on the bank of a celestial river and surrounded by a bevy
of beautiful houris; her loveliness of face and form so far
surpasses the beauty of her companions that the traveller
believes her to be the very beloved of Imru-l-Qays the poet.
(_t_) Awhile he lingers talking with these lovely creatures
and then approaches the abode of the poets who wrote in the
imperfect metre, known as “rejez,” which he discusses with
them. Then assisted by the maidens and pages who attend him,
he is conveyed on a vehicle of gold and topaz to the heavenly
mansion in which he is to live in bliss for all eternity.
4. As will at once be seen from the above summary, this literary
imitation of the Mahometan ascension is rich in analogies with the Divine
Comedy.
In the first place, the supernatural element which is so striking a
feature of the _Isra_ and _Miraj_, is almost wholly absent. Like Dante,
the protagonist is simply a man. Nor are the secondary persons mainly
saints or prophets, but mere sinners, often indeed repentant infidels.
Thus the human and realistic touch imparted by Dante to the two first
parts of the Divine Comedy is to be found in this earlier Moslem work.
The coincidence in the realism of the two stories is, of course, not
absolute; but, if the discrepancies are for the moment set aside, a
systematic comparison will show the features of resemblance to be grouped
under two headings, viz., general artifices, common to both stories, and
actual incidents that are either similar or identical in each.[121]
5. Abu-l-Ala, to achieve his twofold aim of composing a treatise
that should be at once theological and literary, avails himself of
the ingenious device of making the protagonist of his tale, Ibn
al-Qarih, meet a great number of persons in heaven and hell. Thus the
author peoples the realms of the beyond with a host of men and women,
Christians, Moslems and pagans, nobles and commoners, rich and poor,
young and old. These for the greater part are sinners, and almost all
are men of letters or poets; for, as stated above, the author’s main
aim was literary criticism, and his secondary idea, to denounce the
narrow-minded views of the theologians of his day. Nearly all the
persons are historical, and most of them famous writers. Some were his
contemporaries, or lived shortly before his time.
According as they appear in heaven or hell, their distribution differs.
In heaven, the traveller meets them gathered in small groups, each formed
of a certain class of writer, such as philologians, lyrical poets,
satirists, writers in the rejez metre, and so forth. In hell, on the
other hand, they appear alone.
Often the traveller inquires after a writer whom he would like to see,
and they with whom he is conversing point out the other’s dwelling or
provide him with a guide. At times, the desired person himself appears,
when the traveller frequently fails to recognise him and has to ask his
name.
The conversation both in heaven and hell turns mainly on literary points
connected with the poets’ works; but allusions are not lacking to the
virtues or vices that have led to their salvation or damnation.
The liberal principle which guided the author in consigning his
characters to heaven or hell was bound to bring him into conflict with
the narrow-minded clergy and lay masses, to whom it must have seemed
akin to sacrilege to place men in heaven who on earth had been notorious
unbelievers or libertines. Apart from this religious tolerance, the
author is swayed by literary sympathies or personal feeling. The sight of
the damned almost always moves him to pity, for only rarely does he gibe
with bitter sarcasm at some unfortunate sufferer; whilst the good fortune
of the blessed calls forth his warmest congratulations.
Dante has recourse to the same devices, though on the far grander scale
on which the Divine Comedy is planned. Working on the same lines, he
rises above the mere literary aims of the Moslem tale and conceives
the story, much richer in detail than the other, of a transcendental
journey to the realms of the after-life. This gives him a pretext for
displaying his views, not merely on literature, but on the whole field of
intellectual endeavour. The Divine Comedy is, in fact, an encyclopædia
of mediæval learning. Mankind in general; Italy in the thirteenth
century, and Florence in particular; the Papacy and the Empire; religious
institutions; literature and the other arts—the history of all is told
in its tercets, not in an impersonal or abstract manner, but as seen
through the mind of Dante under the influence of his poetic temperament.
Thus, just as Abu-l-Ala aimed almost exclusively at displaying his
literary learning and passing judgment on the great Arabic writers;
so did Dante seek to leave in his divine poem a record of his vast
erudition and his views on religion, politics and art, as practised in
his century. Accordingly, the number of characters in the Divine Comedy
is incomparably greater than in Abu-l-Ala’s tale. But, though more groups
are thus formed, they are of the same variety, the literary categories
of the Moslem story being replaced in Dante’s poem by classifications
according to calling and social position. The personages of the Divine
Comedy, again, are either legendary, historical or nearly contemporary
with the author; and all are portrayed with a vivid realism.
In heaven the souls appear to the travellers in groups and not, as in
hell, singly. Thus, the literary coteries of Abu-l-Ala are equivalent
to the crowns or circles seen by Dante in each heaven and composed of
theologians, soldiers, judges and others.
The colloquies between Dante and the souls begin in a like way. Either
he inquires for a certain soul, and is directed to the dwelling; or of a
sudden a soul appears, whose features the poet fails to recognise, and he
is obliged to ask his name.[122]
It is only natural that the colloquies of Dante should present a greater
variety of subjects than the mainly literary discussions of Abu-l-Ala;
but, in both stories, the conversation repeatedly turns upon incidents
in the life of the souls or the mysteries of the after-world. Moreover,
certain of the discourses of Dante with the poets and artists in hell
or purgatory bear a striking resemblance to the animated _causeries_
of the Moslem tale. Thus, when Dante meets his former master, Brunetto
Latini, they converse on events of their life on earth; Brunetto mentions
the grammarian Priscian and the lawyer Francesco d’Accorso among his
fellow-sufferers; finally, he recommends to him his _Tesoro_.[123] In
purgatory the poet meets Casella, the Florentine musician, and begs him
to sing “Amor que nella mente mi ragiona,” a song of Dante’s that Casella
set to music.[124] Again, Sordello, a poet of Mantua, recognises Virgil
and lauds his verses.[125] The painter, Oderisi, discusses Italian art
with Dante, praising the two Guidos, Guinicelli, and Cavalcanti.[126] The
Latin poet, Papinius Statius, tells Dante and Virgil the story of his
life, and of the influence on his Thebaid and Achilleid of the Aeneid of
Virgil; and when the latter discloses his identity, Statius praises and
quotes verses from the master-poet’s works. In answer to his inquiries
about the fate of other poets, such as Terence and Plautus, Virgil
acquaints him with the lot which has befallen these and other classic
authors.[127] Buonagiunta, a mediocre poet of Dante’s time, makes himself
known to Dante and discusses the “new style” of Dante’s poems, admitting
that they show more poetic inspiration than those of Jacopo da Lentino or
Guittone da Arezzo.[128] Finally, Dante sees the great poet of Bologna,
Guido Guinicelli, being cleansed in fire from the taint of lubricity.
Dante hails him as the father and master of the _dolce stil nuovo_; but
Guinicelli modestly refers him to the Provençal, Arnauld Daniel, whom he
points out close at hand; and, as Dante steps forward to converse with
the troubadour, the latter greets him with verses of great beauty in his
mother tongue.[129]
A further coincidence is apparent in the spirit of tolerance displayed
by both authors in excluding from hell famous pagans or infidels. Thus,
Aeneas, Cæsar, Saladin, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Cicero,
Seneca, Avicenna, and Averrhoes are placed in the limbo[130] and Cato
of Utica in purgatory.[131] St. Thomas Aquinas shares the same heaven
as one of his greatest adversaries, Sigier of Brabant, a follower of
Averrhoes[132]; and King David is placed with Trajan and Ripheus of
Troy.[133] On the other hand, many persons, including popes and princes,
Dante condemns to hell out of mere personal or party feeling. Finally,
the spectacle of eternal bliss or torment rouses in Dante’s heart, as in
that of the Moslem pilgrim, the same feelings alternately of admiration
and pity, joy and wrath.[134]
6. A comparison of a few of the episodes of the Moslem journey with
incidents in the Divine Comedy will disclose a resemblance even more
striking than the similarity in general artifice.
One such episode is the encounter of Ibn al-Qarih with Hamduna of Aleppo
and the negress Tawfiq, whom he takes to be houris, until they disclose
their identity.
This scene, were it not for the semi-jocular tone of its description,
closely resembles the passages of Dante’s meeting with La Pia of
Sienna, in purgatory; with Piccarda Donati of Florence, in the heaven
of the Moon; and with Cunizza of Padua, in the sphere of Venus. The two
first-mentioned, like Hamduna, bemoan the trials of their married life;
and Dante admires the wonderful beauty of Piccarda, as Ibn al-Qarih had
marvelled at the fair complexion of the negress Tawfiq. Moreover, just
as the two pseudo-houris revealed themselves to Ibn al-Qarih, so do the
three Christian beauties, in answer to Dante’s inquiries, make themselves
known to him.[135]
7. The journey to hell, undertaken by the Moslem immediately after the
above episode, presents further similarities, though the sequence is
inversed; for Dante visits hell before paradise.
Dante, at the outset of his journey, finds his path barred by a leopard,
a lion, and a she-wolf. Escaping from these dangers, he meets Virgil, the
prince of epopee and patriarch of the classic poets, who leads him to the
garden of the limbo, where dwell the geniuses of antiquity. Later begins
the descent to hell itself.
The Moslem pilgrim before encountering any obstacle meets Khaytaur, the
patriarch of the genii. Chanting their deeds in epic verse the aged
spirit sits at the entrance to the garden wherein they dwell. This
garden, like Dante’s limbo, is an intermediate region between paradise
and hell, of which latter it forms, as it were, the antechamber.
In vain have Dante students endeavoured to discover the meaning the poet
sought to convey by the symbolic figure of the three wild beasts that bar
the way to hell.[136] Innumerable as are the hypotheses that have been
advanced, nowhere is so perfect a prototype for this passage to be found
as in this Moslem tale. For, before he reaches hell, the Moslem pilgrim’s
path is barred by a wolf and a lion, two of the very beasts that attack
Dante. Drawing his inspiration from the Moslem source, the divine poet
would appear to have adapted this episode with some slight changes to his
allegorical purposes.[137]
8. Another Moslem episode very similar to a scene in Dante is the meeting
between Adam and the pilgrim, when, on the latter’s return from hell,
they discuss the language originally spoken by Adam. Dante also meets
Adam (in the eighth heaven), and the burden of their conversation is
likewise the language spoken by the father of mankind when he dwelt in
the garden of Eden.
9. Lastly, the two scenes described on Ibn al-Qarih’s return to heaven
recall the two episodes in Dante’s purgatory immediately preceding the
poet’s ascension to the celestial paradise. The houri who receives the
traveller with gentle words of reproach for his long absence and then
converses with him, as they walk through gardens of flowers, appears
as the prototype of Matilda, who with bright eyes and laughing lips
awaits the poet at the entrance to the wood in earthly paradise, and
with winning grace answers his questions as they walk through meadows
strewn with flowers. Of a sudden, Dante beholds on the bank of a river
of paradise the marvellous pageant of old men and maidens in whose midst
is Beatrice, his beloved. So, too, the Moslem traveller is amazed by the
sight of a throng of houris, who, gathered upon the bank of a celestial
river, form a court of beauty around a heavenly maiden, the fair beloved
of Imru-l-Qays, the poet.
10. A general observation, applying equally to both works, may serve
as a conclusion. Abu-l-Ala, in his literary adaptation of the legend
of the _Miraj_, pursued an aim that was mainly artistic; and this is a
quality that also characterises Dante’s immortal poem. For, whatever
else the Divine Comedy may be—an encyclopædia of theological learning, a
moral allegory, and what not—it is above all a sublime work of literary
art, in which the poet tells the story of a legend of the after-life,
cast in the mould of his inspired tercets. Abu-l-Ala likewise displays
supreme skill in the difficult technique of Arabic metre; and, though it
is not actually written in verse, the _Risala_ is enriched with all the
splendour of that poetic style known in Arabic literature as rhymed prose.
VIII
SUMMARY OF COMPARISONS
1. In the preceding chapters an attempt has been made to outline the
story of the origin and evolution, within the world of Islam, of
the religious legend describing the Nocturnal Journey and ascension
of Mahomet to the realms of the after-life. The different versions
of the legend have been minutely examined and compared with Dante’s
poem; and the features of resemblance between the two tales have been
demonstrated. It would, then, be as well here to sum up the points that
have thus been established.
Around a verselet in the Koran alluding to a miraculous journey of
Mahomet to the realms beyond the grave, popular fancy wove a multiplicity
of versions of one and the same legend. The myth found expression in the
tales of the traditionists, who with a wealth of detail describe the
two main parts of the journey—the visit to hell and the ascension to
paradise. All these versions had become popular throughout Islam as early
as the ninth century of our era; and even in some of the earlier versions
the two parts of the legend are fused to form, as in the Divine Comedy, a
single dramatic action.
2. In almost all these versions Mahomet, like Dante, as the supposed
author, is made to tell the story. Further, both journeys are begun at
night when the protagonists awaken from profound sleep. In an imitation
of the Moslem journey a lion and a wolf bar the road to hell, as do a
leopard, lion and she-wolf in Dante’s poem. Khaytaur, the patriarch of
the genii, whom the Moslem traveller meets, is clearly a counterpart of
Virgil, the patriarch of the classics who leads Dante to the garden of
the limbo. Virgil appears before Dante exactly as Gabriel before Mahomet;
and throughout their journey each guide does his best to satisfy the
pilgrim’s curiosity. The warning of the approach to hell in both legends
is identical, viz., a confused noise and violent bursts of flame. In both
stories again, the wrathful guardians of the abode of pain exclude the
traveller, till their anger is appeased by an order invoked by the guide
from on high. The fierce demon who pursues Mahomet with a burning brand
at the outset of his Nocturnal Journey has his duplicate in the devil who
pursues Dante in the fifth pit of the eighth circle; Virgil, by a brief
word of command, disarms the fiend, just as Gabriel, by a prayer taught
to the Prophet, quenched the fire of the glowing brand.
