Chapter V: of this “Historia Arabum,” which is entitled “De sublimatione (1)

Mahometi in regem et de jussionibus mendaciter excogitatis,” the author relates the raising of Mahomet to the dignity of king, after the taking of Damascus; and he adds that Mahomet then began to impose upon the Arabs with stories in which he professed to be a prophet, with the object of obtaining a firmer hold upon his subjects. He then inserts a literal version of the legend of the _Miraj_, culled from what he terms the “second book” of Mahomet. This can be no other than the canonical collection of _hadiths_ on the Prophet, second from an authoritative point of view only to the Koran, which latter the Archbishop would consider to be the first book of Islam. Indeed this version is almost identical with Versions A and B of the second cycle given in the first part of the present work, as recorded in the collection of authentic _hadiths_ compiled by Bukhari and Muslim.

From the “Historia Arabum” it passed to the “Crónica General” or “Estoria d’Espanna,” which King Alphonso the Wise himself compiled or had compiled in the Romance language of Castile between 1260 and 1268, and where it appears with some slight additions,[610] no doubt made from other Arabic sources current at the time. The greater interest attaching to the “Crónica,” and the fact that it was written in Romance would ensure the wider diffusion of the legend.

6. Indeed not long afterwards, towards the end of the thirteenth century, another document appeared showing how widespread the legend was among Christian Spaniards. This was the “Impunaçion de la seta de Mahomah,” written during his captivity at Granada by St. Peter Paschal, Bishop of Jaen and Friar of the Order of Mercy.[611] Born at Valencia in 1227, of captive or Mozarab parents, he not unnaturally was a master of Arabic, a fact that would stand him in great stead in his mission of redeeming prisoners. Appointed tutor to the son of the King of Aragon, he accompanied his charge to Toledo when the latter was raised to the dignity of Archbishop, and there he devoted himself to fostering and extending throughout Castile the Order of Mercy, which was then in its infancy. His work in this connection led him to undertake a journey to Rome, where his learning and religious zeal excited the admiration of Pope Nicholas IV. On his return, he stayed a while at Paris, and at the university there gained fame as a theologian. Appointed Bishop of Jaen in 1296, he was taken prisoner by the Moors of Granada in the following year and was martyred in 1300. During the four years of his captivity he wrote, among other books, the apologetic work against Islam mentioned above.[612]

The knowledge of Islam he displays is considerable. At every step he quotes the Koran and authentic versions of the _hadiths_; the latter he calls “Alhadiz,” and occasionally “Muslimi,” in reference to the canonical collections made by the critic Muslim. He also mentions a book on paradise and hell, which is, no doubt, one of the compendiums of _hadiths_ common among the Moslems of Spain; and refers to other “Libros escriptos de los Moros,” which must also have been collections of legends on the after-life.[613] More interesting, however, are his quotations from a book the title of which he variously transcribes as “Elmiregi,” “Miragi,” “Miráj” or “Elmerigi.” This is evidently the _Miraj_ or ascension of Mahomet, or, as the Saint has it, “the book in which he told how he rose to the heavens”; “the book which tells how Mahomet rose as he says to heaven, where is God, and how he spoke with God and saw paradise and hell and the angels and devils and the tortures of hell and the delights of paradise.”[614] But he does more than merely quote from this book. In Chapter 8 of the first part of the “Impunaçion” he inserts the entire legend of the _Miraj_, adding a burlesque commentary in refutation of its fabulous episodes and miraculous visions; these the Saint airily disposes of as “mere fancy, vanities, lies, humbug and idle talk.”[615] The version of which he availed himself belongs to the third cycle, in which the Nocturnal Journey and the ascension of Mahomet are fused into one story. The ascension proper, however, is related according to Version C of the second cycle, where in spirituality the visions of paradise approach nearer to Dante’s conception. Finally, there are introduced into the general scheme of the legend many _hadiths_ dealing with the day of judgment, the “Sirat” or purgatory, the topography of hell, and life in paradise, the resemblance of which to the descriptions of Dante has been duly demonstrated.

