheless, even if

the number of Confucians and Buddhists is statistically larger than Muslims,

most of them are nominal followers, while Muslims are sympathetic with

the founder's spirit and observe religious laws. This population of 23 million


Muslims can therefore be considered as the most powerful religious community

in contemporary China [Okawa ShUmei Kankei Monjo Kankokai 1998: 121].

This high praise of Muslims in China reflected Okawa's hostility to Western

Christian missionaries, who, in his view, held overbearing attitudes towards the

Chinese and had imperialistic evil intentions. He learned a lesson from senior Japanese

Christians, such as Uchimura Kanzo or Matsumura Kaiseki, who repelled arrogant

foreign missionaries who were forcing foreign values outside of Christianity on

Japanese Christians. Okawa regarded "White missionaries" as aggressors in this

context.

The fragile structure of Chinese government and defectiveness of Chinese

laws persuaded White missionaries to follow the wrong path. Perhaps they

were pious and devout in front of God. But they were insolent and rude to

ordinary Chinese people. They interfered in Chinese secular authority shielding

themselves behind their own home authorities. White Christian missionaries

appeared in Chinese people's eyes as blunt invaders who should be expelled,

not as philanthropist envoys of noble character [Okawa ShUmei Kankei Monjo

Kankokai 1998: 121].

IV. Okawa Shumei's Changing View of Islam during WWII

Okawa abruptly stopped writing articles on Islam following the collapse

of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923

under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, although, as mentioned earlier, he published

several articles on Islam during and after World War I to educate and enlighten

people. Perhaps the harsh realities of the collapsed Ottoman Empire fell short of his

expectation for Islam. He idealized Prophet Muhammad and the highest stage of

development in Islam as the perfect model of should-be Islam. After an almost 20-year

interval, during which he was involved in political activities as a right wing thinker,

Okawa, in August 1942, at last published An Introduction to Islam after the outbreak

of the Pacific War.

Okawa briefly explained why he published this book on Islam at the onset of

AJAMES no.28-2 2012 70

r

71

war, but his explanation was too short. It did not allow us to understand his political

incentive and real motive as an Asianist and propagandist. He only touched on the

reason why he published the book in his preface as follows:

Since we have many Muslims under the umbrella of the Greater East Asian

Sphere of Co-Prosperity nowadays, it is necessary for our people to enlarge our

stock of knowledge on Islam. It is the highest of honor that my book could be

of some use to that end [Okawa 1942: 13].

It is surprising that, in this book, he avoided mentioning Islam in the context

of a pan-Asianist strategy. Most of his readers expected Okawa to place Asian

Muslims in his strategic view of the New East Asian Order, but he disappointed their

expectations through a nonpolitical attitude to Islam and modest description of Islam

and its history. Regarding this, Takeuchi pointed out that:

Okawa's masterpiece about Islamic studies is An Introduction to Islam.

When I read the book just after its publication in 1942, I was surprised to

know that the basic information on Islam is well written to a point. Beginning

with the climate of Arabia, he sketched a biography of Mahomet, the Koran

and Hadith, Muslim beliefs and rituals, history of Sunni and Shi'ite Islam and

finally concluded it with Islamic jurisprudence. During the war, publishing

books on Islam was in fashion, therefore many publications on this topic were

brought out. But there were no other books that could match his book. I greatly

admired him as a brilliant scholar because he had an excellent ability to write

such an appropriate introduction to Islam [Takeuchi 1969: 180-181 ].

Takeuchi's admiration of Okawa was not unusual, even among Islamic scholars

and researchers. It was an admiration shared by other contemporaries. One book

review tells us that "this book was a laborious work that improved the quality of

Islamic studies and was way ahead of other works in the past. We admit that this is a

typical model of future Islamic studies and should be ranked as the starting point of a

fresh start in Islamic studies" [Kaykyo Ken 1943: 61-63].

