Synopses & Reviews
The wording "Dante and Islam" has existed for nearly a century, but it can be jarring to juxtapose the poet most emblematic of medieval Christianity with the name of a rival monotheism. Controversy has raged recurrently for many decades about what the Divine Comedy can tell about perspectives of Christians in the Middle Ages on Muslims. The artistic tradition associated with the poem has kindled powerful reactions within Islam even recently.
Two extremes in approaches to Dante's views on Islam emphasize on the one hand the hostility proclaimed by the twentieth-century conception of "clash of civilizations," and the peaceful cohabitation associated with the modern Spanish term convivencia. Where does Dante's great poem fit within the framework of orientalism that has been debated since Edward W. Said's 1978 book?
Portions of present-day Italy were ruled by Muslims for two hundred years, and afterward a sort of concentration camp for them on the Italian mainland was not forcibly dispersed until 1300. For centuries Christians and Muslims lived cheek by jowl, and in Sicily they achieved a remarkable multicultural symbiosis associated under the polyglot Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.
To look at matters from a more literary perspective, the Spanish Arabist Miguel Asín Palacios contended in 1919 that for much of the basic framework of the Divine Comedy Dante was indebted to apocryphal traditions about a "night journey" taken by Muhammad. Texts that may support his hypothesis were brought to light in the years around World War II.
Making sense of the issues requires investigating what was known of the Qur'an and of Islamic philosophy and science in Dante's day; it necessitates exploring the bases for Dante's images of Muhammad and Ali; and it compels us to look at the key instances of engagement among Muslims, Jews, and Christians, especially Christian Italians.
Review
"How much did Dante really know about Islam? This collection of essays, framed by Ziolkowski's superb, judicious introduction, offers a substantive, multi-pronged overview of a vexed question among Dante scholars: the scope of his literary engagement with the faith of medieval Muslims and their intellectual traditions. Meticulous in their treatment, incisive and authoritative, these learned articles shed light not only on Dante studies but on the broader impact of Arabo-Islamic civilization on Western cultural history."--Luis M. Girón-Negrón, Harvard University
Synopsis
Dante put Muhammad in one of the lowest circles of Hell. At the same time, the medieval Christian poet placed several Islamic philosophers much more honorably in Limbo. Furthermore, it has long been suggested that for much of the basic framework of the Divine Comedy Dante was indebted to apocryphal traditions about a "night journey" taken by Muhammad.
Dante scholars have increasingly returned to the question of Islam to explore the often surprising encounters among religious traditions that the Middle Ages afforded. This collection of essays works through what was known of the Qur'an and of Islamic philosophy and science in Dante's day and explores the bases for Dante's images of Muhammad and Ali. It further compels us to look at key instances of engagement among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
About the Author
Jan M. Ziolkowski is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University, and Director of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. His research into the Latin Middle Ages has concentrated on the classical tradition, especially Virgil (
The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years and The Virgil Encyclopedia); the grammatical and rhetorical traditions; and the relationship of folktales and vernacular epic with Latin. In Dante scholarship an edited volume on Dante and the Greeks is in press.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Jan Ziolkowski
Approaches to a Controversy
Dante and Islam: History and Analysis of a Controversy (1965)
Vicente Cantarino
Dante and Islamic Culture (1999)
Maria Corti
Dante and Knowledge of the Qur'an
Translations of the Qur'an and Other Islamic Texts before Dante (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries)
José Martínez Gázquez
How an Italian Friar Read His Arabic Qur'an
Thomas Burman
Images of Islamic Philosophy and Learning in Dante
Philosophers, Theologians, and the Islamic Legacy in Dante: Inferno 4 versus Paradiso 4
Brenda Deen Schildgen
Dante and the Falasifa: Religion as Imagination
Gregory B. Stone
Falconry as a Transmutative Art: Dante, Frederick II, and Islam
Daniela Boccassini
Images of Muammad in Dante
Dante's Muammad: Parallels between Islam and Arianism
Maria Esposito Frank
Muhammad in Hell
Karla Mallette
Islam in Dante's Italy
Mendicants and Muslims in Dante's Florence
John Tolan
Dante and the Three Religions
Giorgio Battistoni
The Last Muslims in Italy
David Abulafia
Notes
Index of references to Dante's major works
General Index