The general architecture of the Inferno is but a faithful copy of the
Moslem hell. Both are in the shape of a vast funnel or inverted cone and
consist of a series of storeys, each the abode of one class of sinner.
In each, moreover, there are various subdivisions corresponding to as
many subcategories of sinners. The greater the depth, the greater is the
degree of sin and the pain inflicted. The ethical system in the two hells
is also much alike, the atonement is either analogous to, or the reverse
of, the sin committed. Finally, both hells are situate beneath the city
of Jerusalem.
Nor are instances of close resemblance between the torments in the hells
lacking. For instance, the adulterers, who in Dante’s poem are swept
hither and thither by a hellish storm, are in the Moslem legend hurled
upwards and downwards by a hurricane of flame. The description of the
first circle of the Moslem hell exactly tallies with the picture of the
city of Dis—a sea of flame on whose shores stand countless tombs aglow
with fire. The usurers, like the souls in Dante who have been guilty of
crimes of violence, swim in a lake of blood, guarded by fiends who hurl
fiery stones at them. Gluttons and thieves are seen by Dante, tortured by
serpents, as are the tyrants, the faithless guardians and the usurers in
the Moslem hell. The maddening thirst of the forgers in the Divine Comedy
is also suffered by the Moslem drunkards; whilst the forgers with the
swollen bellies have their counterpart in the usurers of another Moslem
version. Again, Griffolino of Arezzo and Capocchio of Sienna scratch the
scab off their leprous sores, as do the slanderers in the hell of Islam.
The _barattieri_, held down in a lake of boiling pitch by the forks of
fiends, suffer like the undutiful children in the Moslem legend, who,
submerged in flame, are at each cry for mercy prodded by demons armed
with forks. Finally, the awful punishment, dealt out in Dante’s poem to
the authors of schisms, of being knifed by demons and brought to life
again, only for the torture to be repeated without end, is the grim
torment appointed in the Moslem hell to murderers.
3. The Moslem traveller, heartened by his guide, toils up a steep
mountain, even as Dante, encouraged by Virgil, ascends the mount of
purgatory. Allegorical visions abound in both legends and, at times,
they agree in symbol and signification. Thus, for example, the woman
who, despite her loathsome ugliness, endeavours in the fourth circle of
purgatory to lure Dante from his path is almost a counterpart of the hag
who tempts Mahomet at the beginning of his journey. Moreover, Gabriel and
Virgil agree that the vision is a symbol of the false attractions of the
world. A river separates purgatory from paradise in both stories, and
each traveller drinks of its waters. Nor is this all; after his visit to
hell, Dante thrice has to submit to lustral ablution. Virgil, upon the
advice of Cato, with his own hands washes Dante’s face, and, upon leaving
purgatory, the pilgrim is immersed by Matilda and Statius in the rivers
of Lethe and Eunoe, the waters of which efface all memory of sin. In the
Moslem legend, the souls are likewise purified three times in rivers that
flow through the garden of Abraham and whose waters render their faces
white and cleanse their souls from sin. At the gates of paradise the
Moslem traveller is met by a comely maid, who receives him kindly, and
together they walk through the gardens of paradise, until in amazement
he beholds the houris on the bank of a stream forming a court of beauty
around the beloved of the poet Imru-l-Qays. Dante, when he enters the
earthly paradise, also meets a fair maiden, Matilda, and is walking by
her side through fields rich with flowers, when on the banks of a stream
he sees the marvellous procession of old men and maidens who accompany
Beatrice, his beloved, as she descends from heaven to meet him.
4. The architecture of both the Christian and the Moslem heavens is
identical, inasmuch as it is based upon the Ptolemaic system. As they
pass through the nine heavens, the travellers meet the spirits of the
blessed whose real home, however, is the last sphere or Empyrean, where
they are ultimately found all together. The denomination also of the
nine spheres is in some cases the same, namely, that of their respective
planets. Occasionally, too, the ethical systems are alike; the souls are
grouped in the spheres according to their different virtues. At times,
again, their distribution in both legends is based upon astrology, or
upon a combination of astrology and ethics.
In some versions of the Moslem legend, the description of heaven may
be said to be as spiritual as the picture that has immortalised the
Paradiso. The phenomena of light and sound are alone used by both
travellers to convey their impression of the ethereal spheres. Both are
dazzled by a light which grows in brilliance at every stage. In fear of
blindness, they raise their hands to their eyes; but their guides calm
their fears, and God empowers them to gaze upon the new light. Both
travellers frequently confess their inability to describe the majesty
of the sights they see. Both again, led by their guides, ascend through
the air in flight, with a speed that is compared to the wind and the
arrow. The duties of both guides are manifold; not only do they lead the
pilgrims and comfort them, but they pray to God on their behalf and call
upon them to thank the Lord for the signal favour He has shown them.
And, just as Beatrice leaves Dante at the last stages of his ascension,
so Gabriel leaves Mahomet when the Prophet is wafted to the Divine
Presence by the aid of a luminous wreath.
In each of the planetary heavens and in the different mansions the Moslem
traveller meets many of the Biblical prophets, surrounded by the souls
of their followers on earth. He also meets many personages famous in the
Bible or Moslem lore. Into the literary imitation of the Islamic legend
there is introduced a host of men and women who, although of all ranks
and faiths, are nearly all writers of note in the history of Islam; many
are contemporaries and even acquaintances of the traveller, and all are
grouped in circles according to their school of literature. Thus it is
that both the heaven and hell of this imitation are peopled by the same
multitude of minor personages that forms so striking a feature of the
Divine Comedy. Both authors, too, have resort to the same device for
introducing new actors into their scenes: either the traveller inquires
where a certain soul is to be found; or of a sudden the latter appears
and remains unrecognised until the guide, or a soul at hand, makes his
identity known to the traveller. In both legends the pilgrims converse
with the souls in heaven and hell on theological and literary subjects,
or on events in the lives on earth of the departed.
Lastly, in allotting the souls to the various regions of the world to
come, the two writers—although at times influenced by personal feeling
are in the main guided by the same spirit of tolerance. Both, as they
behold the souls in bliss or in pain, give vent to feelings of joy or
pity, although occasionally they gloat over the sufferings of the damned.
But it is not merely in general outline that the two ascensions coincide;
even the episodes in the visions of paradise are at times alike, if not
identical.
Dante, for example, in the heaven of Jupiter sees a mighty eagle formed
of myriads of resplendent spirits all wings and faces, which, chanting
exhortations to man to cleave to righteousness, flaps its wings and
then comes to rest. Mahomet sees in heaven a gigantic angel in the form
of a cock, which moves its wings whilst chanting hymns calling mankind
to prayer, and then rests. He sees other angels, each an agglomeration
of countless faces and wings, who resplendent with light sing songs of
praise with tongues innumerable. These two visions merged in one, at once
suggest Dante’s heavenly eagle.
In the heaven of Saturn Dante beholds a golden ladder that leads upwards
to the last sphere. He sees the spirits of the blessed descending by this
ladder and, at the instance of Beatrice, he and his guide ascend by it
in less time than “it takes to withdraw the hand from fire.” Mahomet,
in his ascension, sees a ladder rising from Jerusalem to the highest
heaven; angels stand on either side, and by its rungs of silver, gold,
and emerald the souls ascend; led by Gabriel, the Prophet rises by it “in
less than the twinkling of an eye.”
Dante meets in heaven Piccarda of his native city and Cunizza of Padua,
women well known to him; and in like manner the Moslem traveller (in
the literary imitation of the Mahometan ascension) meets two women,
acquaintances of his, to wit, Hamduna of his own town of Aleppo and the
negress Tawfiq, of Baghdad. In both legends the women make themselves
known to the pilgrim, tell him of the troubles of their married life or
leave him struck with admiration at their matchless beauty.
Like Dante, the same Moslem traveller meets Adam in heaven and converses
with him on the subject of the primitive language he spoke in the Garden
of Eden.
The examination of the theological virtues which Dante undergoes in the
eighth sphere of heaven, is similar to that to which the soul of the
departed is subjected in some allegorical adaptations of the _Miraj_.
The angels flying over the mystic rose of Dante’s paradise, with faces of
flame and bodies whiter than snow, have their counterpart in the angel,
half fire and half snow, seen by Mahomet.
As they stand on high above the planetary heavens, both pilgrims are
urged by their guides to cast their eyes downwards, and they see with
amazement how small the created world is in comparison with the heavenly
universe.
The apotheoses in both ascensions are exactly alike. In each legend the
traveller, exalted to the Divine Presence, describes the Beatific Vision
as follows: God is the focus of an intense light, surrounded by nine
concentric circles of myriads of angelic spirits, who shed a wonderful
radiance around. In a row near the centre are the Cherubim. Twice does
the traveller behold the majestic sight of those nine circles ceaselessly
revolving around the Divine Light; once from afar, before he reaches the
end of his journey, and again as he stands before the Throne of God. The
effects of the Beatific Vision on the minds of the two pilgrims are again
identical. At first they are so dazzled by the brilliance of the light
that they believe they have been blinded, but gradually their sight is
strengthened until finally they can gaze steadfastly upon it. Both are
incapable of describing the Vision and only remember that they fell into
an ecstasy that was preceded by a wondrous feeling of supreme delight.
5. Nor does the similarity between the two journeys end here. A common
spirit may also be seen to pervade the two legends.
The moral meaning that Dante sought to convey in his Divine Comedy had
previously been imparted by the Sufis, and particularly by the Murcian
Ibn Arabi. The Moslem mystics, like Dante, made use of a dramatic
story—which was alleged to be true—of the journey of a man, Mahomet,
to the nether regions and his ascension to the heavens, in order to
symbolise the regeneration of the soul by faith and the practice of
the theological virtues. In Dante’s conception, as in Ibn Arabi’s, the
journey is symbolic of the moral life of man, whom God has placed in the
world to work out his destiny and attain to supreme bliss, as represented
by the Beatific Vision. This he cannot do without the guidance of
theology; for natural reason can only lead him through the first stages
of the journey, which symbolise the moral and intellectual virtues. Those
sublime mansions of paradise, which stand for the theological virtues,
can only be reached by the aid of illuminative grace. Accordingly, the
pilgrim in the imitations of the Mahometan ascension of Ibn Arabi and
others, is no longer Mahomet, or even a saint, but merely a man and a
sinner, like Dante; often, like Dante, he is a philosopher, a theologian
or a poet. The minor characters too, even those appearing in heaven, are
real men and sinners and often repentant infidels. Thus, like the Divine
Comedy, the Moslem ascension combines in one story the antithetical
elements of realism and allegorical idealism.
6. The same involved and enigmatical style characterises Dante’s poem and
the ascension of Ibn Arabi. Moreover, both authors seek to display their
vast erudition by attributing to their characters lengthy and abstruse
discourses on philosophy, theology and astronomy. If, in addition, it is
borne in mind that the Moslem ascension, like that of Dante, had a host
of commentators, who endeavoured to discover the many meanings conveyed
by the slightest detail; that the poet Abu-l-Ala’s work was written
with the definite purpose of handing down to posterity a masterpiece of
literary art and that its rhymed prose presented technical difficulties
as great as, or perhaps greater than, those of Dante’s tercets, in view
of the accumulation of evidence, the following facts must be accepted as
undeniable:—
7. Six hundred years at least before Dante Alighieri conceived his
marvellous poem, there existed in Islam a religious legend narrating
the journey of Mahomet to the abodes of the after-life. In the course
of time from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries of our era—Moslem
traditionists, theologians, interpreters of the Scriptures, mystics,
philosophers and poets—all united in weaving around the original
legend a fabric of religious narrative; at times their stories were
amplifications, at others, allegorical adaptations or literary
imitations. A comparison with the Divine Comedy of all these versions
combined bewrays many points of resemblance, and even of absolute
coincidence, in the general architecture and ethical structure of hell
and paradise; in the description of the tortures and rewards; in the
general lines of the dramatic action; in the episodes and incidents of
the journey; in the allegorical signification; in the roles assigned to
the protagonist and to the minor personages; and, finally, in intrinsic
literary value.
8. The interesting problems to which these coincidences give rise will be
considered at a later stage; but to forestall any objections that might
be made, a few words may be added on the origin of the Moslem legend.
The story of the Nocturnal Journey and the ascension of Mahomet is not
autochthonous in Islam. Its real source is in the religious literatures
of other and older civilisations. But the question of the origin of the
_Miraj_ is of secondary interest. Let it suffice to say that its genesis
may have been influenced by many similar tales, Hebrew, Persian, and
Christian. It is not difficult to find features common to the Moslem
legend and the Judæo-Christian ascensions of Moses, Enoch, Baruch and
Isaiah; or the fabulous journey of Ardâ Virâf to the Persian paradise;
or finally, the descent of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the bosom of Abraham
blended into one story with His glorious ascension and the uplifting of
St. Paul to the third heaven.[138] None of these journeys and ascensions,
however, was so fully developed or expanded in the literature to which it
belonged as the Islamic legend. Appearing, as it did, after the others,
the Moslem tale was able to draw upon them and mould into the form of one
story both the diverse incident they offered and much new matter that
was the spontaneous outcome of Arabian fancy. In Islam, moreover, the
legend was the wider spread among both learned and illiterate, seeing
that it was accepted as an article of faith. To the present day it is
the occasion of a religious festival celebrated throughout Islam and of
a national holiday in Turkey, Egypt and Morocco,[139] which proves how
deep-rooted and widely disseminated is the belief of the Moslem people in
the fabulous ascension of their Prophet.
