Ahwal Al-Ma'rifa – Special Report

Few scholars, readers, or researchers could have imagined that one of the greatest Italian—and indeed, world—literary epics, written by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri and entitled The Divine Comedy, would be so profoundly influenced by Islamic culture, drawing upon a broad range of elements from that culture in shaping this globally renowned masterpiece. The work appears to incorporate a number of Islamic religious themes and meanings, particularly in its evocation of the story of the Isra and Mi'raj—the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey and Ascension—as well as ideas found in the writings of Muslim thinkers and philosophers such as Avicenna, Al-Ma'arri, and Averroes. How, then, did this happen, and who opened the door to a scholarly rereading of The Divine Comedy within the framework of comparative literature?

The Comedy of Creativity:

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) lived a life marked by conflict and upheaval, as well as by the memory of a lost love. His beloved Beatrice (Beatrice Portinari) married another man and died young. Dante later brought her back as the heroine of his epic, The Divine Comedy. Dante is regarded as one of the world's greatest literary figures. His influence extended far beyond Italy, reaching cultures across the globe.

After writing his early work La Vita Nuova (The New Life) in 1292, which contains 31 poems, Dante wrote De Vulgari Eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular), a work concerning the emerging Romance languages, followed by Il Convivio (The Banquet). In 1300, he began writing his monumental epic, The Divine Comedy. The epic is an imagined journey resembling Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri's Epistle of Forgiveness in its engagement with the world of the afterlife.

Dante's epic is at once a story of love, politics, and faith, as well as a portrayal of historical figures presented through a metaphorical literary style. It depicts the medieval world, its wars and intellectual currents, condemns social vices, and celebrates virtue and moral excellence. Throughout his imagined celestial journey, Dante is accompanied by a number of figures, most notably the poet Virgil, author of The Aeneid, who symbolizes wisdom and reason. The Divine Comedy consists of three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Each contains 33 cantos, preceded by one introductory canto, bringing the total to 100 cantos.

Arab-Islamic Influences

Arab and Islamic culture reached Europe, which was immersed in the darkness of the Middle Ages, through several channels. The first was the Crusades, through which Europeans encountered aspects of Islamic military and civilizational advancement. Other channels included Sicily under Muslim rule, Al-Andalus, where Arabs and Muslims remained for more than eight centuries, translation centers such as Toledo, where works were translated from Arabic into European languages, and the literature of travel.

The first scholar to raise the question of Arab-Islamic influence on Dante's Divine Comedy was the Spanish Orientalist Miguel Asín Palacios. He presented the subject in a lecture in 1919 before the Royal Spanish Academy, on the occasion of his election as a member. He outlined his theory there before publishing his study Dante and Islam in 1927. The work generated enormous international interest and was translated into several major languages.

In his book The Influence of Islamic Culture on Dante's Divine Comedy, Dr. Salah Fadl highlights the echoes of the controversy initiated by Asín Palacios. The question subsequently became one of the significant achievements of twentieth-century comparative literature. Although a number of European and Italian scholars strongly rejected the theory, Palacios produced further studies demonstrating Dante's possible exposure to Islamic traditions concerning the afterlife through both oral and written translations.

Evidence subsequently emerged of manuscripts containing a complete translation of the story of the Prophet's Ascension, preserved in the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, the National Library in Paris, the Vatican Library in Italy, and other European collections.

At that point, the Spanish scholar Muñoz Sendino and the Italian scholar Enrico Cerulli independently published Latin and French translations of the document known as the Book of Muhammad's Ascension in 1949. This document was regarded as the decisive evidence that had been missing from Asín Palacios's theory concerning the influence of Islamic traditions on Dante.

The document revealed that King Alfonso X of Castile had ordered a physician serving at his court, known as Abraham the Wise, to translate the Islamic account of the Mi'raj from Arabic into Castilian Spanish in 1263. This translation subsequently served as the basis for Latin and French versions produced by an Italian translator working at the same court, Bonaventura da Siena, in 1264—just one year before Dante's birth.

These translations and manuscripts subsequently circulated throughout Italy and Europe, contributing to the widespread dissemination of the story of the Isra and Mi'raj in European intellectual and cultural circles during Dante's lifetime and making it possible for Dante to encounter the tradition.

One of the earliest Arabic sources to discuss the influence of Islamic culture on The Divine Comedy, following the publication of the English translation of Asín Palacios's work in 1926, was the book by Abd al-Latif al-Tibawi, published in Cairo in 1928 under the title An Inquiry into the Development of Arab Thought. In it, he compared the ideas of Al-Ma'arri, Ibn Arabi, and Dante, examining the narratives of the Isra and Mi'raj as a possible source for The Divine Comedy and considering their relationship to the literary heritage of Al-Ma'arri and Ibn Arabi. He also argued that Dante was deeply impressed by and influenced by Islamic culture.

The question of this influence was subsequently examined by numerous Western writers and Arab scholars, including Enrico Cerulli, Reynold A. Nicholson, Muñoz Sendino, Pedro Pascual, Muhammad Ghunaymi Hilal, Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman, and Raja Jabr. Their studies generally focused on Dante's possible influence by the Isra and Mi'raj, The Epistle of Forgiveness, and the writings of Ibn Arabi and Averroes. They also examined Dante's appropriation of religious and social symbolism from Islamic narratives, particularly representations of paradise, hell, the intermediate realm (al-A'raf), scenes of punishment, and descriptions of paradise that Dante may have drawn upon in shaping his epic.

The Divine Comedy remains Dante's principal work and one of the greatest poetic epics in Italian literature. The translation by Hassan Othman is regarded as one of the most important and comprehensive Arabic translations of the work. Many consider it among the greatest literary achievements in world literature. It has been translated into numerous languages and has inspired works in poetry, cinema, television, theater, and the visual arts.

References:

• Dr. Salah Fadl, The Influence of Islamic Culture on Dante's Divine Comedy, Dar Al-Shorouk, Cairo, 3rd edition, 1986.
• Arabian Magazine
• Thakafa Magazine