7. If, therefore, the legend of the _Miraj_ was well known in Spain, at any rate as early as the thirteenth century, is it unlikely that it should also reach Italy, bound as that country was by ties of close and constant communication with Spain?[616] St. Peter Paschal, who knew the legend well, resided for a time in Rome during the Pontificate of Nicholas IV, _i.e._, between 1288 and 1292, and, though it would be idle to base an argument on this mere fact, it may at least serve as a typical example of the hidden channels through which the legend might have reached the Florentine poet. At that time the plan of his divine poem, the first part of which, the Inferno, was finished in 1306, was maturing in Dante’s mind. Moreover, in 1301, Dante himself visited the Papal Court as the Ambassador of Florence to Pope Boniface VIII.[617]

8. But there are other surer channels by which the legend could have been transmitted. Dante received his literary training from Brunetto Latini, a scholar of encyclopædic knowledge and a notary of Florence, who rose to fill the highest offices of state.[618] More than a master, Brunetto was a literary adviser and friend for whom the young poet felt the greatest respect and admiration, and whose counsel and guidance were a source of constant inspiration to him. The affectionate discourse Dante feigns to hold with his master on meeting him in hell is eloquent testimony of the spiritual tie that Dante himself admits bound him to Brunetto Latini and his work.[619] This connection has long been apparent to the commentators on the Divine Comedy[620]; and some Dante students have even sought in the writings of Brunetto, particularly in the allegorical and didactic poem of the “Tesoretto,” the model and idea that inspired the Divine Comedy. Although the hypothesis has been rejected by the Dante students themselves,[621] there yet remains the important fact of the link between the studies of the pupil and the oral and written doctrine of the master.

The written doctrine is contained in the “Tesoretto” and the “Tesoro,” which respectively are a small and large encyclopædia of mediæval learning. To obtain the mass of data required for the latter work Brunetto, without ignoring classical and Christian sources, drew, as did all his contemporaries, upon the Arabic works on science then available. Sundby, the learned Dane who half a century ago investigated the sources of the “Tesoro,” restricted his research to the works that were then more easy of access, that is to say, the Christian and classical writers. But many of the passages, the origin of which he admits he does not know, may easily be traced to Arabic models.[622] Thus the classification of philosophy given at the beginning of the work is copied from Avicenna[623]; the version of the _Nichomachean Ethics_ of Aristotle that Brunetto used, appears to have been a translation of an Arabic text from Spain; and the Bestiaries or collections of animal legends, of which he availed himself, were mostly of Arabic origin. Lastly, Brunetto’s own references to Oriental authors form a strong argument in favour of a like origin being attributed to other passages which it has been impossible to connect with any previous Christian or classical works.[624]

9. In addition, the Tesoro contains a biography of Mahomet, in which, coupled with a puerile belief in certain legends deriding the Prophet, Brunetto shows considerable knowledge of the doctrine and customs of Islam.[625] As the Italian Codices of the Tesoro have not yet been edited, it is difficult to say whether the legend of the _Miraj_ is contained in this biography, among the fables attributed by Brunetto to Mahomet. But, even if it were not included, the hypothesis that Brunetto may have known of the legend and communicated it by word of mouth to his disciple cannot be rejected as improbable.

For Brunetto Latini was in a position to acquire his knowledge of Arabic culture at first hand, when in 1260 he was sent as Ambassador of Florence to the court of Alphonso the Wise, the patron and director of the famous Toledan school of translators.[626]

The details of this mission are not known, but the mere facts of Brunette’s having stayed at Toledo and Seville, where the court resided at the time, is significant. It is easy to imagine how deep would be the impression produced on so cultured a mind, ever eager to acquire more knowledge, by these two brilliant centres of learning. Living at the court of a king, whose learning was unique in mediæval Europe, and in the midst of a hybrid society that was influenced by classical, Christian and Oriental traditions alike, he cannot fail to have been impressed; and it is unlikely that his ambassadorial duties should not have left him leisure to satisfy his curiosity as a scholar. At the Toledan School of Translators, and the inter-denominational University of Seville, Christians and Moslems were continually engaged on the production of literary and scientific works, and only four years before had rendered into Romance Castilian the “Historia Arabum,” which contained the very legend of the _Miraj_. As a matter of fact, on his return to France, Brunetto almost immediately wrote his two main works, the “Tesoretto” and the “Tesoro.” The latter, as has been seen, contains traces of the influence of Arabic works, and nowhere could these have been more readily available than in Toledo and Seville; the former is even supposed to have been dedicated to Alphonso the Wise.