PART II
_THE DIVINE COMEDY COMPARED WITH OTHER MOSLEM LEGENDS ON THE AFTER-LIFE_
PART II
_THE DIVINE COMEDY COMPARED WITH OTHER MOSLEM LEGENDS ON THE AFTER-LIFE_
I
INTRODUCTION
1. The close resemblance that the Divine Comedy has been shown to bear
to the legend of the _Miraj_ gives rise to a multiplicity of problems in
the history of literature, all relevant to the originality of Dante’s
poem. These problems are so important that a more minute examination of
the poem in its several parts—limbo, hell, purgatory and the earthly and
celestial paradises—is required in order to resolve whether or not many
of the descriptive features and even whole scenes and episodes, although
successfully standing the test of comparison with the _Miraj_, are,
nevertheless, traceable to other Moslem legends and beliefs.
2. As a preliminary, it may be well briefly to set forth the doctrine
of Islam on the future life; for it will be possible to admit or reject
_a priori_ the likelihood of any resemblance between the conceptions of
Dante and the Arabs according as the Islamic doctrine agrees or disagrees
with the teaching of Christianity on the same point.
3. Now, on no question are the two religions in closer agreement than on
that of the future life, in which, according to both, the souls exist in
four different states. By the eleventh century at the latest definite
expression had been given to this doctrine by the orthodox clergy of
Islam, and notably by the great moralist and theologian, Algazel.[140]
The state of everlasting damnation, reserved for the souls of those who
denying God gave themselves up to worldly pleasures is equivalent to the
Christian hell; and, just as in the latter the pain inflicted is both
physical and moral, so in the Moslem state the soul, in addition to being
subjected to the torture of everlasting fire, is made to suffer anguish
through its separation from God.
Everlasting salvation, corresponding to the Christian heaven, is the
state of those souls that lived in the true faith and died either
innocent or repentant, free from all taint of sin. Their reward is
double, for over and above the sensual pleasures promised by Moslem
revelation, they experience the infinitely greater bliss of the
contemplation of the Divine essence.
The two states intermediate between heaven and hell approximate to our
purgatory and limbo. According to Algazel, the punishment in purgatory
differs from that in hell only in that it is not eternal, but temporary.
True, the Christian purgatory is the place where venial sins are
expiated, or deadly sins whose guilt has been washed away; whereas the
Moslem purgatory is assigned to those souls who, although guilty of
deadly sin, have until the moment of death kept the root of faith alive
within their hearts and been deprived by death alone of the possibility
of repentance. As, according to Algazel, the faith that saves is not the
dead but the living faith expressed in religious feeling and good deeds,
this act of living faith in God and in the intercession of the Prophet is
then practically the same as the spirit of contrition required to save
the Christian.
The fourth state, which represents the Christian limbo, is that of the
souls who, having neither served nor offended God, are exempt from
punishment, although denied eternal bliss. This is the condition of
lunatics, idiots, the children of infidels, and those adults who, never
having heard the call of Islam, may be said to have died in ignorance of
their infidelity.
The brief outlines sketched above will suffice to show how similar are
the moral foundations upon which the Christian and Moslem conceptions of
the after-life are based. Nor is this a matter for wonder, seeing that
so great an authority as St. John of Damascus held Islam to be but an
heretical form of Christianity, heretical inasmuch as it denied both
the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ,[141] and that Algazel himself
confessed the whole of the teaching of the Christian faith, apart from
these two points of doctrine, to be infallible truth.[142]
II
THE MOSLEM LIMBO IN THE DIVINE COMEDY
1. The first of the nether regions visited by Dante is that set apart for
such souls as have done neither good nor evil. To this place Dante gives
the name of “limbo.”[143]
The Latin noun “limbus,” the origin of which is obscure, is used by
classical writers, such as Virgil, Ovid, and Statius, with the meaning
of “fringe or border adorning the lower part of a garment.” In the
sixth century it is used with the meaning of “coast.” In the Bible and
ecclesiastical writings the abode of indifferent souls is named the
“Bosom of Abraham,” but never the “limbo”; and it is not known who
introduced the term into Christian literature. It appears suddenly in
the works of the commentators of Peter the Lombard, contemporaries of
Dante, who designate by it both the abode of unbaptised children (_limbus
puerorum_) and the dwelling of the patriarchs of the Old Testament
(_limbus patrum_).[144]
Dante places this abode immediately above hell, as if it were
an antechamber of the latter, and divides it into two parts—the
ante-inferno, a wide plain inhabited by the indifferent souls,[145] and
the angels that remained neutral in Lucifer’s rebellion against God,[146]
and the limbo proper, a deep and shaded valley, in the midst of which
stands a fortress surrounded by seven walls with seven gates leading to a
pleasant meadow.[147]
The limbo is inhabited by children that died innocent, but unbaptised,
and, in addition, by a host of men and women who, though righteous,
were either pre-Christian pagans or true followers of Mahomet and who,
moreover, are famous as poets, moralists, philosophers, or heroes.[148]
The suffering of these spirits is purely moral, and arises from their
insatiable longing to behold God. Debarred from the joys of paradise,
and exempt from the physical punishment of hell, they may be said to be
in suspense (_sospesi_) between heaven and hell.[149] This intermediate
state would appear to give them special opportunities of knowing and
dealing with both the blessed and the damned. Thus Virgil is in direct
communication, from the limbo, with Beatrice[150]; and, as he guides
Dante through hell and purgatory, he names and describes to him the
sinners and fiends, whose features are evidently well known to him.
2. The absence of almost all Biblical or theological precedents for
Dante’s picture need hardly be insisted upon. The name, the picturesque
description of the place, the exact classification of the dwellers, who
are pagans and at times even Moslems, the many details of their life and
condition—none of these can find full justification in Catholic dogma,
which is as discreet on these as on most other points of eschatology.[151]
In Islam it is otherwise. The absence of any one and unquestionable
authority to distinguish between matters of faith and of free thought
enabled a large number of myths and legends to be introduced from
other Oriental religions—especially Judaism, Mazdaism, and Eastern
Christianity—and, being attributed to the Prophet and his companions, to
acquire a weight almost equal with the text of the Koran.
A search in this direction may perhaps provide a clue to the reading of
the riddle of Dante’s limbo, which Christian theology leaves unsolved.
3. The Koran (VII, 44, 46) speaks of a mansion “Al Aaraf” that separates
the blessed from the wicked. The word “Aaraf” by derivation means “the
upper part of a curtain or veil”; it is also used to denote “the mane
of a horse, the crest of a cock and, in general, the highest or most
prominent part of anything”; in its wider sense it is applied to “any
limit or boundary between things.”[152] Thus, it is similar to the
classical _limbus_; but, whereas _limbus_ did not acquire the meaning of
a region beyond the grave until the thirteenth century, the Arabic word
had this meaning, in addition to its ordinary meaning, as early as the
time of Mahomet.[153]
The Moslem limbo is variously described in the legends—as a pleasant
vale studded with fruit trees; as a valley lying behind a lofty
mountain; as a circular wall of great height, with battlements and a
gate, rising between heaven and hell; or simply as an eminence or mount.
These conceptions, grouped together, present a picture not unlike that
of Dante’s limbo; especially, if the picture is completed with the
description, recurrent in the _Miraj_, of the Garden of Abraham and
the entrance to the Moslem hell, which, like the castle that forms the
antechamber of Dante’s hell, also has seven gates. Again, this castle,
surrounded as it is by seven walls with seven gates, is an almost exact
reproduction of the Islamic castle of the garden of paradise, which is
surrounded by eight walls with eight gates[154]; as if Dante, in blending
the Moslem designs of heaven and hell, had sought to symbolise the
neutral nature of the souls dwelling in the limbo.
The Moslem limbo has, on the authority of Algazel himself, been shown
to be the abode of those that lived neither in virtue nor in vice. In
keeping with this doctrine, Moslem tradition specifies the following
groups: Martyrs of holy warfare who are denied the reward of paradise
through having disobeyed their parents; men of learning whose merit was
nullified by their vanity; infant children of Moslems and infidels; and,
finally, angels of the male sex or genii that believed in the Prophet.
These groups correspond very fairly to the groups in Dante’s limbo of
the unbaptised children and the heroes, poets and philosophers whose
virtues and talents were neutralised by their lack of faith. As regards
the angels of male sex, they are indeed as enigmatical as Dante’s neutral
angels.
The only suffering that, according to the Koran and the theologians, is
inflicted on the inhabitants of the Moslem limbo is a vain longing to
enter paradise: “They cannot enter for all their longing.”[155] As the
good they have done is balanced by their sins, they neither sink into
hell nor rise to heaven, but remain in suspense between the two.[156]
Thus placed, they are acquainted and converse with both the blessed and
the damned.[157]
III
THE MOSLEM HELL IN THE DIVINE COMEDY
1. Dante lovers of all ages have dwelt admiringly upon the originality
shown by the poet in his conception of the architecture of hell. His
compatriot Christoforo Landino wrote as follows in the fifteenth
century[158]: “Benche questo poeta in ogni cosa sia maraviglioso,
nientedimeno non posso sanza sommo stupore considerare la sua nuova, ne
mai da alcuno altro escogitata inventione.” And in modern times, Rossi,
after showing how feeble were the stereotyped descriptions of hell prior
to Dante’s and how poor in this respect were the Biblical and classical
sources available to him, concludes by saying: “L’ingegno poderoso
e l’alta fantasia del poeta svolsero e rimutarono con piena libertà
questo abbozzo, fecondarono quegli elementi e ne trassero un tutto
nuovo, originale, grandioso, definito in ogni parte con esatteza quasi
matematica.”[159]
The admiration of the critic is justified. But, before the originality of
Dante’s conception can be regarded as established beyond all doubt, it
must be shown that no similar description existed in the literature of
other religions. This demonstration has often been attempted. Vossler,
for instance, has given a complete summary of the researches made by
Dantists in their endeavour to find religious, philosophical and artistic
precedents for the Divine Comedy.[160] With wonderful scholarship he
has reconstructed what he calls the _prehistory_ of the sublime poem.
The myths contained in religions prior to Christianity, as well as the
teaching of the Old and New Testaments, are drawn upon as sources. One
religion alone is excluded from his survey—the Mahometan.[161] Yet of
all religions Islam is the richest in legends on the after-life.[162]
Islam, the spurious offspring of Judaism and Christianity, blended the
doctrine of the Old and New Testaments with elements drawn from other
Oriental faiths; and the fact that it appeared at a later date and spread
rapidly through countries inhabited by the most religious peoples of
the ancient world aided the process of assimilation. Accordingly, in no
other religious lore do we find so minute and graphic descriptions of the
abodes and life of the blessed and the wicked souls as in the Koran and
the traditions built up around it; and a comparison of the Moslem hell
with Dante’s Inferno may well throw new light upon the question of the
originality of the great poet’s conception.
2. Beginning with the general outlines of the two conceptions, we find
no precise topography of hell in the Koran.[163] But Moslem tradition
agrees with Dante in placing hell beneath the earth’s crust; the tales
represent it as a dark chasm, or concave opening in the earth, so deep
that a stone or ball of lead dropped into it would take seventy years
to reach the bottom.[164] As in the Divine Comedy, its mouth is laid at
Jerusalem, near or behind the Eastern wall of the temple of Solomon.[165]
Dante maintains the unity of his architectural design by placing the
celestial Jerusalem in a vertical line with the city on earth; and the
same vertical projection applies, as will be shown later, to the Moslem
paradise.
But there are further coincidences. In Version B of Cycle 2 of the
_Miraj_ the Moslem hell was seen to be formed, like that of Dante, of a
series of concentric circular strata gradually descending from the mouth
to the bottom. This conception of the structure of hell was invented by
the Moslem traditionists in their endeavour to interpret the Koranic text
(XV, 44), which says: “(Hell) has seven gates; to each gate, a separate
group.” The commentators could furnish no explanation of this verse, if
the current meaning of “door” or “gate” were to be given to the Arabic
word _bab_. Accordingly, a metaphorical interpretation was soon applied
to the word in the sense of “step” or “circular stratum,” which allowed
hell to be conceived as a place of imprisonment consisting of seven pits,
each reserved for one class of sinners.[166] To give this interpretation
greater authority, it was attributed to Ali, the son-in-law of
Mahomet.[167]
“Know ye of what manner are the gates of hell?” he asked his
hearers, and they answered, “as are the gates we know”; but he
said, “not so, for they are thus,” and, as he spake, he laid
one hand flat upon the other.
The idea of parallel planes thus suggested is carried further in other
tales, attributed either to Ali or to Ibn Abbas, Mahomet’s uncle. In
these the words “step” or “circular stratum” are used in place of “gate”;
the seven divisions are expressly stated to lie one above the other; and
the distance between each is measured in terms of hyperbole.[168] The
division into seven is characteristic of Moslem cosmography. The Koran
itself says (LXV, 12): “Seven are the astronomical heavens and seven the
earths, as are seven the seas, the gates of hell and the mansions of
paradise.”[169] Dante, in dividing each of the realms of hell, purgatory
and paradise into ten regions, betrays a similar obsession for symmetry,
coupled with a belief in the esoteric virtue of a given number.[170]
Although the coincidence does not extend to the numbers themselves, the
principle underlying both cosmographies is the same.
