Dante and Islam!

By: Umberto Eco
Translated by: Arjan Kallço

In 1919, Miguel Asín Palacios published a book (Muslim Eschatology of the Divine Comedy) that caused quite a stir. Hundreds of pages showed striking analogies between Dante's text and various texts of the Islamic tradition, especially the various versions of Muhammad's night journey to Hell and Heaven.

In Italy a controversy arose between supporters of the study and defenders of Dante's originality. The 600th anniversary of the death of the greatest Italian poet was being prepared and the Islamic world was generally seen in the climate of colonial and "civilizing" ambitions: how could it be thought that the Italian genius was indebted to the traditions of foreign beggars?

I remember that in the late 1980s we organized a series of seminars in Bologna for the delusional interpreters of Dante and when a book came out (The warped idea) essays dealt with Rossetti, Aroux, Valli, Guénon and the good Pascoli, all of them united as excessive, or paranoid, or extravagant interpreters of the divine poet. It was debated whether Asin Palaciosi should be included in this list of eccentrics. It was decided not to include him because many studies had already decided that Papaciosi may have been excessive, but not delirious.

It is now established that Dante Alighieri was influenced by Muslim sources. The problem is not that he had access to these resources, but how they reached him. We can start with the many medieval visions that speak of visits to other realms. These are: The Life of Saint Macarius the Roman, The Journey of the Three Holy Monks to Heaven on Earth, The Vision of Tugdalo up to the legend of Saint Patrick's Well. These are Western sources, of course, but Palacios compared them with Islamic traditions, showing that even in those cases the Western visionaries had learned something from the visionaries of the other side of the Mediterranean.

But Palacios still didn't know him The book of degrees, found in the 1940s of the last century, translated from Arabic into Castilian, then into Latin and Old French. Could Dante have known that story of the Prophet's journey to the afterlife? There may have been news through Brunetto Latini, his teacher, and a Latin version of the text was found in Collectio toledana, where Peter the Venerable, priest of Cluny, had ordered the collection of Arabic philosophical and scientific texts – all before Dante was born. Maria Corti had tried to recognize the presence of these Muslim sources in Dante's work. Who today wants to read at least one summary of the adventure of the Prophet's afterlife can find it in The night journey and the ascension of the prophet, of Einaud.

Acknowledgment of these influences does not detract from Dante's greatness, despite the respect of Palacio's old opponents. Many great authors paid attention to precursor literary traditions, e.g. Ariosto, and yet conceived a very original work. I brought these controversies and revelations because a publishing house, luini, republished Palacio's book, with a more provocative title, Dante and Islam, and as a beautiful introduction it has the writing that Carlo Osola had done for the 1993 translation.

Does it still make sense to read this book since so many studies have, for the most part, proved it right? Yes, there is, because it is beautifully written and presents a multitude of confrontations between Dante and the Arab "precursors". And it makes sense in our day when, clouded by the insane barbarities of Muslim fundamentalists, there is a tendency to forget the connections between Western culture and the progressive and very rich Islamic culture of past centuries. /Telegraph/