The book An Introduction to Islam consists of the following eight chapters:

Preface and chapter 1 "Introduction"; chapter 2 "Arabia and Arabs"; chapter 3


"Mahomet"; chapter 4 "Al-Qur'an and Hadith"; chapter 5 "Beliefs in Islam";

chapter 6 "Rituals in Islam"; chapter 7 "Development of Muslim Sects"; and chapter

8 "Development of Islamic Jurisprudence." The chapters were written independently

of one another and on separate occasions and were later compiled into one book.

Okawa's writing style in each chapter thus differs a little, and some chapters-such as

those on Arabia, Mahomet, and Jurisprudence-have notes while the others have no

notes.

It is worth pointing out that Okawa follows the European tradition of

Orientalists or Islamic studies in basing his description of the European legacy of

Islamology from the latter half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th

century. In the true sense of the word, he can be considered a prominent Japanese

Orientalist. Notwithstanding this, what is interesting in his Islamic studies is that,

without explanation, Okawa omitted a chapter on Sufism, although European standard

textbooks on Islam at the time always contained chapters on Islamic mysticism. This

fact remains a mystery when addressing Okawa's Islamic studies because his first

published essay, although it was an abridged translation of a Max Muller lecture, was

on Sufism.

In addition to ignoring Sufism in his book on Islam, Okawa also changed his

view of Jihad - a view on which he had built his hopes at the beginning of the 1920s.

In 1942, he explained "the Koran or the Sword" as follows:

As Christian historians trembled with fear at the sight of Arab's swift

conquer of West Asia and the mass conversion of inhabitants, they extended

a mistaken idea that the expansion of Islam was made possible by Muslim

fightt;rs who cried "the Koran or the Sword." Since then it has been widely

believed that the religion of Muhammad was spread mainly by the sword. The

idea disseminated in the world was obviously false [Okawa 1942: 3].

It is important to point out that he was newly fascinated with the faith of the

Prophet Muhammad when, in 1913, he directly addressed "the Koran or the Sword"

and offered no separation between the religion and the politics of the faith. By 1942,

he was denying the concept of "the Koran and the Sword."

It should be noted that Okawa faithfully based the articles and books he wrote

during and after World War I on European Orientalists' studies. He had a real talent

AjAMES no.28-2 2012 72

73

for foreign languages such as English, German, French, classical Chinese, Sanskrit,

and so on. He taught himself Arabic when he was a university student. However,

it seems to me that, when he wrote his book in the 1940s many years after he had

learned Arabic, he seems to almost have forgotten his Arabic. Consequently, he only

referred to European studies on Islam in writing his book. He referenced the following

scholars in European Islamic studies: Edward Lane (1801-76), Ernest Renan (1823-

92), William Muir (1819-1905), R. Bosworth Smith (1839-1908), D.S. Margoliouth

(1858-1940), Duncan Black MacDonald (1863-1943), and Alfred Guillaume (1888-

1965). The German Orientalists he referred to are Gustav Veil (1808-89), Alois

Sprenger (1813-93), Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), Theodor Noldke (1850-1930),

Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921), Martin Haltmann (1851-1918), and so on. He also

used English translations such as those of French Orientalist H. Lammans and of

Dutch Orientalists Michael Jan de Geoje (1836-1909) and C. Snouck Hurgronje

(1857-1936).(5> Oddly, although he had command of the French language, he did

not refer to Louis Massignon (1883-1962), a distinguished scholar of al-Hallaj, as

his contemporary. Perhaps this omission bears some relationship to the omission of

chapters on Sufism in his book.

The most impressive part of An Introduction to Islam is the chapter on the

Prophet Muhammad, who Okawa regarded as a holy person throughout his life. He

criticized European Orientalists for their biased opinions as follows:

Mahomet satisfied people in Arabia who had religiously needed and waited

for the prophet. Even though European Orientalists cursed and swore Prophet

Mahomet because of their chauvinistic attitudes to him, there is no doubt that

he was a great prophet of the Semite people equal to Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah

[Okawa 1942: 69-70].

