AbË Huraira’s Cat in Goethe’s Paradise

Abstract

It is an old question of Goethe Forschung1 why did the poet include a cat, AbË Hurairah’s nameless kitten, among the four privileged animals allowed to enter Paradise. Around the end of the Book of Paradise of Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan (West-östlicher Divan, WöD for short), in the poem Favoured Animals (Begünstigte Tiere), after the ass of Jesus (*), the wolf of MuÍammed (œ), and the dog of the Seven Sleepers (AshÉb-i Kahf), follows the cat, “Here purrs Abuherrirah’s cat/Round him, with coaxings bland;/A holy creature sure is that/Stroked by the Prophet’s hand”2 (in the original:3 “Abuherrira’s Katze hier/Knurrt um den Herrn und schmeichelt:/ Denn immer ist’s ein heilig Tier/das der Prophet gestreichelt”)