Like the different circles of the Inferno, each of the stages of the
Moslem hell has a name of its own and certain physical features peculiar
to it, and is reserved for one class of sinners condemned to one
particular torture. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to reduce
to one scheme the heterogeneous descriptions furnished in the tales.
Nor is it claimed that they agree in detail with Dante’s description of
hell. But a brief review of some of these tales will, notwithstanding the
simplicity of the setting, reveal the general features of resemblance
mentioned above. Thus a tradition dating from the second century of
the Hegira gives the divisions of hell, reckoned downwards, as the
following[171]:—
1. _Jahannam_, or Gehenna, for Moslems guilty of deadly sins.
2. _Lazi_, or glowing fire, for Christians. 3. _Al-Hatma_,
or greedy fire, for Jews. 4. _As-Sair_, or flaming fire, for
Sabians. 5. _Saqar_, or burning fire, for Zoroastrians. 6.
_Al-Jahim_, or intense fire, for polytheists. 7. _Al-Hawiya_,
or abysm, for hypocrites.
Other traditions classify the seven earths into which God divided our
planet and which correspond to the seven stages of hell, as follows[172]:—
1. _Adim_, or surface, inhabited by mankind. 2. _Basit_, or
plain, the prison of the winds, inhabited by men that eat
their own flesh and drink their own blood. 3. _Thaqil_, or
region of distress, the antechamber of hell in which dwell
men with the mouth of a dog, the ears of a goat, the cloven
hoof of an ox and the wool of a sheep. 4. _Batih_, or place
of torrents, a valley through which flows a stream of boiling
sulphur to torment the wicked; the dwellers in this valley
have no eyes and in place of feet, have wings. 5. _Hayn_, or
region of adversity, in which serpents of enormous size devour
the infidels. 6. _Masika_, or store and _Sijin_, or dungeon,
the office where sins are recorded and where the souls are
tormented by scorpions of the size of mules. 7. _As-Saqar_, or
place of burning, and _Athara_, place of damp and great cold;
this is the home of Iblis, who is chained in the midst of the
rebel angels, his hands fastened one in front of and the other
behind him, except when set free by God to chastise his fiends.
It need hardly be pointed out how great the distance is that separates
this scheme, childish in its simplicity, from the complex moral structure
of Dante’s hell. It should be borne in mind, however, that here we are
not dealing with the systematic works of accomplished writers—they will
be discussed at a later stage—but with popular tales that lived, and
still live, in the mouth of the illiterate people; and they are quoted,
not as counterparts of the Inferno, but as rough sketches, in which
analogies, even of detail, with the poem are to be found.[173] Thus, the
second stage is, like Dante’s second circle, a place of winds; and in
the fifth region enormous serpents devour the sinners, as in the eighth
circle of Dante they do the thieves. Again, the glacial region of the
last surface is an exact counterpart of Dante’s lowest circle, with
Lucifer corresponding to Iblis the Moslem king of evil; Iblis, moreover,
appears chained with one hand in front and one behind, just as does the
giant Ephialtes.[174]
As more and more traditions come to be consulted, each adding fresh
picturesque details, the description will be found to lose its original
baldness and acquire a relief as marked as that of Dante’s picture.
These tales were collected by the ascetics of Islam, who have handed
the collections down to us in their writings.[175] A comparison of
the picture of the Moslem hell with the Inferno shows a remarkable
resemblance. Like the latter, the former is depicted with a wealth of
orographic, hydrographic and architectural features—rocks, hills and
mountains, chasms and valleys; rivers, lakes and seas; sepulchres,
dungeons, castles and bridges. As in the Inferno, many of these
topographical features bear special names; and, again, in the naming the
same principles are followed as in Dante. The latter either names the
regions after the sinners suffering in them, such as the abodes of the
traitors[176]; or, like the eighth circle, Malebolge, from the physical
and moral conditions of the place itself. Apart from the names of the
principal stages that are quoted above, the hell of Islam has many names
for special topographical features.
Thus, a mountain formed of the smoke of hell is named _Zal
Yahmum_; a rock on which libertines are tortured is called
_Sijin_, or dungeon; _Khandaq as-sokran_ is the name of a pit
from the bottom of which spring water and blood wherewith
drunkards seek to quench their thirst; _Maubiq_, or perdition,
is a valley through which runs a river of fire; _Atham_, or
place of crimes, is the name of another valley; _Al-Wayl_,
or misery, is the deepest of the valleys, in which the pus
from the sores of the sinners gathers and is drunk by the
polytheists; _Al-Khabal_, or ruin, and _Al-Hazan_, or sorrow,
are the names of two other valleys; _Lamlam_ is the name of a
round valley, the intense heat of which strikes terror into the
hearts of all the dwellers in hell; _Al-Gassaq_, or infection,
is a spring from which flows sweat exuded by serpents, in the
poisonous waters of which the flesh of the damned rots away
from the bone.[177] Some regions take their names from famous
sinners, such as the abode of tyrants, from Pharaoh; that of
the polytheists, from Abu Jahl; and so forth.[178]
From this brief summary it will be seen that the hell of primitive Islam
agrees with Dante’s hell in being an abyss of great depth, formed of
stages, steps or circular strata, each lying at a depth proportionate
to the torture meted out therein; each main stage is subdivided into a
number of secondary storeys; and in both schemes the stages or steps bear
special names and are set apart for certain categories of sinners.
The agreement in outline between the two conceptions cannot be explained
on the ground that both were derived from a common early Christian
model; for the eschatology of early Christianity, both Occidental and
Oriental, is of marked sobriety.[179] Nor is it in Islam that the origin
of this complex architectural scheme must be sought, but farther East,
particularly in Buddhism.[180]
3. The outlines of hell, traced by the early Moslem traditionists, were
filled in with a wealth of detail by the theologians of later centuries;
the mystics, especially, enhanced the tales with fantastic comment and
even endeavoured graphically to represent by means of designs the picture
thus formed.
Prominent among the mystics living before Dante’s time was Ibn Arabi of
Murcia, whose allegorical ascensions have been shown to be curiously
similar to the work of Dante.[181] Entire chapters of his monumental
work, _Futuhat_, are devoted to the description of hell, which is
represented in the traditional manner as a pit or abyss of fabulous
depth, formed of seven steps or circular strata.[182] The innovations
introduced by the Sufi are, however, of great interest. Above all,
the sinners are distributed among the seven circles according to the
nature of their sins and the organ, or part of the body, with which
they committed them, viz., the eyes, ears, tongue, hands, belly,
pudenda, and feet. Thus, the principle governing the distribution is
no longer dogmatic, but, as in the Divine Comedy, ethical. Ibn Arabi,
indeed, combines both principles, inasmuch as he subdivides each circle
into quadrants, reserved for unbelievers, polytheists, atheists, and
hypocrites respectively. In addition, and on a different principle,
each circle is divided into semi-circles—the one for sinners guilty
of _external_ sin, or sin actually committed; the other for those who
committed the same sin _internally_, or in thought. Finally, each circle
is composed of a hundred secondary circles or steps, subdivided into
abodes or cells, the total number of which equals the number of mansions
in heaven.[183] But Ibn Arabi goes further than this. Accustomed to the
use of geometrical design for the illustration of the most abstruse
metaphysical thought, he has recourse to this means for interpreting his
conception of hell.[184] As a follower of the school of Ibn Masarra, he,
like other Spanish Sufis, conceived hell to have the external aspect
of a serpent.[185] And indeed, as the Moslem hell, like that of Dante,
consists of a structure of circular layers or strata, the diameter of
which decreases with their depth, the whole seen from above in ground
plan would provide a figure formed of concentric circles not unlike the
spiral formed by the coils of a serpent. This is, in fact, the plan that
Ibn Arabi has given us in his _Futuhat_[186] and which is here reproduced
in Fig. 1.
The Dantists also, in graphic illustration of the poet’s descriptions,
have drawn designs of the architectural plan of hell and the other
regions beyond the grave. Thus, Manfredi Porena in his “Commento grafico
alla Divina Commedia per use delle scuole” (Milan, 1902) gives a ground
plan of Dante’s hell (see upper part of Fig. 2) that is almost identical
with Ibn Arabi’s design, the main difference lying in the number of
circles, of which there are ten in Dante and seven in Ibn Arabi.
Porena also gives the elevation of the inferno (see lower part of Fig.
2), which resembles the section of an amphitheatre having ten steps or
tiers. The same elevation appears in Fraticelli’s edition of the Divine
Comedy. Ibn Arabi does not give us this figure, but the elevation of
the Islamic hell was drawn by the Sufis and their design appears in the
Turkish encyclopædia, “Maʿrifet Nameh,” by Ibrahim Hakki.[187] A glance
at the reproduction of this design in Fig. 3 will show it to be identical
with the elevation of Dante’s hell.
[Illustration: Fig. 1]
[Illustration: Fig. 2]
[Illustration: Fig. 3]
IV
THE MOSLEM HELL IN THE DIVINE COMEDY—_continued_
1. Having studied the setting, we may now proceed to a consideration
of the personages appearing in hell and the tortures they suffer. The
comparison with the _Miraj_ revealed general features of resemblance in
this respect, such as the observance, in the infliction of the tortures,
of what Dantists aptly term the law of the _contrapasso_. Other analogies
in the systems of punishment may be passed over as being due possibly to
parallel and independent imitation of the mediæval _lex talionis_.[188]
More interesting is the resemblance of picturesque detail to be found in
actual episodes of the two descriptions.
Setting out on our task in the footsteps of Dante and his guide we
are at once struck by the fact that they never turn to the right, but
always to the left. To this apparently insignificant detail the Dantists
have rightly attributed an allegorical meaning. They seem, however, to
have overlooked the fact that this is in reality a Moslem feature; for
the mystics, and particularly Ibn Arabi, taught that in hell there is
no right hand, just as in heaven there is no left hand. The belief is
based on a text of the Koran, which says that the blessed are guided on
their way to glory by the light of their virtues shining on their right
hand—whence Ibn Arabi infers that the damned move towards the left.[189]
2. In the second circle Dante sees the adulterers swept hither and
thither in the darkness of a hellish storm. An outline of this scene
appeared in Version B of Cycle 1 of the _Miraj_; and, as has just been
seen, in the legends describing the division of the Moslem hell into
seven stages or tiers the second is also referred to as the region of
winds. In addition, there is a tale attributed to Mahomet that says:
“In hell there blows a dark storm of wind, with which God torments such
of the wicked as He chooses.”[190] This wind is the same dread gale
that God sent to punish the city of Ad for its wickedness, a scene
that is repeatedly described in terms similar to those used by Dante,
in the commentaries on the Koran and the collections of legends of the
Prophet.[191]
A black cloud or storm, a hurricane wraps all in gloom except
for the sinister light from what appears to be a flame in its
midst; a dry and desolating wind roars as it whirls around;
the ground trembles under the perpetual blast, which sweeps
all before it; with each violent gust men and women are swept
along, thrown up into the air and dashed to the ground; this
hurricane is the dread instrument of Divine vengeance, the
merciless torture of sinners who gave themselves up to the
delights of the senses, to gluttony and lust; tossed hither and
thither by the gale and smitten by the wind, they cry out in
bitter anguish.
Compare this scene with that described by Dante: A hellish storm, a wind
of utter darkness but for streaks of purple light[192] blows furiously
without ceasing; roaring like the sea in tempest, it sweeps the lustful
along in its whirl, turning them around, vexing and bruising them; it
carries them now in this, then in that direction, it throws them up and
casts them down; and, as it wounds them, it wrings cries of pain and
anguish from the sufferers.
As may be seen, the similarity of the descriptions extends to the very
wording of the texts.[193]
3. Let us now descend to the sixth circle of the inferno. Version B of
Cycle 2 of the legend of the _Miraj_ told how Mahomet beheld a sea of
fire, on the shores of which stood cities formed of countless fiery
sepulchres, in which the wicked lie tortured. The literal resemblance of
this scene to the city of Dis in the sixth circle, described in Cantos
IX, X and XI of the Inferno, was remarked upon above.[194] It may be
added here that the punishment of sinners in coffins of fire is mentioned
in several other Moslem legends describing the tortures of hell.[195]
4. The torture of the Sodomites in the third ring of the seventh
circle also has its parallel in the Moslem hell. Dante depicts them as
unceasingly treading the circle they inhabit, under a rain of fire that
sears their naked bodies.[196] One of the sinners is his former master,
Brunetto Latini, and, as he walks awhile with him, he expresses his
astonishment and grief at finding him there, for he remembers the wise
teaching he received from him on earth.
A double series of Moslem traditions may be quoted as prototypes of this
episode. In the first place, the Moslem hell contains a torture very
similar to that of the rain of fire:
A rain of boiling water or molten brass will fall unceasingly
upon their heads and, penetrating their skin, will eat away
their entrails and emanate from between their feet, when the
body will return to its former state.[197]
More specifically, though indeed referring to the fate of the wicked at
the final judgment, it is stated in the Koran (LV, 35): “Upon you shall
God send down flames of fire and molten brass.”
The second group of tales refers to the punishment of the wise men whose
conduct was at variance with their teaching.
“Cast into hell, they will be made to go round and round
without rest, even as a donkey in turning the wheel of a well
or a mill. Some of their disciples, on beholding them from
heaven, will descend and accompany them in their ceaseless
rotation, asking, ‘What has brought you hither, seeing that it
was but from you we learnt?’ In other versions the disciple
exclaims: ‘Master! What has befallen thee? Didst not thou haply
teach us what to do and what not to do?’ In other versions
again they ask, ‘How came ye to enter hell seeing that we
gained heaven but by your teaching?’ To which the sages make
reply: ‘We bade you do what was right, but we ourselves did
otherwise.’”[198]
As will be seen, the similarity between the two texts, the Moslem and the
Christian, extends down to the very form of expression.