Okawa criticized the Orientalists for their politically biased description of

Muhammad's marriage to Khadija: "Not only MacDonald but also two authorities in

Britain and Germany, Muir and Sprenger, and other European scholars of Islam shared

the same opinion on this point. It is strange that Margoliouth considered Mahomet's

marriage as political, even though he expressed his antagonism against Islam in other

paragraphs" [Okawa 1942: 76].

In Chapter 8, "Development of Islamic Jurisprudence," Okawa, on the other


hand, praised another Orientalist, MacDonald, for "his sympathetic understanding of

Islamic jurisprudence." He also wrote that, by contrast, "the description of Islamic

jurisprudence in M. Hartmann's Der Islam was filled with harsh antagonism against

Islam" [Okawa 1942: 252].

Okawa often positively referred to Duncan MacDonald's Aspects of Islam,

which consisted of eight lectures delivered in 1909 as part of the Hartford Lamson

Lectures on Comparative Religion. Even though MacDonald wrote carefully that

"I have endeavored to avoid direct suggestion as to the training and methods of

the missionary to Muslims, except in such broad and human aspects as sympathy,

courtesy and patience," he was here criticized for having a "chauvinistic motive" by

Okawa. Needless to say, MacDonald is only one of a long list of Orientalists. In fact,

MacDonald admitted that he was much influenced by Goldziher, NO!dke, Lane, and

Hurgronje in his other books [MacDonald 1903: viii].

MacDonald influenced younger generations such as Sir Hamilton Gibb (1895-

1971 ), who is considered as one of the greatest Orientalists to publish after World War

I. We learn from Edward W. Said how dramatic an effect MacDonald had on Gibb:

Among Gibb's earliest influences was Duncan MacDonald, from whose

work Gibb clearly derived the concept that Islam was a coherent system of

life, a system made coherent not so much by the people who led that life as by

virtue of some body of doctrine, method of religious practice, idea of order,

in which all the Muslim people participated. Between the people and "Islam"

there was obviously a dynamic encounter of sorts, yet what mattered to the

Western student was the supervening power of Islam to make intelligible the

expe~iences of the Islamic people, not the other way around [Said 1979: 276].

While it is true that Okawa was free from the stereotypical views of the Orient

that were shared by other 19th-century Orientalists with their missionary purpose,

ironically he inherited the Orientalists' understanding of Islam as a coherent system of

life: "a system made coherent not so much by the people who led that life as by virtue

of some body of doctrine, method of religious practice, idea of order, in which all the

Muslim people participated." Accordingly, Okawa wrote the following in the preface

of his book:

AJAMES no.28-2 2012 74

75

Islam is not a "religion" as we ordinarily define it. Islam is a coherent

system of life. The objects of study therefore are various, its scope is wide. It

is needless to say that I only deal with one side of Islamic studies in my book

[Okawa 1942: 13].

Okawa's na·ive claim that Islam was a coherent system of life was thus clearly

based on MacDonald's discourse. In his book, Okawa was only interested in showing

readers the system that had been created "by virtue of some body of doctrine, method

of religious practice, idea of order," as MacDonald did, according to Said. As a natural

consequence, it follows that he only described Muslim beliefs and rituals in his book,

not the people going about their daily lives. It is characteristic of his deductive way of

thinking that he explained Islam from the general principle of "essentialist'.' capitalized

Islam while he tended to disregard local varieties of plural forms in Islam from area

to area. Takeuchi also pointed out that Okawa "was not the kind of thinker who starts

from practical experience and proceeds to formulate problems. For him, truth resided

more in books to be read than in things to be seen. ··· What drew Okawa's interest to

the end was the abstract world of ordered thought; his interest was not aroused by the

phenomena of chaos, corruption, or progress" [Takeuchi 1969: 3 71].

