Islam and the Divine Comedy (English and Spanish Edition)

This book is an abridged translation of La Escatologia Musalmana en la Divine Comedia., originally published in Spanish in Madrid in 1919. The author, though a catholic priest, was attracted by the Muslim philosopher and Sufi 's of Spain, particular Ibn Massara, Ibn Hazm, Ibn Rushad, and the great Sufi Ibn-al-Arabi. He wrote several books on Hispano-Islamic philosophy and Sufism, but the international renown he earned was on account of this book. After years of extensive research, he discovered parallel between the Islamic lore about the after life based on the hadith and this book by the Italian poet Dante Aligieri, a work for which he is justly famed. The similarities, far from being superficial, pervade the entire poem. The author concluded that Dante had derived most of the features of and episode about the here after from (1) the Hadith literature relating to the Prophet Muhammad and his ascension (mir'aj) and (2)to the spiritual visions of Ibn al-Arabi. In his opinion, this book was not entirely original work, as Dante has had before him a ready made pattern based on Islamic writing on the after With the publication of this book, Prof. Asin found himself in the eye of a storm, as nationalist Italians, the Roman Catholic clergy, and other European Christians could not reconcile themselves to the thought of their most cherished religious poem being based on non-Christian sources. Prof. Asin, however, faced up to his critics by enumerating the possible sources from which Dante could have obtained the salient features of Islamic eschatology. The consensus of opinion of all eminent scholars of Europe and America is now in favor of Prof. Asin's thesis.