5. The first valley of Malebolge, Dante’s eighth circle, contains the
panders, who, as they hurry naked through the valley, are scourged by
fiends.[199] This is the very punishment allotted by Moslem tradition
to those that neglected the rite of prayer or falsely accused people of
adultery—angels or fiends, the tradition runs, shall whip both classes of
sinners, smiting them cruelly on the face, ribs and shoulders.[200]
As for the flatterers, whom immersed in filth Dante places in the second
chasm,[201] their punishment is equivalent to that of the drunkards in
the Moslem hell, whose thirst is quenched with the loathsome lees of
hell, the sweat, the pus and the blood flowing from the wounds of the
other sinners.[202]
The third fosse of Malebolge is set with pits of fire, in which the
Simonists are roasted head downwards. A parallel to this scene is the
Moslem torture of murderers, who are likewise held in pits of fire.[203]
6. On reaching the fourth pit, Dante meets with a procession of sinners
whose necks he describes as being strangely twisted, for their faces
are turned towards their backs. More than once he seeks to describe the
strange sight, by saying that the tears of these souls fell down their
backs, that their shoulders were turned into their breasts, that they
walked backwards, and so forth.[204]
This curious torture, the originality of which has often been commented
on, would seem to be but an adaptation of a passage in the Koran, which
reads:—
“Ye that have received the Scriptures, beware of disbelieving
in what God has sent down from heaven in witness of your holy
books, _lest We should wipe out your features and turn your
faces in the opposite direction_.”[205]
The warning that God is thus supposed to address to the Jews who denied
the truth of the Koran, was variously interpreted both in a literal and
figurative sense. The ninth century commentator Tabari has recorded
the different meanings.[206] But the literal interpretation prevailed,
supported as it was by a belief in Islam, based on Talmudic legend,
according to which some of the demons appear to man in the same distorted
shape.[207] Moslem tales of the Day of Judgment also depict certain
sinners as brought to life again in this condition—with their faces
turned towards their backs they read their sentence, which is fixed to
their shoulders.[208] The very vividness of the picture stamped it on
the Moslem mind with the result that it was used both in the popular
sermons addressed to the Moriscoes and in the works of thinkers such as
Algazel.[209]
7. The torture of hypocrites in the sixth pit of Malebolge also appears
to be an adaptation from two scenes, common in Moslem tradition, blended
into one. Dante depicts them as walking slowly along, groaning under
the weight of leaden mantles, the external gilt of which dazzles the
eye.[210] In the Arabian tales of the Day of Judgment misers are punished
by being obliged to walk on and on without rest under the weight of
the hoards they had gathered on earth[211]; and both the Koran and the
traditions of Islam represent sinners, particularly carnal sinners, as
being clothed in tunics or mantles of metal glowing with heat.[212]
While conversing with two of the hypocrites the poet is horror-stricken
at the sight of the awful suffering of Caiaphas, who lies impaled upon
the ground and writhes in agony as he is trampled under foot by the other
hypocrites.[213]
This is another instance of the artistic blending of scenes
characteristic of the Moslem legends on the after-life. A _hadith_,
attributed to Ibn Abbas, describing in pathetic language the tortures of
the final judgment and hell, contains the following passage:—
“How many youths of tender age and fresh in features will be
crying out in hell: ‘Alas, my unhappy childhood, my luckless
youth! Woe is me that my strength should have failed me and my
young body been so wretched in its weakness!’ For they will lie
in bitter affliction fixed to the ground with stakes.”[214]
The complementary scene is related in the following apocryphal tradition:—
“He who in this life treats his neighbour with contempt will be
brought to life again on the Day of Judgment in the figure of
an ant and all mankind will trample him under foot. Thereafter
he shall enter hell.”[215]
8. The seventh pit of Malebolge is the place where thieves expiate their
crimes. Dante sees them rushing hither and thither in a vain attempt to
escape the hydras that, after seizing and twining themselves around their
victims, sting them in the neck, face and navel with fangs so poisonous
that their flesh is consumed and reduced to ashes, only to reappear for
the torture to be renewed.[216] Dante enhances his description with
features borrowed from the classical poets, more particularly Ovid. If
these are eliminated, the picture will be found to agree very fairly
with several scenes of torture that abound in Moslem tales of the final
judgment and hell, especially the tales of the _Corra_, the collection
that has so often been drawn upon for the purposes of this work.[217] If
allowance is made for Oriental hyperbole, a comparison with the following
will at once suggest a likeness between the two:—
“On the Day of Judgment the miser who had refused to give the
ritual alms will find himself face to face with a serpent of
great size, with eyes of fire and teeth of iron, which will
pursue him saying, ‘Give me thy miserly right hand that I may
tear it from thee.’ The miser will attempt to flee, whereupon
the serpent will say, ‘Where dost thou hope to find refuge
from thy sins?’ and, coiling itself around him, will bite off
his right hand and devour it, when the hand will at once grow
again. Thereupon the serpent will devour his left hand, which
likewise will reappear. At each bite of the serpent, the miser
will utter such a shriek of pain that all around him will be
stricken with horror.”—“In the valley of hell called Lamlam
there are snakes, as thick as a camel’s neck and as long as
a month’s journey, that sting all who neglected the rite of
prayer; the poison they inject burns the flesh throughout
seventy years.”—“There is another valley in hell called the Sad
Valley, in which are scorpions like black mules, each provided
with seventy fangs swollen with poison to sting the sinners
who were remiss in prayer; the virus they deposit burns in
the wounds a thousand years, when the flesh of their victims
rots away.”—“The drunkard will be taken to a den full of
scorpions as large as camels, which will seize hold of him by
the feet.”—“Usurers will lie in hell with their bellies open
and swarming with snakes and scorpions.”—“Adulterers will be
stung by serpents in the very parts of their bodies on which
they bestowed their kisses.”—“The infidel will be seized by the
hydra of the naked head, which will devour his flesh from head
to foot, but the flesh will grow again over his bones so that
the hydra may again devour it from foot to head.”
9. As Dante sets foot in the ninth pit of Malebolge he meets with a sight
so awful that he is at a loss for words to describe it.[218] A crowd of
sinners guilty of having sown discord among men are being driven round
the valley by demons who with sharp swords cut them in twain; but as the
victim moves on the wounds heal, only to be opened afresh on his return.
Three scenes of torture particularly attract the poet’s attention.
Mahomet, with his entrails trailing at his feet, is seen following his
cousin Ali, who appears cut open from chin to belly. Mosca degli Uberti,
whose hands have been cut off, raises his bleeding stumps as he makes
himself known to Dante. Finally, Bertrand de Born appears decapitated,
holding his head by the hair in his hand like a lantern.
The outlines of this scene in general and of the three episodes already
existed in Moslem legend.
“He who takes his own life”—says a tradition[219]—“shall with
the same knife be done to death throughout eternity by the
angels in the valleys of hell.... At each stab a jet of blood
blacker than pitch will spout from the wound, which will heal
again at once for the torture to be repeated without end.”
The picture that Dante draws of Mahomet and Ali occurs in many Moslem
tales of hell, one of which depicts two groups of sinners as follows:—
“Cursing and wailing they tread the space between two circles
of hell; the ones drag their entrails behind them as they go;
the others are spewing blood and matter.”
Variants of these legends depict the sinners treading, like an ass that
turns the wheel of a grindstone, round and round the valley in hell,
with their entrails, torn out by the fiends, trailing behind them. The
very same torture, moreover, was allotted to two men notorious throughout
Islam for their cruelty, the fifth Ommeyad Caliph Abd al-Malik Ibn Marwan
and his bloodthirsty general Al-Hajjaj, whom tradition represented either
as walking in hell with their bowels dangling between their legs, or as
being assassinated seventy times for each murder they had committed on
earth.[220]
The bloody fate of Mosca degli Uberti also has its Moslem counterpart in
the torture of thieves and the avaricious:—
“He who bereaves another of a part of his wealth shall on the
Day of Judgment appear before God bereft of both hands.”[221]
Lastly, the horrifying apparition of Bertrand de Born would seem to be
but an artistic adaptation of a scene in a Moslem description of the
final judgment:—
“On that day the victim of murder will appear before God
carrying in one hand his head hanging by the hair, with the
blood pouring from the veins of his neck and, dragging his
murderer with him, will cry out ‘Oh, Lord! Ask Thou of this man
why he killed me.’”[222]
10. In the last chasm of Malebolge deceivers and falsifiers of all
kinds are seen undergoing various forms of torture; some lie piled one
upon the other or drag themselves along on all fours; itching all over,
they scratch the scab from off their sores or tear one another with
their teeth; others lie with swollen bellies, suffering unquenchable
thirst.[223]
In Version B of Cycle 2 of the _Miraj_ three similar scenes were
described, showing the tortures suffered by slanderers, usurers and
drunkards. Many other tales in Islam also depict the torture of sinners
in terms greatly resembling those of Dante. Thus it is said, “The itch
will seize upon the sinners, who will scratch themselves to the bone;”
or, “They will suffer such pangs of hunger that they will devour their
own bodies”; or, again, “A maddening thirst will consume them and they
will cry out, ‘Oh, but for a sip of water to slake my thirst!’”[224]
V
THE MOSLEM HELL IN THE DIVINE COMEDY (CONCLUSION)
1. To reach the place allotted to the traitors, Dante and his guide are
obliged to cross a deep chasm inhabited by sinners of giant stature
who have been guilty of rebellion against God. The chief of these are
Nimrod and the giants of classical mythology, Ephialtes, Briareus, and
Antaeus. The last-named takes the poets in his hand and gently deposits
them in the abyss of the lowest circle.[225] Dante delights in describing
the giants in terms of hyperbole. The head of Nimrod appears to him as
large as the Cone of St. Peter’s, or rather more than five fathoms in
height and width; his other members are in proportion, so that his total
stature, according to the commentators, would be forty-three fathoms.
The Christian works prior to the Divine Comedy provide no satisfactory
explanation of this scene. True, the personality of the giants is well
defined in the Bible and in mythology, but none of these sources warrants
their being placed in hell. The Moslem sources, however, at once furnish
a key to the riddle. The eschatological books of Islam devote whole
chapters to the tales of the Prophet describing the enormous stature of
the infidels who, like Dante’s giants, occupy the lowest circle of hell
and whose proportions are measured, hyperbolically indeed, but with a
mathematical exactitude similar to that displayed by Dante.[226]
“On the Day of Judgment the infidels will appear with black
faces, their stature increased to a height of sixty fathoms
and their heads crowned with a diadem of fire....” “The bodies
of the sinners are of the size of mountains.... Each of
their teeth is as large as a man and the rest of their body
is in proportion. Their thighs are as big as Mount Albaida
(three miles distant from Mecca). The space they fill when
seated is as the distance from Mecca to Medina. Their bodies
are so massive that a roaring noise, as of wild beasts, is
heard between the skin and the flesh. Their total stature is
forty-two fathoms.”
The object of giving the victim this monstrous size is simply to provide
more material for torture. Finally, the hypothesis of the Moslem origin
of Dante’s picture is supported by two facts—the one, that Iblis lies
in the lowest circle chained in the same curious manner as the giant
Ephialtes, with one hand in front and the other behind[227]; the other,
that Islam relegates Nimrod and Pharaoh, as the prototypes of Satanic
pride, to the same region in which Iblis suffers punishment for his
rebellion.[228] Dante accuses Nimrod of the same sin of rebellion and
places him at the entrance to the lowest circle, that of Lucifer.
2. One and the same torture, that of cold, is suffered by all sinners
in this lowest circle. The lake Cocytus, which fills the entire space,
is kept frozen by the icy blast from the wings of Lucifer; and in its
congealed waters traitors of four different classes are shown in diverse
attitudes.[229]
It need hardly be remarked that Biblical eschatology makes no mention
of any torture of cold in hell. The Moslem doctrine, however, places
this torture on the same footing as torture by fire.[230] True, the
Koran alludes to it but vaguely in saying that the blessed shall suffer
neither from the heat of the sun nor the cold of _zamharir_.[231] But, as
comment on this passage, there arose a number of traditions, attributed
to Mahomet, in which intense cold is acknowledged as a torture of hell
and, indeed, a torture more painful even than that of heat.[232] Its
introduction into the Moslem scheme of hell was due, not merely to
a desire for symmetry and antithesis in torture, but rather to the
assimilation by Islam of a Zoroastrian belief. The theologian Jahiz,
writing in the ninth century, says that this torture is peculiar to the
Persian hell of Zoroaster, by whose religion fire is held sacred.[233]
If, therefore, it is accepted unhesitatingly by Tabari a century
later, it is probable that it had in the meantime been introduced by
Zoroastrians converted to Islam. More interesting, however, than the
question of the remote origin, is the fact that some of the traditions
interpret the Koranic _zamharir_ as a frozen lake.[234] “What is the
_zamharir_ of hell?” they asked Mahomet, and he replied, “It is a pit
into which the unbeliever is cast, in which his members are rent asunder
by intense cold.” If it is borne in mind that the word had the scientific
meaning of “glacial wind” or “air of the atmospheric region intermediate
between the earth and the sphere of the moon”[235] it will be seen that,
as in Dante’s hell, the sinners of Islam suffered the double torment of
exposure to an icy blast of wind and contact with frozen water.