If we take his deductive thinking into consideration, it is interesting to note

that Okawa believed Islam had a Western character because it carried on Hellenistic

cultural traditions. Regarding this, he claimed:

Islam is frequently said to be an Eastern religion and its culture is called

an Eastern culture. But Islam is inherited from basic beliefs shared by such

religions as Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity. It is not the same religion

as those in India and China. Therefore, if we call India and China Eastern,

Islam has a distinctly Western character contrary to an Eastern one. The areas

where Arabs had advanced at the first stage were a Hellenistic cultural zone.

It goes without saying that a Hellenistic cultural zone is meant to be the world

of Greco-Roman civilization. The early conquest by Muslims was limited to

that cultural zone. Consequently, the great influence that fostered Islam was

Hellenistic culture and Persian culture. Islamic scholarship was also thoroughly

affected by Greek culture and its theology owed much to Aristotelian

philosophy. In consequence, Islamic culture is essentially Western and has a


close connection with European culture [Okawa 1942: 4-5].

When he defined Islamic culture as essentially "Western," what did Okawa

think about Muslims living in Asian areas such as British India and Malaya or Dutch

Indonesia? In other words, where did he place these Muslims within the Greater

East Asian Sphere of Co-Prosperity? While he did not answer this question, he did

distinguish between Asia and the East.

Okawa described the geographical border between "East" and "West" in his

book A History of Anglo-American Aggression of East Asia as follows:

The Asian Continent is divided by mountain ranges running from Southwest

to Northeast, that is to say, from the Indus River in the south to the Bering

Strait in the north. These mountain ranges are the very long ridge of the world.

The Old World is divided into two, East and West. The southeast slope of the

roof is East and the southwest slope of it is West [Okawa 1962a: 760-761].

According to Okawa, "the countries of Persia, Asia Minor and Arabia belong

to Asia, but it is clear that these countries belong to the West from the viewpoints

of geography and world history. Therefore, East in the true meaning is the area that

is located to the east of Pamir" [Okawa 1962a: 760-761]. The sphere of Asia is

larger than that of the East. Hence, Islam is not an "Eastern religion" as such but is

a "Western religion" and "Asian religion" at the same time. Since his dichotomy of

West vs. East and Europe vs. Asia does not always overlap, we have to understand his

strategy in describing the gaps between these two kinds of dichotomy.

V. Okawa's Translation of al-Qur'an into Japanese

Okawa described, in his personal memoirs, how he began to translate al-Qur'an

into Japanese while he was jailed as a war criminal after the Pacific War as follows:

I asked that the Arabic edition of the Koran and copies of more than ten

foreign translations of the Koran such as Japanese, classic Chinese, English,

French and Dutch translations be brought into my study room in my hospital.

AJAMES no.28-2 2012 76

77

I began to read them on December 1, the 21st year in the Showa era. I often

saw and talked with Mahomet in my day dream when I was insane. I therefore

revived my interest in the Koran. My illness didn't affect my understanding.

On the contrary, I could understand more clearly most of the passages that

I couldn't understand when I first read them. In the latter part of May in the

22nd Showa era, I had finished reading al-Qur'an immediately before I was

transferred to a US Army hospital for my psychiatric examination [Okawa

1961: 740].

It is worthwhile emphasizing that he met the Prophet Muhammad many times

in his day dream after he went mad, and it was these meetings that revived his interest

in al-Qur'an. At this point, he was less interested in the outward face of Islam; that is,

in political Islam. He began instead to concentrate on Muhammad as a holy person or

perfection for man.

He could complete the translation of al-Qur'an in December 1948 because he

was declared mentally unfit to stand trial. It took I year and 9 months to translate it.