Everything thus would seem to bear out the suggestion that the master of Dante Alighieri received more than a merely superficial impression from his visit to Spain,[627] and may well have been the medium through which some at least of the Islamic features apparent in the Divine Comedy were transmitted to the disciple.[628]

The documentary evidence, however, consisting in the likeness shown between the divine poem and the Islamic sources, is in itself sufficient, even though it may not be possible to demonstrate through what hidden channels communication actually took place.[629] For do not the characteristics of each style of architecture found on a monument of varied design betray the influence of its respective school, even though history may have left no actual record of the association between these schools? Documentary evidence, should it exist, would not strengthen the expert’s conviction; it would but confirm the inferences he had already drawn.

IV

THE ATTRACTION FELT BY DANTE TOWARDS ARABIC CULTURES CONFIRMS THE HYPOTHESIS OF IMITATION

1. The possibility that the Moslem models of the Divine Comedy may easily have reached Italy and the Florentine poet from Moslem sources having been sufficiently proved, one question alone remains to be answered. Was the mentality of Dante, as revealed in his works, antagonistic to the ready assimilation of these models? For, obviously, no contact, however close, could beget imitation if diversity in language, religion, race, philosophy and art had inspired the Florentine poet with an aversion to the culture of the Arabs. In answer to this question, it may at once be said that all the evidence points to the contrary.

2. In the first place, Dante Alighieri was in matters of learning and literature open to influence from all quarters. Dante students have one and all laid stress upon this mental receptivity. Ozanam repeatedly dwells upon the passionate desire for knowledge that urged on the poet in his search for truth and beauty.[630] D’Ancona has explained how Dante studied and mastered a vast range of subjects; how in his mind inspiration was reconciled with a respect for tradition, and inventive faculty with erudition.[631] Umberto Cosmo, more recently, asserts that in its receptiveness the mind of Dante might be likened to a sea that receives its waters from all parts. Dante, he says, gathered intellectual nourishment from the whole culture of his time, and in his mind were reflected and recast in a new, personal form the sentiments and ideas of the past and the present.[632]

Opinions of such weight would seem to establish _a priori_ that the culture of Islam, dominant in thirteenth-century Europe, must have been known to Dante. It is inconceivable that he, leading a life of such mental activity, should have ignored Moslem culture, which at the time was all-pervading; that he should not have felt the attraction of a science that drew men of learning from all parts of Christian Europe to the court of Toledo, and of a literature the influence of which was paramount in Christian Europe, which it initiated in the novels, the fables and the proverbs, as well as the works on moral science and apologetics, of the East.[633]

The prestige enjoyed by Islam was largely due to the Moslem victories over the Crusaders.[634] Roger Bacon, a contemporary of Dante, attributed the defeats of the Christians precisely to their ignorance of the Semitic languages and applied science, of which the Moslems were masters.[635] In another field of learning, Albertus Magnus, the founder of scholasticism, agreed with Bacon on the superiority of the Arab philosophers[636]; and Raymond Lull even recommended the imitation of Moslem methods in preaching to the people.[637]

Rarely can public opinion have been so unanimous in admitting the mental superiority of an adversary. This view was upheld by Moslem men of learning, who adjudged the European races to be unfit for civilisation. This curious assertion was actually made by two Moslem thinkers of Spain in the eleventh century, Ibn Hazm of Cordova, and Said of Toledo. In their respective works, the Critical History of the Religions and the History of the Sciences, they declared that the peoples of Northern Europe were by nature unfitted for the cultivation of the sciences and arts, which flourished in Moslem Spain.[638]

3. In view of the universal admiration for Islamic culture, it is not astonishing to find a certain leaning towards it on the part of Dante.