The picturesque description of the various attitudes in which Dante
depicts the different groups of traitors is a feature that constantly
recurs in the pictures of the Moslem hell, though not indeed in
connection with the torture of cold. Thus, a tradition attributed to
Ibn Abbas says that “some are punished standing, some lying on their
sides; others lie stretched out on their backs, or stand leaning on their
elbows; while many are to be seen hanging head downwards.”[236] A very
popular legend of hell adds:
“The fire will be well aware of the guilt of the sinners and
the suffering they deserve.... Thus, in some it will reach the
ankles; in others, the knees, the waist, the chest, and even
the neck.”[237]
One Moslem scene of torture is even identical with the most violent of
the postures in which Dante places the sinners in the frozen lake of
Cocytus:
“The fiends will seize the sinner from behind, will break his
ribs in twain and, bending back his belly, with his hair will
tie his feet.”[238]
3. At the bottom of the lowest pit of hell, that is to say, at the centre
of the earth, Dante places Lucifer, the king of the realm of pain, set in
the ice from the lower part of his chest downwards. Of gigantic stature
and monstrously misshapen, he bears on the trunk three faces, underneath
which are enormous wings shaped like the wings of a bat; the flapping of
these wings produces the icy wind that blows in this region. With his
three mouths he devours three traitors. Dante in terror manages to slip
between the hairy shoulders of Lucifer and the ice and reach the southern
hemisphere through a long subterranean passage. As he escapes, he beholds
the enormous legs of Lucifer hanging unsupported in the air; and Virgil
explains how the fallen angel, on being cast out of heaven, with his head
had struck the surface of the southern hemisphere and, penetrating to the
centre of the earth, had remained fixed there to that day.[239]
The originality of this picture has always been greatly admired. Graf,
bringing all his erudition and insight to bear on the subject, detects
three elements in the demonology of Dante—theological elements, based on
Thomistic doctrine; popular elements, in harmony with opinion current at
his time; and elements peculiar to Dante, such as he may have acquired
in exile, particularly at the University of Bologna.[240] Among the
last-named he includes this description, saying, “Questa mirabile
immaginazione è, per quanto io so, tutta propria di Dante.”
4. However much the power and beauty of Dante’s description are to be
admired, prototypes of it are not lacking in the theological literature
of Islam.
The position of Lucifer, fixed in the lowest pit of hell, has been shown
to be common to many Moslem descriptions. Nor, given the principle of the
division of sinners, could he be conceived in any other place; for the
Iblis of Islam being, like Lucifer, the father of all rebellion against
God, must necessarily suffer the severest torture.
But the similarity of the two conceptions extends even to the very nature
of the torture. Ibn Arabi definitely states that Iblis is exposed to the
torture of ice, and this assertion he bases on the fact that Iblis, like
all demons, is a genie and thus was created from fire; his punishment, he
infers, must therefore by contrast consist in exposure to the severest
cold, or _zamharir_.[241] Contemporaries of Ibn Arabi had on similar
grounds accounted for the immunity of the fiends from the effect of the
fire of hell. Thus, Abu-l-Hasan al-Ashari argues that the demons, being
fallen angels, were created from light and, accordingly, are insensible
to torture by fire.[242]
As to Lucifer’s monstrous appearance, the multiplicity of faces is the
very stigma that for their double-dealing is imposed upon traitors in
the Moslem hell; and Lucifer, it must be remembered, as a rebel against
God, is the arch-traitor and, as such, is confined by Dante in the
traitors’ pit. An early apocryphal tradition says: “He who in this world
has a double face and a double tongue, to him shall God give two faces
and two tongues in hell.”[243] Other early legends depict the fiends
also as two-headed monsters.[244] Even hell itself, considered not as
the place, but as the embodiment of tortures, is vividly represented as
a hydra-headed monster in Moslem legends of the Day of Judgment; with
its many mouths this monster devours sinners of different categories,
and some versions even fix the number at three.[245] Finally, the
many popular tales of fantastic voyages frequently describe similar
monsters—such as the beast named Malikan, which has two wings and
numerous heads and faces and devours the animals of the sea that land
upon its island; or Dahlan, which is depicted as a fiend that rides upon
a bird like an ostrich and seizes on all men that set foot upon its isle
in the Indian Ocean.[246]
There remains to be considered Dante’s description of the fall of Lucifer
from heaven. The only allusion in pre-Dante Christian literature to the
fall of Lucifer is the brief passage in the Gospel according to St.
Luke (X, 18): “And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall
from heaven.” The Koran, on the other hand, describes the rebellion and
expulsion from heaven of Iblis in more than seven passages[247]; and,
though no details of his descent are given, these were filled in by the
traditions depicting the punishment God inflicted on Adam and Eve, the
serpent and Iblis.[248] In addition, there exists a cycle of cosmogonical
legends, which serve to complete the myth of the fall of Iblis.
Mention has been made in a former chapter of tales describing the
division of the earth into seven floors or stages, which were identified
with the seven mansions of hell.[249] These tales were intended to
explain the cosmogonical legends above referred to; and all are in the
end but comment on a passage of the Koran to the effect that heaven and
earth were created as one sole mass and only later were separated and
each divided into several strata.[250]
“Immediately after their division,” the legend says, “God sent an angel
from His throne, who, falling upon the earth, penetrated the seven strata
thereof and there remained, sustaining them upon his shoulders, with one
hand stretched towards the East and the other towards the West, his feet
lacking all support.”[251]
The legend does not indeed identify Iblis with this angel, but the fact
that he was sent from the very throne of God and _fell_ to earth would
seem to favour the suggestion.
The two myths, blended together, may well have served as a model for
Dante’s picture. That there exist grounds for this hypothesis may be
shown by a review of the different features of resemblance furnished
by the Moslem descriptions. Iblis is an angel cast out of heaven for
rebellion against God, who, in falling to the earth, penetrates its
several strata and is embedded in the ice, with his feet unsupported;
although of gigantic stature—he supports the different strata—he is yet
an angel and thus provided with wings; but sin has changed his beauty
into hideousness and thus he appears as a many-headed beast that devours
men, as a monster that is half man, half ostrich.[252]
VI
THE MOSLEM PURGATORY IN THE DIVINE COMEDY
1. Through the dark and winding passage leading from the centre of the
earth to the surface of the southern hemisphere Dante and his guide pass
to reach the shores of purgatory, which the poet conceives as a lofty
mountain shaped like a truncated cone and set in the midst of a boundless
ocean. Seven terraces divide this mountain into as many mansions of
expiation, one for each capital sin; and at the foot two mansions form
the antechamber of purgatory, where the disobedient and negligent
spirits await admittance. On the table-land at the top of the mountain
and bordering on the sphere of the ether is the earthly paradise. The
mount of purgatory may thus be variously considered as consisting of
seven, nine or ten mansions, which are connected by a steep and arduous
path. The spirits in purgatory are those guilty merely of venial sin, or
of deadly sins for which full penitence has not been done; these they
expiate in the successive mansions under the guard of angels who guide
them in their ascent—a task that is rendered easier by the prayers of
their friends on earth. Dante, too, though only in a mystical sense, is
subjected to this progressive purification, the guardian angel marking
his brow seven times with the letter P, the symbol of sin, which is
washed away in each of the seven terraces. As they rise, the ascent
becomes easier and, finally, the poets reach the summit, or earthly
paradise, where, by bathing in the waters of two rivers, Dante cleanses
his soul and is prepared for his entry into heaven.
2. Nothing in Christian eschatology seems to warrant so detailed and
precise a description of the site of purgatory. Not until a century
after the appearance of the Divine Comedy did the existence of purgatory
as a special condition of the soul, engaged in temporary expiation of
sin, become a dogma of the Christian faith.[253] The site was never
mentioned, either at the Council of Florence held in that century, or at
the Council of Trent, or on any other occasion, for, as a matter of fact,
the Church has always endeavoured to avoid fantastic descriptions of the
realms beyond the grave, and particularly of purgatory.[254] Not that
purgatory was an innovation of the fifteenth century; indeed, the belief
in it was deeply rooted in scholastic and patristic tradition, as well
as in revealed doctrine. But the dogma never went beyond the admission
of its existence as a state of the soul, and ecclesiastical tradition,
especially of Western Christianity, was ever discreetly silent upon its
site and descriptive detail. Prior to Dante, only a few writers, such as
Hugh of St. Victor, St. Thomas and Ricardo de Media Villa, had made timid
attempts to portray purgatory, and their conceptions differed greatly
from Dante’s picture. Landino, accordingly, concludes his review of all
possible models, classical or Christian, with the remark: “Ma Dante,
huomo di mirabile ingegno e di mirabile inventione, trovo nuovo sito, il
quale niente e contra sustantialmente all opinione christiana.”[255]
3. As has been seen, Islam, the successor of Eastern Christianity,
admitted purgatory as a state of temporary penitence to be undergone by
all sinners that die in the true faith.[256] To determine its locality
and the nature of the trials to which the souls are subjected, it is
necessary to have recourse to the plethora of Islamic legends on the
after-life. The dogmas of the resurrection of the body and the final
judgment caused a certain confusion in the minds of the theologians who
were called upon to decide the question of the penalties and rewards
awaiting the soul during the time between death and the end of the world.
Are the souls alone, or the bodies also, subject to sanction? Can the
dead body feel physical pain and pleasure if it is not resuscitated in
the tomb? Again, what useful purpose can be served by final judgment,
if sentence and sanction are to begin at death? As it is impossible to
make a critical selection of the legends or to distinguish between tales
dealing with expiation immediately after death and those describing
purgation following upon final judgment, a few descriptive features taken
indiscriminately from the whole group of legends will be compared with
the corresponding scenes in Dante.
To begin with, the purgatory of Islam is represented as being near to,
but separate from hell; and, whereas the latter is placed in the interior
of the earth, the former is described as lying outside and above the
earth. This is clearly borne out by a tradition which, in addition to
this topographical feature, gives an outline of the expiation of sin[257]:
“There are two hells, or gehennas; the one the _internal_, the
other the _external_ fire. The former none shall ever leave,
but the latter is the place in which God chastises the faithful
for their sins. Then, when at His will the angels, prophets
and saints intercede on their behalf, the blackened bodies of
the sinners will be withdrawn from the fire and cast upon the
banks of a river in paradise, called the River of Life. When
sprinkled with the waters of the river they will come to life
again like seeds sprouting in dung. Their bodies made whole,
they will be bidden to enter the river and to wash themselves
and drink of its waters, so that later they may be called upon
to enter heaven. In heaven they will be known as the ‘Men of
Hell’ until such time as God shall consent to remove this
stigma, when the brow of each will bear the legend ‘Freedman of
God.’”
Thus, the final episode of Dante’s purgatory, in which, when the poet
enters the garden of the terrestrial paradise, the allegorical mark of
sin is wiped from off his brow and he is washed in the rivers of Lethe
and Eunoe, is given in this Moslem legend with typical details similar in
their turn to those already noted in versions of the _Miraj_.[258]
A tale of another cycle describes purgatory essentially as Dante
conceived it, as “a mount rising between hell and heaven on which the
sinners are imprisoned.”[259] True, purgatory here is either confused
or blended with the limbo, for the region is named _Al Aaraf_, and is
said to be inhabited by Moslem sinners whose sins are counterbalanced by
their virtues. But, inasmuch as these sinners, after being purified of
their sins in the River of Life, are capable of entering heaven, the
characteristics of purgatory may be said to prevail.
So far, then, the purgatory of Islam stands revealed as a hill or mount
definitely situated outside and above hell and rising between it and
heaven. The description is carried further in the legends, adopted by
Islam from Persian eschatology, that deal with the bridge or path that
has to be traversed by the souls before they can enter heaven.[260] The
Persian Chinvat, or luminous bridge, which stretches over the abyss of
hell between heaven and a mountain rising from the centre of the earth,
assumed in Islam the various forms of a path or road; a lofty structure,
vaulted bridge or viaduct; a natural bridge or slippery passage; or,
again, a slope or ramp difficult of ascent. With the exception of the
image of the bridge, these features reappear in the Purgatorio; and even
Dante’s mount is in reality but an enormous bridge, providing as it does
the only means of passing from earth to heaven and rising above hell,
or, rather, like the _sirat_ or path described in the Moslem books of
eschatology, above the back of the abyss of hell.[261]
4. Ibn Arabi, commenting in his _Futuhat_ upon the words attributed to
Mahomet on this point says, “the souls that are not cast into hell shall
be detained in the _sirat_, where strict account shall be taken of their
sins, for which they will be punished.” He adds that “the _sirat_ will be
over the back of hell and form the sole means of entering paradise.”[262]
In another passage he completes the picture saying, as if indeed he were
speaking of Dante’s conception, “the _sirat_ will rise in a straight line
from the earth to the surface of the stellar sphere and end in a meadow
lying outside the walls of the heavenly paradise; the souls will first
enter this meadow, called the paradise of delight.”[263]
In other legends two _sirats_ appear, and the souls that have succeeded
in passing the first without falling into hell are subjected to the
trial of the second. The latter is often represented as a high structure
(_cantara_) between hell and heaven, which serves as a place of temporary
expiation of sin: “in it the souls will be detained until they mutually
restore the debts that by their guilt they contracted on earth, and they
are purified”; whereupon angels will receive them with loving words of
welcome and guide them on the path that leads to eternal bliss.[264]
The resemblance of the purgatory of Islam to that of Dante is most
striking, however, in the form given to it by the mystics, who multiply
the primitive _cantara_, or place of expiation, into a number of
chambers, enclosures or abodes. As usual, it is Ibn Arabi who paints the
picture with the greatest detail.[265] In the legend of the Prophet that
he has handed down to us, there are fifty stations, distributed into four
main groups. Of these the last is the most interesting to us, since, like
Dante’s purgatory, it consists of seven enclosures, called bridges or
slippery passages, beset with obstacles which the souls have to surmount
by ascending seven steep slopes of a height hyperbolically couched in
terms of thousands of years. The principle on which these different
abodes of trial and expiation are distinguished is, as in Dante, ethical;
it is based on the seven capital sins of Islam, which consist in the
breaking of the rules of faith, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage,
ablution, and just dealing with one’s neighbour.