He later recalled his interest in al-Qur'an as follows:

Alif, Bii, Tii, Thii. How difficult I learned Arabic by myself, only relying on

Manasevich's textbook(6J I I ordered the Koran with English translation from

India through Maruzen Bookshop I How excited the beginner of Arabic was

when he received the Koran of Mahdiyeh Association! I It was at that time

that I translated parts of Hadith and published them serially in Michi, Dokai's

Journal I It was at that time that I wrote a biography of Mahomet as a series of

Akagi I It was at that time that I made up my mind to translate the Koran into

Japanese I How many drafts did I make? I Firstly I had translated only three

chapters I Secondly I stopped after I finished nine chapters I I tried to translate

the Koran a few times thereafter I I was too busy those days to devote all my

efforts to translate it I I could complete my translation after I was put on trial

as a war criminal and lost my reason I I realized my long-cherished wish.

Ah! Invisible forces lead me I Due to the May 15th Incident, I was jailed in

Toyotama Prison which became my office where I completed writing a history

of chartered companies I This confinement made me devote myself to study

Islam I Ah! Wishes which sprang in the breast of itself could be realized without


noticing I It was a wonder that misfortunes for others in this world made me

happy! [Okawa 1961: 741-744]

It is interesting that he did not touch at all on his well-known book An

Introduction to Islam in his memoir. Since that book was a compilation of his earlier

articles, he might not have been satisfied with it. After he went mad during the trial,

he began to go back to the starting point: to the inner face of Islam, according to

Izutsu's terminology.

Okawa quoted a paragraph from East-West Divan (1819) by Johann Wolfgang

von Goethe (1749-1832) at the beginning of his preface to the translation of al-Qur'an.

In it, he writes that "the Koran, at first disgusting us each time afresh, soon attracts,

astounds and in the end enforces our reverence. This book will go on exercising,

through all ages, a most potent influence" [Okawa 1974: 1]. Goethe's encounter

with the 14th-century Persian poetry Divan of Hafiz inspired him to produce his own

Divan: the East- West Divan. It is presumed that, in his later years, Okawa identified

himself with the Goethe who had devoted himself to Hafez. Indeed, Goethe's East

West Divan functions as an archetypal model for religious and literary syntheses

between the Occident and the Orient.

Okawa emphasized that "Koran is not just a classic. It should not be considered

as an ordinary book since it prescribes religious, moral and social life for Muslims as

the holy book for three hundred million Muslims" [Okawa 1974: 3].

Yet Okawa felt he was not qualified to translate al-Qur'an because the

translation of Buddhist sutras into Chinese had been enabled by the work of great

scholars such as Kumarajiva (344-413) and Xuanzang (602-664). Okawa called

readers' attentions to the fact that al-Qur'an was not originally written in literary

Arabic but was intended to be recited to people because al-Qur'an literally means

"recitation." He told us, modestly:

Since I am not a Muslim and poor in the Arabic language, it is not necessary

to say that I am not qualified to translate the Koran. I however made religious

studies in my university and I have been much interested in Islam. Even now

I don't abandon Islamic studies. I cannot read the original Arabic text of the

Koran to the letter, but I can deeply understand the spirit it told us [Okawa

1974: 3].

A]AMES no.28-2 2012 78

79

It should be stressed here that Okawa wrote, in his later years, about his

idea regarding religious founders in an unpublished manuscript on religion that was

composed in the context of meeting the Prophet Muhammad in a daydream after he

had been certified insane. This shows how he understood religion and why he wrote a

biography of the Prophet Muhammad after World War II. He categorized Buddhism,

Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism as "founder-centered religion" when he wrote

the following:

Among the founder-centered religions, the most typical religions are

Buddhism and Christianity. We have no difficulty to categorize Islam and

Confucianism as the same religion. However, there is a difference between

the two categories: in Buddhism and Christianity, the founder is worshiped

as the Deity by followers, while in Islam and Confucianism the founder is

respected as a messenger or a mediator. Going into detail, in Buddhism and

Christianity, the founder is not only a respected man but also the venerated

Deity since the followers believe that the Deity transcends the world as the

origin of all things in the world and the object of faith, at the same time the

founder doesn't embody part of divinity but perfectly all divinity. Veneration

of the founder gives us the Divine's force and salvation. On the contrary, in

Islam and Confucianism the founder is only man to the utmost and respected as

an ideal character, but he isn't put at the same category as God. This is strictly

forbidden in Islam [Okawa 1962b: 337-338].