It was at one time believed that Dante had a knowledge of Semitic languages, especially of either Arabic or Hebrew, the inference being based on two solitary verses of the Divine Comedy. Modern opinion, however, favours the view that in these verses the poet merely intended to introduce meaningless phrases, though it is admitted that the words attributed to Nimrod contain Semitic elements.[639] Be this as it may, if it cannot be proved from Dante’s writings that he knew the Semitic languages, neither can it be proved that he was ignorant of them. It may at least be supposed that he knew of their qualities and aptness as a means of social intercourse; and, indirect as his knowledge may have been, it was sufficient to enable him to compare them with the Romance languages, to the disadvantage of the latter. For, treating in his work, _De vulgari eloquio_, of the multitude of languages spoken in the world, he, although a native of Florence and by race and language a Latin, does not allow himself to be prejudiced in favour of his mother tongue; rather does he show proof of his characteristic breadth of mind when he admits “that there are many other nations speaking tongues more pleasant to the ear and more expressive than those of the Latin peoples.”[640]

4. It need hardly be added that such attraction as Dante felt towards Oriental culture does not imply a liking for the Moslem faith, for the sincerity of his Christian belief is beyond all doubt. His sympathies were merely literary, and scientific; and his mental attitude is revealed in two typical passages of the Divine Comedy. Avicenna and Averrhoes he places in the limbo,[641] but Mahomet, in hell.[642] And even Mahomet is not punished as the founder of Islam, but as a sower of discord and an author of schism; he is placed along with men the effect of whose actions cannot be compared with the profound upheaval—religious, social and political—that Islam caused in the history of the world and, to her unutterable loss, in the history of the Church. The leniency of this punishment is significant of Dante’s sympathies for Arabic culture. In his eyes, Mahomet is not so much a repudiator of the Trinity and Incarnation as a conqueror whose violence cut asunder the ties uniting mankind. Incomplete as his picture may be, it does not display the absurdity marked in the mediæval fables of the Prophet. The Christian historians of Dante’s age outvied one another in weaving the most extravagant and contradictory tales about Mahomet. According to some, he was a pagan; to others, a Christian. He was given in turn the names of Ocin, Pelagius, Nicholas, and Mahomet. Some depict him, rightly, as illiterate; others, as a magician, or even a scholar of Bologna. He is represented as having been a Spaniard, a Roman, and even a member of the family of Colonna. Some historians, again, confuse the Prophet with his mentor, the Nestorian monk Bahira, and make of him a deacon or cardinal who, aspiring to the Papacy, set out for Arabia from Constantinople, Antioch or Smyrna.[643] Before the gross ignorance displayed in such crude misrepresentations, the sober picture drawn by Dante stands as a silent rebuke to his contemporaries. One is tempted to think that Dante was content to depict Mahomet as a mere conqueror, not because he was unaware of the other sides to his character, but because the portrayal of these would have been incompatible with the absurd image stereotyped on the minds of his readers.

That the restraint shown by Dante is not due to ignorance is abundantly borne out by one fact. The poet shows Ali suffering the same torture as his cousin and father-in-law, Mahomet. The role played by Ali in the history of Islam is nowadays a matter of general historical knowledge. It is well known that the Caliphate did not pass to his sons or their descendants, who were hunted down by the Ommeyad and Abbaside Caliphs; but they soon found eager partisans who, under the name of Shiites, dominated Persia, Syria, Egypt and Barbary down to the twelfth century. The history of the bloody struggles provoked by this undoubted schism down to the time of Saladin, fully justifies the placing of Ali, the unwitting cause of the great split, among the authors of schism. But, natural as this may now appear, it was quite beyond the understanding of the Christian historians of Dante’s age. To them the figure of Mahomet himself was an enigma, let alone that of his cousin Ali. Accordingly, the early commentators on the Divine Comedy are at a loss to account for his appearance alongside of the Prophet.[644] The contrast between the ignorance of the Christian writers and the thorough knowledge displayed by Dante in itself argues a considerable acquaintance on his part with Islamic lore.

