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Secondary sourceBook1779

Saladins Frage an Nathan

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing · 1779

A printed page from Lessing's play Nathan the Wise, showing Saladin asking Nathan about the true faith, answered by the ring parable.

A later German play imagines Saladin as a tolerant, questioning sultan, shaping his image in European culture.

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Scan of a printed page in German blackletter type with the heading 'Saladin' and six lines of verse: 'Ich heische deinen Unterricht in ganz / Was andern; ganz was andern. — Da du nun / So weise bist: so sage mir doch einmal — / Was für ein Glaube, was für ein Gesetz / Hat dir am meisten eingeleuchtet?'
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise, Act 3, Scene 5, first printed edition, 1779.

About this source

What it is

This is a scanned page from the first printed edition (1779) of Nathan der Weise, a German play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. The page shows Saladin's question to the Jewish merchant Nathan, asking which religion or law has most convinced him.

Why it matters

Lessing wrote this play during the European Enlightenment, long after Saladin's lifetime, to argue for religious tolerance. He used the historical sultan as a character to voice open-minded questioning, and Nathan answers with the famous ring parable about equal faiths. The play became a staple of German schools and shaped how many people imagine Saladin: not as a conqueror, but as a wise, tolerant ruler open to debate.

Look closer

  • Why might Lessing have chosen a real historical sultan to ask this question, rather than inventing a fictional character?
  • What does it tell us that a German Enlightenment author imagined Saladin this way, centuries after he lived?
  • How might Saladin himself have reacted to being portrayed like this?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Saladin on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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