Okawa emphasized that Islam attached importance to the character of the

founder, that is, the Prophet Muhammad, through the study of Hadith and what the

Prophet said and did during his life. He summarized the founder-centered religion as

follows:

The founder-centered religion regards the founder as perfection of man and

his life as norm of perfect deeds. Followers' ideal is to be like the founder.

The best way for the followers to take is to live for this ideal and to believe in

god that appears in the founder and then to prove in a real life that the new life

they found out in him is true. Therefore in this religion studies of character and

divinity are seriously made. The Buddha-Body theory in Buddhism, Christology


in Christianity and Hadith in Islam prove how strong the worship of the founder

is [Okawa 1962b: 338].

It is important to point out that Okawa understood that "in Islam and

Confucianism the founder is only man to the utmost and respected as an ideal

character, but he isn't put at the same category as God. This is strictly forbidden in

Islam." He found out that a point in common between Islam and Confucianism is the

ideal character of the founder. Because Okawa was tutored in Confucian classics when

young, he understood Islam in the context of Confucianism. After World War II, when

he had been certified insane, he translated al-Qur'ii.n into Japanese and wrote a life of

Muhammad. He tried to identify himself with Muhammad as an ideal character; that

is, as a perfect man. His interest in Islam continued intermittently thereafter through

his interest in Muhammad.

VI. Concluding Remarks

Okawa Shiimei was interested in Islam especially when he was young and

in his later years. But his understanding of and interest in Islam changed during the

course of his life, as summarized below.

When he was a student at the university, he became interested in Sufism

through a general reading of literature on Christian Mysticism. In 1913, he was

awakened as a nationalist and Asianist by Henry Cotton's New India. His interest thus

changed from the inward, spiritual Islam to the outward, political Islam. At this time,

he emphasized a Jihadist side of Islam by interpreting "the Sword and the Koran" as

Muhammad's expression of the fighting spirit. But, he kept silent on Islam following

the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.

After an interval of about 20 years, he published in 1942 his best-known book

An Introduction of Islam during the Pacific War. Despite readers' expectations to the

contrary, this book was not intended to support Japanese war propaganda or to make

him a famous Asianist. This is because he only described in the book the ideal types of

Islam or the idealized Islamic state at the zenith of the Islamic Empire from a Japanese

Orientalist's point of view. He did not touch at all on current issues related to the

ongoing war.

AJAMES no.28-2 2012 80

Finally, it is interesting to note that Okawa's book on Islam contains no chapter

on Sufism although he wrote an essay on the subject when he was a university student.

In the aftermath of the war, at the time of the Tokyo war crime trial, he was declared

legally insane. It was while he was in Matsuzawa Hospital in Tokyo, when he returned

to Islam through a veneration of the Prophet Muhammad with a perfect personality,

that he began to translate al-Qur'an. It is further interesting to note how he came to

understand, in his later years, how he had arrived at his own religious education in

Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and so forth through the founders.

Notes

(I) Before World War II, the term "Kaikyo (lllJ!¥5()," not Isuramu (Islam), was commonly used in

Japanese. In this article, the term Islam is used even if the old-fashioned term 'Kaikyo' is used in

the original Japanese texts.

(2) In this article, "al-Qur'an" and "Prophet Muhammad" are used; but so, too, are the old-fashioned

forms "the Koran" and "Mahomet" specifically when referring to the original Japanese texts.