But there is still further evidence. The figure of Ali is sketched with a sober realism that is no mere creation of the poet’s imagination, in fact it is strictly in accordance with historical data.[645] The assassin Ibn Muljam, the Moslem chroniclers state, with one stroke of the sword cleft open Ali’s skull, or, according to others, struck him in the forehead with a dagger, which split open his head and penetrated into the brain. The tragic scene must have vividly impressed the early Moslems, for legends soon arose according to which Mahomet, or Ali himself, prophesied the sad fate awaiting the latter. “Thy assassin—said Mahomet to him—will strike thee there—and pointed to his head—and the blood from the wound will flow down to here—and he touched his chin.”[646]

5. In addition to a knowledge of Islamic tradition, Dante displays a general sympathy with Moslem philosophers and men of science. In his minor prose writings he frequently quotes, and occasionally makes use of, the works of the astronomers, Albumazar, Alfraganius and Alpetragius, and the great philosophers, Alfarabius, Avicenna, Algazel and Averrhoes.[647] Thus, Paget Toynbee has shown how some of the passages in the _Convito_ and the _Vita Nuova_ are based upon the astronomical theories of Alfraganius or the ideas of Averrhoes on the lunar spots. In his _De vulgari eloquio_ (I, 6) Dante himself admits having read books on cosmography, and the most common of these at that time were Arabic.

This accounts for the benevolent treatment accorded by Dante to men like Saladin, Avicenna, and Averrhoes, whom he places in the limbo—a treatment that, judged upon theological principles, is indefensible. No one, and certainly not Dante, could have been unaware of the hostility shown by Saladin to everything Christian, and of how he had overrun Palestine and wrested the Holy City from the grasp of the Crusaders. Neither the military qualities nor the magnanimity of Saladin can be regarded as natural virtues sufficient in themselves to warrant the exemption from eternal punishment of one who did such grievous harm to the faith of Christ. The same may be said of Avicenna and Averrhoes. However blameless their conduct may have been, their learning excluded all possibility of their defence on the plea of utter ignorance of Christ that, according to the doctrine guiding Dante, could alone have justified their deliverance from hell. Averrhoes, moreover, stood in the eyes of the Christian Europe of the time as the embodiment of rationalistic unbelief.[648]

6. Dante’s sympathies for Islamic science in general, and for Averrhoes in particular, furnish the key to another enigma, as has recently been shown in a clever study by Bruno Nardi.[649] This was the hitherto incomprehensible presence in Dante’s paradise, side by side with St. Thomas Aquinas, of Sigier of Brabant, the champion of Averrhoism, who died under the ban of the Church. How, it was asked, could this defiance of public opinion be justified? For, it should be noted that the poet not only exempts this heretic from the punishment of hell, but even exalts him to the mansion of the theologians, and, with a crowning presumption bordering upon sarcasm, places in the mouth of his irreconcilable adversary, St. Thomas, words of praise for the outcast that are equivalent to a rehabilitation of his memory.

7. Nardi, to solve this problem, reopens the question of the sources of Dante’s philosophy, hitherto regarded as exclusively Thomist. By a close comparison of Dante’s works with the writings of other scholastics of the neo-Platonic school and the systems of Avicenna and Averrhoes, he shows that Dante, far from appearing as an unconditional Thomist, was a scholastic, but of eclectic tendencies, who accepted theories from all thinkers ancient and mediæval, Christian and Moslem, and embodied them in a system of his own that was intermediate between the philosophy of St. Thomas and that of Avicenna and Averrhoes, although more akin to the latter. The main points in Dante’s philosophy that Nardi has shown to be of Arabic filiation relate to cosmology, theodicy and psychology: God is Light, whose rays grow weaker as they travel further from their Centre. The Intelligences of the Celestial Spheres reflect these rays and thereby imprint the various forms upon Matter. Creation must, therefore, be conceived as a gradually decreasing emanation of the Divine Light, and is brought about, not by God directly and exclusively, but through the medium of the Celestial Spheres. The intellective part of the human soul is distinct from the vegetative-sensitive part; the former alone is created. Intellection begins by Divine illumination and needs the help of Faith before it can attain to super-sensible Truth.