Once started in this direction, the imagination of the faithful soon
overstepped the narrow limits of the scheme outlined above, and the
topography was amplified by the addition of other partial purgatories of
ten, twelve, or fifteen sections. Here, again, the principle is ethical;
although it must be confessed that the distribution is neither logical
nor based on any philosophical or theological system, but is rather the
outcome of a desire on the part of the casuist to leave no wrongdoing
unpunished. The result is thus a heterogeneity of vices and failings.[266]
Judging by the wealth of detail with which the place of expiation is
described in the eschatology of Islam, it is evident, then, that in the
matter of topography Dante’s conception can hardly be claimed to be
original.
5. As for his description of the punishments of purgatory, no such claim
has ever been made. Indeed, having exhausted the whole gamut of suffering
in his picture of hell, he would no doubt find it difficult to conceive
new torments, so that a very brief comparison of Dante’s with the Moslem
scenes will be sufficient for our argument.
The disobedient and neglectful souls are punished merely by being
withheld indefinitely from the place of expiation. At the foot of the
mount they lie, awaiting the help of friends and relations, the prayers
of whom will shorten the term of Divine wrath. It is in this antechamber
of purgatory that Manfred of Sicily and Belacqua make themselves known to
Dante and implore him to give news of their sad fate to their friends on
earth. Under the shade of a rock Belacqua with his head between his knees
sits in an attitude of utter dejection.[267]
In the religious literature of Islam similar scenes abound in the form
of visions of souls in purgatory, who appear to their relations in their
sleep and beseech them to pray for their eternal rest.[268] One scene in
particular bears a striking resemblance to Dante’s description; Abu Dolaf
al-Ijli, a soldier of the time of Caliph Al-Mamun, appears to his son
Dolaf, who thus describes the vision:—
“In a dream I saw my father lying in a place of horror, with
dark walls around it and its floor covered with ashes. Naked
and sitting with his head resting upon his knees, he called
out to me, ‘Dolaf,’ and I replied, ‘May God have thee in His
keeping.’ Then did he recite the following verses: ‘Tell our
family of the fate awaiting them in this dread purgatory and
how account is taken of all our deeds. Hide nothing from them,
but thou, have pity on my awful loneliness and terrible fate.
If in death we were but left alone, it would at least be a
comfort to us! But, alas! We are brought to life again and must
answer for all our deeds.’ And with these words he vanished,
and I awoke.”[269]
6. The torments of Dante’s Purgatorio, like those of the Inferno, are
based on the principle of correlation between punishment and sin. Thus,
in the first circle the souls that are being purified of the sin of pride
are seen wending their way bowed down under a heavy load of stones. This
is the very suffering assigned by Islam to the avaricious and such as
grew rich by evil means. Tales attributed to Mahomet say[270]:—
“Men of my persuasion will come to me on the Day of Judgment,
their shoulders burdened with the goods of this world, and they
will implore my aid.... But I shall turn my back upon them,
saying, ‘the faith ye profess is known to me, but your deeds I
know not.’ For he who stole but a palm of land shall be obliged
by God to bear it upon his neck, down to the bottommost part of
the earth.”
Other legends depict the avaricious as vainly endeavouring to cross the
_sirat_ under the burden of their riches, or as wandering hither and
thither, borne down by the weight of their wealth.
In the second circle Dante portrays the envious with their eyelids sewn
together and weeping bitterly as they pray for pardon.
Blindness, though in a milder form, is also one of the punishments
reserved in Islam for those that failed to practise the virtues they
preached.[271] An apocryphal tradition of Mahomet runs:—
“He who reads the Koran but ignores its teaching shall appear
blind on the Day of Judgment. To his cry ‘Oh, Lord! Why hast
Thou brought me to life again, deprived of my sight, whereas
aforetime I could see?’ God will give answer, ‘Even as my words
reached thine eyes and thou didst heed them not, so shall I pay
no heed to thee to-day.’”
The wrathful, in Dante’s third circle, are enveloped in a cloud of smoke
so dense that although their voices can be heard, they themselves cannot
be seen.
This is the very torment, referred to in the Koran as a plague of smoke
that God will send on the Day of Judgment to punish them that mocked
His prophets.[272] The traditionists, in their comment on this passage,
filled in the details of the picture, which thus comes to bear a striking
resemblance to Dante’s scene.[273]
“The smoke will be so dense that the whole earth will resemble
a house that is on fire; the plague will last forty days and
forty nights, until the earth from East to West is full of
smoke, which will enter the eyes, ears and nostrils of the
infidels, suffocating and blinding them, and even the true
believers will suffer from faintness; men will call out one to
another, but though their voices will be heard, they themselves
will not be seen, so thick will be the fog.”
The punishment meted out in the fourth circle of the Purgatorio to the
slothful, who are made to run without ceasing, may be passed over as of
slight interest. More striking is the torture of the avaricious, in the
fifth circle, who as they lie face downwards on the ground, bound hand
and foot, bewail their fate with bitter tears.
Sadness and moral pain are among the typical features of the purgatory
of Islam that recur in the descriptions of the different abodes or
stations.[274]
“Should the soul have been guilty of any of these failings, it
will remain in its allotted abode a thousand years downcast and
ashamed, naked, hungered and athirst, until such time as it
shall have made restitution unto God.”
The peculiar posture, moreover, in which Dante depicts the avaricious, is
that in which, according to Islam, sinners in general, and inebriates in
particular, are found on the Day of Judgment and in purgatory itself. A
tradition of the Prophet runs: “He, who on earth made you walk upright,
may on the Day of Judgment cause you to walk upon your faces.”[275] And
the author of the _Corra_ describes the punishment of the drunkard as
follows: “He shall come to life again with his hands and feet fettered
and be obliged to drag himself along the ground.”[276] Of the passage of
the _sirat_ a tradition attributed to Mahomet says:
“Some will pass with the swiftness of a race-horse, of the
wind, or of lightning; others will merely run or walk; while
others, again, will crawl on all fours, like an infant, or drag
themselves along on their bellies.”[277]
In Dante’s sixth circle, where the vice of gluttony is punished, the
souls, famished and parched with thirst, are tantalised by the sight and
odour of the fruit of two trees, offshoots of the tree growing on high in
the earthly paradise.
As has just been seen, the cravings of hunger and thirst are
characteristic torments of the purgatory of Islam. It is a further
curious coincidence that in a Moslem legend narrating the passage of
the soul along the _sirat_, or path of expiation, this incident of the
tree should be thrice repeated.[278] Three trees grow by the side of the
path at different stages, the last one standing at the gate of paradise.
The soul, in its painful progress, begs to be allowed to rest in their
shade and eat of their luscious fruit, and God finally grants the prayer.
Though the ending is different, the general outline of the incident is
very similar in both stories.
The last circle of the Purgatorio is the place of expiation of the sin
of lust. Tormented with thirst and scorched by the flames, the souls cry
aloud to God for forgiveness. Dante speaks to several who are known to
him, and they entreat him to intercede on their behalf.
Fire is the most common of all the torments, occurring as it does in
almost every eschatological system; in some, indeed, it constitutes the
only form of punishment. It would, therefore, be superfluous to point
out parallel scenes in Islamic descriptions of the after-life.[279]
The Moslem traditionists, however, are careful to distinguish between
the expiatory flames of purgatory and the eternal fire of hell. The
former, being temporary and merely serving to purify, are limited both
as to duration and extent, proportionately to the nature of the sin for
which atonement is being made. Numerous are the legends describing the
different degrees of this torture and telling of the laments and prayers,
addressed by the sufferers to the angels, Mahomet, and the saints,
begging them to intercede with God on their behalf.[280]
VII
THE EARTHLY PARADISE OF ISLAM IN THE DIVINE COMEDY.
1. The summit of the Mount of Purgatory is a broad table-land, which
Dante describes as a garden of great beauty. This is the earthly
paradise, or Garden of Eden, in which our first ancestors dwelt while
yet in a state of innocence. As he treads the ground, which is fragrant
with flowers, a gentle breeze, laden with the perfumes of paradise,
fans his tear-stained cheeks. In the shade of verdant trees, the
rustling of whose leaves murmurs a soft accompaniment to the song of a
thousand birds, he comes to a limpid stream, whose course he follows;
here he walks, accompanied by a fair maiden, Matilda, who, gathering
flowers as she trips along the further bank, explains to him the nature
of the garden. Virgil’s mission is now ended, and he is soon to leave
Dante; for, of a sudden, they behold advancing from beyond the stream a
marvellous procession of maidens and elders, who, richly attired, lead in
triumph a car in which, surrounded by angelic spirits and greeted with
songs of welcome, appears Beatrice, the poet’s beloved. Calling him by
name, she sternly rebukes Dante for his disregard of the holy counsel she
gave him in his dreams, for his faithlessness in following other less
worthy loves, and for his sins. Dante, confused and repentant, confesses
his unworthiness. He is then immersed by Matilda and the maidens that
serve Beatrice in the stream of Lethe, on whose banks they are gathered,
and upon drinking of its waters loses all memory of sin. Thereafter he
succumbs to sleep in the shade of the tree of paradise, and finally, is
bathed in the waters of Eunoe, from which he emerges “born again, even
as trees renewed with fresh foliage, pure and ready to mount to the
stars.”[281]
Graf, after minute study of the mediæval legends bearing on the earthly
paradise, has shown that there existed precedents for the site chosen by
Dante, inasmuch as others before him had laid this garden in the southern
hemisphere and on the peak of a high mountain.[282] But he asserts that
no one before Dante had thought of placing it precisely on the summit
of purgatory. An examination of Islamic literature will therefore be
of interest, as it may furnish the key to this riddle of topography by
revealing analogies both in outline and in detail with this closing scene
of the Purgatorio.
2. From the earliest centuries in Islam the question of the site of the
garden in which God had placed Adam and Eve had given rise to animated
controversy. The passages in which the Koran tells the Biblical story
in a slightly altered form, led to a confusion between this paradise and
the abode of glory, thus causing it to be laid in heaven.[283] According
to another interpretation, however, it was supposed to be situated on
earth, more precisely, in the East and on the highest of all mountains.
This explanation, whilst more in keeping with the Biblical narrative, had
the advantage of being reconcilable with the words used in the Koran; for
the expulsion of Adam and Eve to the earth would merely mean that God
drove them from the summit to the foot of the mountain[284]; it would
also account for the delights of the Garden of Eden and its difference
from other places on the surface of the earth. This view, though indeed
held from early times, was mainly propounded by the _Mutazili_ heretics,
the philosophers and the mystics. A Spanish _Mutazili_ ascetic of the
ninth century, Mondir ibn Said al-Belloti, who was chief cadi of Cordova,
was its most ardent champion; and in the tenth century it became popular
throughout Islam through the _Rasail_ or encyclopædia compiled by the
_Ikhwan as-safa_, or Brethren of Purity, a heretical sect established in
Basra.
“Lying on the summit of the Mountain of the Hyacinth, which
no human being may ascend, paradise was a garden of the East;
a soft breeze blew day and night, winter and summer, over
its perfumed ground. The garden was well watered by streams
and shaded by lofty trees; it was full of luscious fruit, of
sweet-smelling plants, of flowers of different kinds; harmless
animals lived there and birds of song....”[285]
The earthly paradise that is here depicted in terms similar to those used
by Dante was situated, therefore, on the summit of the highest mountain
of the earth. Exactly which mountain was referred to is not easy to
determine, for on this point opinion differed. Some authors placed it
in Syria or in Persia; others in Chaldea or in India.[286] Eventually
the belief that it lay in the last-named country was the most generally
accepted.[287] The Brethren of Purity refer to the mountain as the “Mount
of the Hyacinth,” which, according to Arab geographers, is the mountain
rising in Ceylon, now known as “Adam’s Peak.”[288] Rising out of the
Indian Ocean to a height of seven thousand feet, it is visible from afar
at sea, and this fact would no doubt account for the exaggerated height
attributed to it, for its summit was supposed to reach to the sky.
The very name the mountain still bears is a perpetuation of the Islamic
legend. Ibn Batutah, of Tangier, the famous fourteenth century traveller,
who journeyed to the ends of the world, as it was then known, has left us
a picturesque description of its difficult ascent, which Moslem pilgrims
were wont to undertake in the belief that a rock on the summit bore the
footprint of our father Adam.[289]
A high mount, rising in the middle of an island in the ocean covering the
southern hemisphere is, in Dante’s conception, the site of the earthly
paradise. According to Islam, it is a high mountain rising in the middle
of an island in the Indian Ocean.[290] Dante’s, it is true, is but a
small isle lying in the antipodes of Jerusalem, whereas the island of
Ceylon is larger and is situated on the equator; but the difference in
topography is slight.[291]
3. As Graf has pointed out, however, Dante’s conception of the site of
the earthly paradise was no novelty in mediæval Christian literature,
so that coincidence with Islam on this point alone would not suffice as
proof of Moslem influence. But, as mentioned above, there is an element
in Dante’s topography that Graf does not hesitate to ascribe to the
poet’s inventive genius, to wit, the position of the earthly paradise
on the summit of the mount of expiation, and its conception as the goal
of the sinner in his arduous ascent and the last stage of purgation, in
which the soul is cleansed of sin and made fit to cross the threshold of
eternal bliss.[292]
Among the many Moslem legends dealing with the entry of the souls into
the theological heaven there is a whole cycle describing their adventures
from the time they finally emerge from the _sirat_ or path of purgatory.