(3) The first edition of the book consists of the following chapters [Okawa 1922): Chapter 1

"Europe in Revolution and Asia in Revival"; Chapter 2 "The Origin and Development of Tibet

Problem"; Chapter 3 "The Kingdom of Thailand Liberating British and French Invasions";

Chapter 4 "India through the Course of Revolution"; Chapter 5 "Afghanistan and its Problems";

Chapter 6 "Persia on way of Restoration"; Chapter 7 "Bolshevists' Policy of the Middle

East"; Chapter 8 "Young Turks' Fifty Years"; Chapter 9 "The Victory of Egyptian Nationalist

Movement in 1919"; Chapter 10 "Muslim Nations under European Rules"; Chapter 11 "Muslim

League as the Front of Awakening Asia"; Chapter 12 "The Significance of Mesopotamian

Problem"; Chapter 13 "Awakening Jewish National Movement"; and Chapter 14 "The

Development of Baghdad Railway." Chapter 13, on Zionism, was omitted from the second

edition of this book, which was republished in 1936, without any explanation.

(4) Two biographies, i.e. Matsumoto [2004) and Otsuka [2009], were reissued as paperbacks.

(5) Most of the books Okawa read when he worked at the East Asian Economic Bureau were

confiscated by the G.H.Q. during the U.S. occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952. We can

read the European books and encyclopedias he used when he translated al-Quran into Japanese

because the Sakata City Library has compiled them together in the Okawa Shilmei book

collection.

(6) Manassewitsch [1912].

81 A Japanese Asianist's View of Islam (Usuki)

References

Aydin, Cemil. 2006. "Overcoming Eurocentrism?: Japan's Islamic Studies during the Era of the

Greater East Asia War (1937-45)." In The Islamic Middle East and Japan. ed. Renne Worringer,

137-162. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers.

lzutsu, Toshihiko. 1941. A History of Arabic Thoughts: Islamic Theology and Islamic Philosophy.

Tokyo: Hakubunkan (in Japanese).

--. 1980. "Two Faces oflslam." Chil6K6ron 95(9): 70-92 (in Japanese).

--. 1993. "Darkness and Brightness in the Last Decade of Twenty Century." In Selected Work5 of

Izutsu Toshilllko, Supplementary Volume, 369-399. Tokyo: Chuo Koron (in Japanese).

Kaikyo Ken. 1943. "The Institute's Book Review: A Report on Research Seminar of the Institute."

K3iky6 Ken 7(3): 61-64.

MacDonald, D.B. 1903. Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Manassewitsch [Manasevich], Boris. 1912. Lehrbuch, die arabische Sprache durch Selbstuntenicht

schnell und Ieicht zu erlemen. Wien and Leipzig: A. Hartleben's Verlag.

Matsumoto, Ken'ichi. 2004. Okawa Shiimei. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten (in Japanese).

Misawa, Nobuo. 2003. "OKAWA Shlimei and the Islamic Studies in Japan." Bulletin of Asian and

Afiican Cultures Research Institute (Toyo University) (37): 73-83 (in Japanese).

Miiller, Friedrich Max. I 893. "Lecture 11 Sufiism." In Theosophy or Psychological Religion: The

Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of Glasgow in 1892 by F. Max Mii/ler. London

and New York: Longmans, Green and Co.

Okakura, Kakuzo. 1903. The Ideal of the East with Special Reference to the Art of Japan. London.

Rep. in 2007, Tokyo: Yohan.

Okawa, Shlimei. I913a. "Mahomet and his Religion (1): Lecture on Religion, Part 13." Michi (65):

38-42 (in Japanese).

--. I913b. "Mahomet and his Religion (2): Lecture on Religion, Part 14." Michi (66): 39-45 (in

Japanese).

--. 191.3c. "Mahomet and his Religion (3): Lecture on Religion, Part 15." Michi (67): 23-31 (in

Japanese).

--. 1913d. "Mahomet and his Religion (4): Lecture on Religion, Part 16." Michi (68): 37-42 (in

Japanese).

--. 1915a. "Muslims' anti-Christian Spirit." Michi (82): 76-78 (in Japanese).

--.1915b. "IslamanditsFounder."Michi(85): 18-31 (inJapanese).

