Dante and Muhammad: A comparison of Journey's

The studies on Dante have always been very extensive even outside of Europe. After his death in 1321, Dante has been a source of inspiration for many works and it is said that the true meaning of his comedy was revealed only six hundred years after his death.

It's just after six hundred years in fact, in the 1920s, that the Spanish priest Don Miguel Asin Palacio wrote, “Muslim Eschatology in the Divine Comedy”, in which are found many similarities and correspondences with texts belonging Arab culture. It is thought that it was this influence to the Divine Comedy in a time when Europe dominated the Arab culture and Christian culture he was not at all strange.

"Islam and the Divine Comedy" a book by Miguel Asin.

Of course it didn’t take long for criticism by the Italian academics to come, especially regarding the assumption that the great poet had thought and written the Commedia to "imitate" the Arabs, against which he unleashes a powerful attack as a faithful Christian poet par excellence.

Was the problem linked to the origins of the Palacio itself, an Arabist and more Spanish literature who wrote in Italian?
The fact is that by making a comparison between the poem and some Arab writings analyzed by Palacio, you can find some similarities with the journey of Muhammad and  the Florentine poet’s.

In his journey Prophet Muhammad on the back of al-Buraq, a symbol of divine love, which sees him arrive in Jerusalem, provides the first descent into the underworld, the Isra, and then climb in the celestial spheres, the Mi'raj. The purpose of the journey of Muhammad is the attainment of God and therefore of the same holiness. The prophets are "different" from all other men because their journey is the model of asceticism to abandon themselves in the name of true knowledge of God.

The Prophet Muhammad appears in this engraving by Gustave Dore depicting a canto from Dante's Inferno.

And if Dante had been aware of the legend of Al Mi'raj by those who had direct experience because he had been at the court of King Alfonso the Wise where Arabic texts were translated and because of Brunetto Latini?

Muhammad's head engulfed in sacred flames; image from the Miraj. 

Dante's Journey, which will last a perfect Christian Holy Week and Easter of Resurrection, starting with his loss in a dark forest where he encounters three beasts that prevent the passage, a lion, a panther and a wolf, are the same ones that meet Muhammad and retreat; luckily for them there are two guides and teachers, Virglio in Dante and the archangel Gabriel to Muhammad that satisfy the curiosity of both.

Similar to the structure of Dante's Inferno, the architecture of Muslim hell has the form of  a funnel, consisting of different levels and degrees, the lowest point of the funnel corresponds to the center of the earth and is the city of Jerusalem.

Also, Muhammad, first sees a man to whom his head was smashed with a boulder by a demon; the boulder rolls and when the executioner goes back with it to the side of the victim, the head of this reappears intact and healthy so that the Executioner can repeat indefinitely his torture.
Forced to continue the journey, Muhammad then meets another man, this time sitting, to which the executioner alternately introduces in the corners of his mouth, eyes and nostrils an iron hook.

A little later, he was presented before his eyes a man swimming in a river of blood in the effort to reach the shore where an Executioner is expecting to put with his hand in his mouth a bunch of hot stones, forcing him to return to swimming until the middle of the river. This, too, is repeated torture, like its predecessors, ad infinitum.

Then Muhammad met a tower-shaped building that is like a heated oven, from which they feel the cries of women and naked men engulfed in flames.
The three men who met Muhammad at the beginning of his journey are, respectively, the hypocrite, the liar and finally the usurer; those who burn in the oven instead are adulterers.

From the scene described it is easy to see how the sins are mirrored to the punishment, what Dante calls “the term retaliation”, the analogy between the fault committed and the punishment.

To purify the output of Hell and to proceed towards Paradise, Dante makes a threefold ablution, the same one that purifies Islamic souls: before you reach heaven they immerse themselves in the waters of three rivers that irrigate the garden of Abraham.

As last, the Islamic tradition has nine heavens in which the pure souls are arranged according to their respective merits and in the end, we find all the Empyrean. Here Gabriel abandons Muhammad before the Throne of God where a wreath will be attracted by light, and Dante will be attracted by a beam of intense light surrounded by nine concentric circles in which they appear angelic spirits; the one closest to the fire is placed in the cherubin and all nine revolve endlessly around the center of the divine.

If Dante has really been "influenced" by the Islamic culture this is not known but it is certain that it proves to be aware of the cultural importance that Islam has had on Western civilization.

The Divine Comedy in depopulated African American culture

In the early 1800's the Divine Comedy arrived in the African-American culture as means of cultural, political, and social influence that led to the discovery of numerous relationships between the history of the "new world" and that of the Florentine poet.
 
The moment when African-American culture meets Dante dates back to 1828, when in Cincinnati there was a chamber of horrors dedicated to the three Dante's circles inside a wax museum was set up. The exhibition shortly thereafter would become a point of attraction in the years before the Civil War .

A bond easier “to do than to say" is one between the two cultures when you consider how they were rooted in the traditions of African Americans and the abolitionist movement in the Protestant religion. Dante also had been considered the antipope for excellence by the Anglican Church and the Lutheran Reformation.

The poetry of Dante had also caught the attention of the Italian Risorgimento who will redeem success among American abolitionists during the 1800’s.
Consider that Martin Luther was thought of by the American Protestant  as a version of "Dante" who, through his Bible, allowed the spread of the word of God, just as he did with his epic poem Dante. The Divine Comedy for Protestants was an instrument of expression of the hellish condition black man in a "white" society.

In this context, a key figure is Cordelia Ray, a writer of a poem dedicated to the Florentine poet Dante. It looks in the eyes of Ray as a writer and intellectual politician who fights against discrimination and the denial of fundamental human rights.

