Buddhism and Islam as “living religion”. Heinrich Hackmann (1864–1935) and the German-language discourses of his time

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In the decades around the turn of the 20th century there was a shift in the research discourse on “religion” from a European perspective. In addition to the philological interpretation of traditions, more empirical research of contemporary practice was undertaken, and “religion” was conceived as a systemic correlation between individual experiences and social structures. “Living religion” became an important catch phrase of that period. In addition to the disciplines of theology and philology, now religious studies or the history of religion and special research areas such as Islamic studies became tasked with research on religion. One important network in these shifts was the History of Religions School that developed in Göttingen. During that same period, bodies of knowledge on specific religions were defined for the educated middle class, building on the academic discourses. Buddhism and Islam were given particular interest in the German-speaking areas, initially only elevating these two to the status of “world religions” alongside Christianity: Religions that categorically recruit their adherents all over the world. This simultaneously marked another important shift in religious discourses in European countries – namely that Buddhism and Islam, among others, became alternative religious options in Europe as well. Their German-speaking practitioners began organizing into religious communities. Our project, on the one hand, is studying the scholarly work of Heinrich Hackmann (1864–1935), who was a member of the History of Religions School and can be regarded as representative for the new orientation of German-language religious research. Between 1894 and 1912, he made a decisive contribution toward the empirical research of Buddhism in China and other Asian countries as a “living religion”. He helped assemble the previously scattered bodies of knowledge about different stages and schools of Buddhism by publishing an encompassing description that was also directed at the educated middle class. In 1913 he became professor for the general history of religion in Amsterdam, whereas he continued to publish largely in German, and turned increasingly to questions of the theory of religion and systematics, with special attention to contemporary world religions. On the other hand, the project examines the discursive context around Hackmann. It builds on existing research on general discourses on religion and on the establishment of Buddhism and Islam as religious communities in the German-speaking world. On the basis of primary sources, it examines the intersections of three different types of discourse in relation to Buddhism and Islam: discourses in academic research, discourses in knowledge for the educated middle class, and discourses on appropriation, i.e. discourses related to the recruitment of religious adherents and the formation of religious communities.