Close to the _sirat_, and forming as it were the last stage of purgatory,
lies the marvellous garden of paradise, which, although not indeed stated
to be the earthly paradise, is depicted with all the features proper to
it. Its pleasant pastures, gay with flowers, are watered by two rivers,
and two only, in which the souls are immersed and cleansed from sin,
and of whose waters they drink; upon emerging, the souls rest, as does
Dante, in the shade of trees and are then led by a choir of angels to
the abode of glory. But a still more remarkable coincidence is, that on
the threshold of the celestial mansion the soul is welcomed by a maiden
of surpassing beauty, his promised bride, who for long has awaited his
coming, yearning to be united with him in a love at once spiritual and
chaste.
4. The resemblance to Dante’s picture borne by this brief sketch is
such as to call for a more detailed examination of these legends and a
comparison of this episode with Dante’s story. Originating in the form of
gloss on a verselet of the Koran, the myth in its earliest and crudest
version reads as follows:[293]
“The souls that are about to enter paradise first come to two
springs; they drink of the waters of the one, and God blots
all rancour and hatred from their hearts; they bathe in the
waters of the other, and their complexions become brilliant,
and the purity and splendour of bliss is seen shining on their
faces.”[294]
These bare outlines were soon filled in by the traditionists, who in the
course of time built up the story that has been handed down to us in
its most complete and classical form by Shakir ibn Muslim, of Orihuela.
Composed in rhymed verse, it is of such extraordinary length that only
the most interesting passages can be given here.[295]
“When the souls have left hell behind them and have traversed
the _sirat_, or path of purgatory, they issue upon the plain
that leads to paradise.[296] Accompanying them are the angels
of Divine mercy, who cheer and guide them on their way to
glory and wish them joy of their victory and salvation.[297]
As they approach the entrance to paradise a gentle breeze,
laden with perfume, brings balm to their souls and wipes away
the memory of the suffering they endured in the course of
their judgment and in the various mansions.... At the gate of
paradise stand two mighty trees, lovelier than any ever seen
on earth. Their fragrance, the richness of their foliage,
the beauty of their blossom, the perfume of their fruit, the
lustre of their leaves—nothing could ever surpass. The birds
on their branches sing in sweet harmony with the rustling of
the leaves....[298] At the foot of either tree there springs a
fountain of the purest water, clearer than beryl, cooler and
whiter than freshly melted snow; these springs are the source
of two limpid streams, whose beds are seen to be of pearls and
rubies....[299] Along their banks spread gardens and groves
of trees in blossom, laden with fruit and harbouring birds of
sweet song.... The souls bathe in the two rivers; from the
one they emerge whole in body and cleansed from the marks of
fire, with the lustre of health and joy upon their faces; they
drink of the waters of the river and, as all memory of past
affliction leaves them, so is all trace of envy, rancour and
hatred blotted from their hearts; they then bathe in the other
stream, and later find peaceful repose in the shade of the two
trees....[300] And, even as they rest, the angels of the Lord
call upon them, saying, ‘Oh, beloved of God, these trees are
not your dwelling; nigh unto God is your appointed place. Rise,
therefore, and march onward, till ye reach the mansion of rest
and everlasting bliss.’[301] And they rise and proceed through
the paths of paradise, following the voice of the angel herald,
who leads them on from garden to garden until they meet with
a brilliant procession of youths and maidens, dressed in rich
attire and mounted on coursers ... who greet each one with
shouts of joy and congratulation upon his triumph.... ‘Be thou
welcome, beloved son of God! Enter thy mansion, covered with
glory and honour.’ As he enters, behold! a damsel of surpassing
beauty, arrayed in robes of brilliant hue, awaits him seated
in a tabernacle ... the splendour of her countenance dazzles
him and his heart is enraptured with the perfection, grace, and
brilliant beauty with which God has endowed her. Indeed, were
it not that God had granted him extraordinary powers of vision,
he would be bereft of both sight and sense by the intensity of
the light shining in her and the splendour radiating from her
presence.[302] The voice of an angel announces to him, ‘Oh,
beloved one of God! This is thy precious bride, thy dearly
beloved partner in the life of heaven; this is the mistress of
the damsels, the coy maiden hidden from the gaze of man.’ But
hardly has she caught sight of him when, unable to restrain the
impulse of her love, she hastens towards him with fond words of
welcome, ‘Oh, beloved of God! How I have yearned to see thee!’”
Of the many points of resemblance shown by this legend to Dante’s story
of the earthly paradise, some are so evident as to be hardly worthy
of mention. The scenic features, for example, are clearly identical,
recourse being had to the same rhetorical figures to depict the beauty
of the gardens—such as the wealth of flowers, the perfumed air, the
soft climate, and the gentle breeze on which is wafted the sweet song
of birds. The rivers in which the souls are washed are two in number in
Dante’s poem and in the Moslem story, as against four in the Biblical
paradise. Lastly, both gardens adjoin the path of purgatory, of which in
fact they constitute the last division, for in them the soul undergoes
final purification from the stain of sin and is prepared for entry
into the realm of glory. The resemblance even extends to the manner of
purification: the soul is bathed in both rivers and, in addition, drinks
of their waters. The effects of the double ablution are also similar;
all physical and moral trace of sin is blotted out and new life imparted
to the soul. After ablution, the pilgrim seeks rest in the shade of a
tree. Finally comes the procession of youths and maidens leading in the
heavenly bride; the meeting of bride and bridegroom and their mutual
recognition.
5. In spite of long and minute research, no literary precedent has so
far been found for this latter scene.[303] Yet, as the Dantists justly
claim, it is of supreme moment for the whole of Dante’s poem, for it not
only sheds light on the riddles that precede it, but also foreshadows
the significance of what is to come; and, indeed, but for this scene
of the meeting of Dante and Beatrice, neither the descent to hell
nor the ascension to paradise would be susceptible of a satisfactory
interpretation. At the same time, it must be admitted that the scene
bears but little trace of the Christian spirit and is in strange contrast
to the asceticism and the horror of sexual love that are characteristic
of ecclesiastic literature in general, and that of the Middle Ages in
particular.[304] To arrange, as the climax of a journey to the regions
beyond the grave, the meeting of the pilgrim with his lost Beloved is a
poetic conceit that will in vain be sought for in any of the Christian
precursors of the Divine Comedy. Dante was well aware of how singular the
note he struck was. So novel did the glorification of Beatrice, which is
the avowed object of his poem, appear to him, that many years before,
when the plan of the Divine Comedy was shaping in his mind, he remarked
about his future poem, “Spero di dire di lei quello que mai non fu detto
d’alcuna.”[305] No doubt this glorification of Beatrice has its immediate
roots in the spirit of chivalry that inspired the troubadours of Provence
and the Italian poets of the “dolce stil nuovo”; in the spiritual and
romantic love of woman underlying that literary movement; and in the
mixture of mysticism and sensuality revealed in the temperament of
Dante, the man and poet. These explanations may, indeed, lay bare the
inner workings of the poet’s mind, but they leave unsolved the riddle
of the outer literary form in which his mentality manifested itself in
this episode of the earthly paradise. In a later chapter of this work
it will be shown that the origin of the “dolce stil nuovo” movement
itself is most probably to be sought outside Christianity and that long
before the appearance of the troubadours in Europe romantic love had
inspired the poets of Arabia, and provided food for the speculative
minds of Moslem mystics.[306] Here it will suffice to point to the
outstanding fact that an episode so typical of the Divine Comedy as the
meeting of Beatrice and Dante, and, being foreign to the very spirit of
Christianity, unprecedented in Christian legend, has a striking parallel
in Moslem tradition. Nor is the tale translated above unique; rather is
it the final stage in the evolution of a series of legends that tell
the fantastic story of the entry of the blessed soul into paradise. The
Moslem heaven, as will be seen later on, is not exclusively the paradise
of coarse delight, as depicted in the Koran and many of the traditions,
that has become stamped on the mind of educated Europe. By the side of
that picture there is another, painted by the ascetics and mystics, that
reveals a heaven of purer love, in which, in addition to the large-eyed
houris and the wives the blessed knew on earth, a spiritual bride also
awaits him. This is his Heavenly Betrothed, who from on high has been
waiting and watching for the advent of her lover, guiding him on the
path of virtue, inspiring him with lofty aims and ever encouraging him
to persevere to the triumphant end, when they will be united in eternal
bliss. When death at last leads the blessed soul to paradise, it is she
who sallies forth to welcome him, radiant indeed with beauty, yet not as
an instrument of carnal delight, but rather as a spiritual companion and
moral redemptress who wishes the soul joy of his victory and reproves
him for having on occasions forsaken her for other, earthly loves. The
picture of this Heavenly Bride is so strikingly like that of Beatrice
that it will not be amiss to quote some of the legends on this subject.
6. A very interesting description of the entry of the blessed soul into
paradise is contained in the tenth century work _Corrat Aloyun_.[307]
The angel Ridwan leads him to the tabernacle where his bride
awaits him. She greets him with the words, “Oh, friend of God,
how I have longed to meet thee! Blessed be the Lord, who has
united us! God created me for thee and engraved thy name upon
my heart. While thou on earth wast serving God in prayer and
fasting, day and night, God bade his angel Ridwan carry me on
his wings so that I might behold thy good deeds from heaven.
The love I felt for thee caused me to watch over thy progress
unbeknown to thee. When in the dark of night thy prayer went
up, my heart was glad within me, and I said to thee, ‘Serve
and thou shalt be served, sow and thou shalt reap! God has
advanced thee in glory, for thy virtues have found favour in
His sight, and He will bring us together in heaven.... But,
when I found thee neglectful and half-hearted, I felt sad.’”
Another legend of the same cycle, attributed to the eighth century
traditionist Ibn Wahab, introduces the reproaches of the bride for her
bridegroom’s earthly loves.[308]
“They will say to a woman in paradise, ‘Would’st thou see thy
spouse who is yet on earth?’ and, as she assents, they will
draw aside the veils that separate her from him, so that she
may look upon his face and long for the moment of his coming,
even as on earth a woman longs for her absent man. It may
be that between him and his spouse on earth there have been
grounds for resentment such as are common among wives and
husbands, and she will reproach him saying, ‘Oh, wretched man!
Why dost thou not forswear (such loves) that, compared with
mine, shall last thee but a night or two?’”[309]
The similarity between these two descriptions and the two scenes in
which Beatrice comes to the moral aid of Dante is surely evident.
Beatrice, when from on high she sees that her beloved poet is in danger
of forfeiting salvation and, therewith, her companionship in paradise,
descends from heaven to implore Virgil’s assistance in setting the
pilgrim on the right path. The scene forms, as it were, the prologue
to the poem.[310] When Dante reaches the earthly paradise, she again
descends and to her greeting adds reproof for his backsliding, his
indulgence in earthly loves, and his neglect of the holy counsel she gave
him in his dreams.[311]
Tales of visions, based on the legends of the same cycle, are common
in Islamic literature. They all tell of a beautiful and angelic maiden
who appears to the devout in their dreams, to inspire them with holy
thoughts and urge them to serve God with the promise that she will be
theirs in the life to come.
A tale attributed to Ali al-Talhi, who lived prior to the tenth century,
reads as follows[312]:—
“In a dream I beheld a woman fairer than any of this world.
‘Who art thou?’ I asked, and she replied, ‘I am a houri.’
I said to her, ‘Pray let me be thy husband,’ to which she
replied, ‘Ask me in marriage of my Lord and name my dowry.’
I asked, ‘What is thy dowry?’ and she answered, ‘That thou
shouldst keep thy soul unspotted from the world.’”
Another story, attributed to the ninth century ascetic Ahmed ibn
Abu-l-Hawari, runs:—
“In a dream I saw a maiden of the most perfect beauty, whose
countenance shone with celestial splendour. To my asking,
‘Whence comes that brilliance on thy face?’ she replied,
‘Dost thou remember that night spent by thee in weeping (and
devotion)?’ ‘I remember,’ I answered, and she said, ‘I took
those tears of thine and with them anointed my face, since when
it has shone in brilliance.’”
A tale, attributed to Utba al-Ghulam, certainly dates before the eleventh
century:—
“In a dream I saw a houri of beautiful features, who said to
me, ‘I love thee passionately and trust thou wilt do no deed
that might keep us apart.’ I replied, ‘Thrice have I abandoned
the things of this world and hope never to regain them, so that
I may be able to meet thee (in heaven).’”
Sulayman ad-Darani, a great ascetic of the ninth century of our era, is
the protagonist of a similar tale[313]:—
“I saw in a dream a maiden of a beauty ‘as splendid as the
moon,’ clad in a mantle that ‘seemed as if made of light.’[314]
Said the maiden to me, ‘Thou sleepest, oh! delight of my soul.
Perchance thou knowest not that I am thy bride? Rise, for thy
prayer is light and thy Lord deserveth thy thanks...!’ and,
with a cry, she flew off through the air.”
Other legends tell of the visions seen by martyrs of holy warfare, the
soldier ascetics of Islam, who later had their counterpart in the knights
of the Christian military orders. In those quoted below, the meeting
with the heavenly bride, who appears either alone or accompanied by her
handmaidens, is described in terms similar to those used by Dante, and
the subject of the earthly loves of the protagonist is also alluded to.
A tale told by Abd ar-Rahman ibn Zayd, of the eighth century, runs as
follows[315]:—