Poet Cordelia Ray.

It’s in those years that the Harlem Renaissance starts growing; the movement of migration of the 20s that sees thousands of African-Americans in the South and West head to NY  and form a small black middle class. This was possible only thanks to the cultural heritage of Europe, which began to be considered the most effective means of emancipation.

Three years ago, a book came out through the academic Looney known as, “In Freedom Readers: the African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy”. Within the book there are are reviews of all the workds that have been inspired by Dante’s point of reference for the mterc and the moral, demonstating how the Diving Comedy influenced the African-American Culture.

William Wells Brown is considered the first African-American writer of novels. In his “Clotelle”, 1864, Dante is presented both as a poet of love as an exile and a pilgrim. The protagonist Jerome follows his example, sharing with the great poet the frustration for the unfortunate political events. In fact, Brown published his novel in London where he was self-exiled. The complaint policy will be an integral part of his work.

"Clotelle", a novel by William Wells Brown.

Alongside with the literature, in 1944 there will be the film by the independent filmmaker Spencer Williams, the first to debut in the big screen as an actor with his “Go Down, Death !”, Cinematographic reproduction of the 1911 Italian film, “Inferno” by Padoan and Bertolini. Here the Divine Comedy is "revisited", in fact the key cosmological infernal segregation experienced by the protagonist Jim Bottoms follows the logic that coordinates the moral cosmology of Dante.

The search for identity, a place in society, and then deal with the language problems that ensue, is the subject of Ralph Waldo Ellison novel “Invisible Man”, 1952. Here Dante is a "white" and his testimony to the moral engaging and "working" together with whites and blacks. Here Looney mainly focuses on the problem of language, identifying how this follows the flow of migration from Europe to North America and from South to North of the United States, thus leading to the formation of a British colonial influenced by African dialects, a sort of "American vernacular".

"The Invisible Man" by author Ralph Waldo Ellison.

In “The System of Dante 's Hell”, written by Amiri Baraka in 1965 the structure of Dante's hell is used to play hell on earth inhabited by blacks because the white devils advocate for segregation of the Thirties and Forties and Fifties racial system of the Seventy. For Baraka, Dante's Inferno is none other than the mental state of blacks who are forced to become invisible in a world of white, feeling "foreign" in what unfortunately has become their land.
But it is possible to delete an identity?

The Divine Comedy becomes a Manga!

Yet another adaptation of genius, from Japan this time, is not about technology but one of the masterpieces of Italian literature of the fourteenth century, the Divine Comedy, which becane a Japanese manga . Yes that's right, you heard me!

The cover of a Divine Comedy Manga.

The author, known as Kiyoshi Nagai Gō Nagai, Japanese cartoonist and writer, is considered one of the greatest manga creators ever.

A panel from Nagai's Manga interpretation of the Divine Comedy.

Since the publication of Comedìa it has gone about seven hundred years without ever having ceased to stimulate the imagination of countless intellectuals, painters and engravers; before then designers too were being confronted with the imagination of the Florentine writer. A sort of challenge to the tale of Dante from all parts of the world .
In his Dante Shinkyoku, published in 1994 , the author takes us through the three parts of all the spiritual journeys of Dante proposing a new interpretation, a new style, a new relationship with the contemporary. To inspire Gō Nagai was probably a lithograph of the Divine Comedy illustrated by Gustave Doré .

Another panel from a Divine Comedy Manga interpretation.

The style of narration is simple and fast, accessible to any audience of readers.

by Cristina

Dante in modern Chinese culture

The Divine Comedy is one of the most translated works by an Italian author and as a result it has spread throughout the world. Even the distant Republic of China appreciates the writing of Dante.

The Divine Comedy is really a universal work. Writers and academics from all over the world have come closer to this reading and, having analyzed and translated his poetry, gave a personal interpretation and found parallels between the Italian culture at the time of Dante and the Chinese nation.

A Chinese translation of the Divine Comedy. 

The Divine Comedy and the Rising Sun

The echo of the charm of the Divine Comedy has gone even as far as China. Although the interest in the work is relatively recent, Chinese intellectuals and cultural institutions have promoted Mandarin collective readings and published essays about depth analysis of the versi that are curious.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the presence of Dante in Chinese writings is infrequent. Among the first ones to appear are poet Xin Luoma (New Rome) and Chinese writer Liang Qichao, published in 1902.

Chinese poet Xin Luoma.

Dante: a prophet, poet

Other references are routed to the presentation of the historical figure of Dante, especially those admired in Chinese literature as a poet, prophet, soul, and father of the Italian nation.

Next to the exaltation of his patriotism, the image of Dante is emblematic for being a celebrator of love as a superior feeling, pure and ethereal. In fact there are frequently references to Beatrice in the poems of Xu Zhimo and those of Yin Fu. The latter, also called his beloved “Beatrice of the East”.

Chinese poet Xu Zhimo.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, not only Dante, but also the Divine Comedy, became more appreciated. It is in those years, in fact, appears the first complete translation of the work - from the French version - edited by Wang Weike. For the original Italian version we would have to wait until 2000, when Tian Dewang published his translation.

The Divine Comedy in Chinese painting

References to the Divine Comedy are found not only in the Chinese literature, but also in the arts. In 2006 three Chinese artists had painted the picture Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante. The painting represents a hypothetical group where there are many characters, Eastern and Western, with several references to the symbolism and metaphorical world.

A Chinese painter interprets Dante and his world as Chinese. 

Despite the diversity, and sometimes the incompatibility between the Italian and Chinese culture, we note the recognition of Dante's masterpiece is still modern, adaptable and appreciated by readers all over the world, including those in China.By Selena Zamarian