Father Miguel Asín Palacios, S.J. is best remembered for his 1919 book, La
Escatologia Musulmana en la Divina Comedia,[58][59][60] which
sparked lively and extended discussions among Dante scholars. Asíin
here suggests Islamic sources for the theological landscapes used by
the Italian poet Dante
Alighieri (1265–1321)
in his work La
Divina Commedia,[61][62] written
c.1308 to 1320.[63] Specifically,
Asín compares the Muslim religious literature surrounding the night
journey [al-'Isra
wal-Mi'rag] of Muhammad (from Mecca to Jerusalem and
thence up with the prophets through
the sevenheavens),[64][65][66][67] with
Dante's story describing his spiritual journey in which he meets
various inhabitants of the afterlife and
records their fate.[68]
 |
| Dante, detail from Luca Signorelli fresco at Duomo di Orvieto. |
Accordingly,
Asín (I) discusses in detail the above night journey in Muslim
literature,[69] (II)
compares it to episodes in the inferno,[70] the purgatorio,[71] and
the paradiso[72] of La
Divina Commedia,
(III) investigates Muslim influence on corresponding Christian
literature predating the poem,[73] and
(IV) conjectures how Dante could have known directly of the Muslim
literature in translation.[74]
Prior
to Asín's La
Escatologia it
was assumed that Dante drew from the long poem the Aenead by
the ancient Roman poet Virgil for
the inspiration to create the memorable scenes of the
afterlife.[75] In
his Divina
Comedia,
Dante himself plays the leading role; he is guided by the deceased
poet Virgil as they travel through the Inferno and
thePurgatorio.[76][77][78] Asín
remarks that the addition of the Muslim sources in no way detracts
from Dante's achievement, and that Dante remains a luminous figure
and his poem retains its exalted place in world literature.[79]
Asín's
book inspired a wide and energetic reaction, both positive and
negative, as well as further
research and
academic exchanges.[80][81][82] Eventually
two scholars, an Italian and a Spaniard, independently uncovered an
until-then buried Arabic source, the 11th-century Kitab
al-Mi'raj[Book
of the Ladder (or of the ascent)],[83][84] which
describes Muhammad's night journey. This work was translated into
Spanish as La
Escala de Mahoma [The
Ladder of Muhammad] by a scribe (Abrahim Alfaquim) of the Spanish
king Alfonso
X el
Sabio in 1264.[85]
Information
also surfaced about another translation of it into Latin, Liber
Scalae Machometi,
which has been traced to the Italian milieu of the poet, Dante
Alighieri.[86][87] Evidently
Dante's mentor Brunetto
Latini met
the Latin translator of the Kitab
al-Mi'raj while
both were staying at the court of king Alfonso X el Sabio
in Castilla.[88][89][90] Although
this missing link was not available to Asín, he had based his work
on several similar accounts of Muhammad's ladder then circulating
among the literary or pious Muslims of Al-Andalus.[91]