--. 1916. "What is Islam?" Michi (95): 42-54 (in Japanese).

--. 1921. A History of Japanese Civilization. Tokyo: Dait6kaku (in Japanese).

--. 1922. Some Issues in Reviving Asia. Tokyo: Daitokaku (in Japanese).

--. 1942. An Introduction to Islam. Tokyo: Keio Shob6 (in Japanese).

--. 1951. Koran: Japanese Translation ofal-Qur'iin. Tokyo: Iwasaki Shoten.

AJAMES no.28-2 2012 82

83

--. 1961. "A Gate to Peace of Mind: A Spiritual Autobiography." In The Complete Wolfs of

Okawa Shilmei, Vol. I, 721-878. Tokyo: Iwasaki Shoten (in Japanese, originally published in

1951).

--. 1962a "A History of Anglo-American Aggression of East Asia." In The Complete Works

ofOkawa Shilmei, Vol. 2, 688-766. Tokyo: Iwasaki Shoten (in Japanese, originally published in

1942).

--. 1962b. "On Religion." In The Complete Works ofOhtwa Shilmei, Vol. 3, 189-340. Tokyo:

Iwasaki Shoten (in Japanese).

--. 1962c. "A Biography of Mahomet." In The Complete Wolfs ofOkawa Shilmei, Vol. 3, 501-

773. Tokyo: Iwasaki Shoten (in Japanese).

--. 1974. "Koran: Japanese Translation ofal-Qur' fin." In The Complete Works ofOhtwa Shilmei,

Vol. 7. Tokyo: Iwasaki Shoten (in Japanese, originally published in 1951).

Okawa Shiimei Kankei Monjo Kankokai. 1998. Okawa Shilmei's Related Docwnents. Tokyo: Fuyo

Shooo Shuppan (in Japanese).

Otsuka, Takehiro. 2009. Ohtwa Shilmei: Thoughts of an hmovational Restoratonist. Tokyo: K6dansha

(in Japanese).

Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage.

Shirakawa, Ryutaro. 1910. "Mystical Muhammadism." Michi (25): 10-15 (in Japanese, Shirakawa

Ryutaro is pseudonym ofOkawa Shiimei).

Takeuchi, Yoshimi. 1969. "Profile of Asian Minded Man X: Okawa Shiimei." The Developing

Economies 7(3): 367-379 (in Japanese).

--. 1980. "Okawa Shiimei's Asian Studies." In The Complete Works of Takeuchi Yoshimi, Vol.

8, 177-199. Tokyo: Chikuma Shooo (in Japanese).

ABSTRACT

USUKI Akira

A Japanese Asianist's View of Islam: A Case Study of Okawa Shiimei

This article analyzes Okawa Shiimei's changing interest in Islam during the course of his life.

Although he was a famous right wing ideologue and Asianist, Okawa worked as a scholar in Islam.

When he was a student at Tokyo imperial university, he became interested in Sufism. His interest

however changed from the inward, spiritual Islam to the outward, political Islam in 1913. At this

time, he interpreted "the Sword and the Koran" as Muhammad's expression of the fighting spirit.

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, he kept silent on Islam. After an interval of

about 20 years, he published his best-known book An Introduction of Islam in 1942. Despite readers'

expectations to the contrary, this book was not intended to support Japanese war propaganda, because

he only described in the book the ideal types of Islam or the idealized Islamic state at the zenith of the


Islamic Empire from a Japanese Orientalist's point of view. In the aftermath of the war, at the time of

the Tokyo war crime trial, he was declared legally insane. While he translated al-Qur'an in Matsuzawa

Hospital in Tokyo, he returned to Islam through a veneration of the Prophet Muhammad with a perfect

personality. He came to understand religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and so forth

through the founders in his later years

A]AMES no.28-2 2012

Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Japan Women's University

B;;fs:~-1-::k"f:)C"f:~

84

A Japanese Asianist's View of Islam: A Case Study of Okawa Shumei

Documents