Nardi proceeds to show how these ideas of Dante, although found in part in the Augustinian tradition, are rather derived from the neo-Platonic philosophy of the Arabs and, more particularly, from the systems of Alfarabius, Avicenna, Algazel and Averrhoes.

V

THE CLOSE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN DANTE AND THE MYSTIC, IBN ARABI OF MURCIA, FURNISHES FURTHER PROOF OF THE THESIS OF IMITATION

1. The conclusions arrived at by Nardi are more than sufficient to indicate that, as in his artistic representation of the after-life, so in his trend of thought Dante betrays signs of Arabic influence. Should further proof of our thesis be required, the poet’s philosophical system might be traced back to its actual sources in Islam, which are to be found not so much among the philosophers as in the works of the Illuministic Mystics, and of the Murcian Ibn Arabi in particular. The Illuministic, or _Ishraqi_ and pseudo-Empedoclean school, was founded by Ibn Masarra of Cordova; and from Spain its ideas were transmitted to the so-called Augustinian scholastics, among others to Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, and Raymond Lull. As has been shown in the discussion of the Paradiso, an essential part of _Ishraqi_ teaching—the metaphysical doctrine of light—reappears in the Divine Comedy, where it is illustrated, moreover, by the same symbols as are used by the Moslem mystics. Creation, too, is conceived as an emanation of Divine light, the teleological cause of which is love, and its primary effects, universal and formless matter.[650] Thus a new vista is opened up. Seen in this wise, Dante would appear to have been but one more follower of the Illuministic school, and pre-eminent by his art alone. It has been demonstrated above that almost all of the artistic forms used in Ibn Arabi’s picture of the realms beyond the grave were reproduced a century later in the Divine Comedy. The suggestion now presents itself that many of the Illuministic theories of Dante were derived from the same Ibn Arabi, the leading exponent of _Ishraqi_ ideas, rather than from the other Arabic philosophers with whose systems Nardi compares them.

2. The solution of this problem is beyond the limits of the task at present before us, which is restricted to the search for evidence of a leaning on Dante’s part towards Islamic culture. Nevertheless, it may be of interest to establish a general parallel between the two thinkers, Dante and Ibn Arabi. This should bear, not so much upon the ideas common to both, as upon the images and symbols by which they gave expression to these ideas and the literary devices to which both writers resort to expound their views. As already stated, coincidence in imaginative detail more readily suggests imitation than sympathy in doctrine, although, naturally, conviction is strengthened when both ideas and images agree.

As regards the images, Ibn Arabi uses the same symbols as Dante to express the metaphysics of light, an essential part of the thought of both. God is pure light, and his manifestation _ad extra_ is described by similes of light—diffusion, illumination, reflexion and irradiance—which are all typical of Dante’s imaginings. The metaphor of the mirror, used by Dante to exemplify the influence of superior upon inferior beings, appears, like that of the flame of the candle, frequently in the works of Ibn Arabi. The geometrical symbol of the circle and its centre, representing the cosmos and its Divine principle, recurs even more often in Ibn Arabi than in Dante, and gives rise to similar paradoxes in the works of both writers. As light is the symbol of God and His manifestations, so is darkness of matter. Opacity and transparency respectively characterise the body and the mind in both Dante’s and Ibn Arabi’s conception.

3. A comparison of the expository methods of the two authors will prove still more interesting. The cabbala of letters and numbers is seen from all his works to be an obsession of Dante. Secret virtues are attributed to special numbers, or the numerical values of certain letters are associated with their ideological values. The flavour of occultism thus imparted to Dante’s style is exactly like that found in all the works of Ibn Arabi, whose worship at the cabbalistic shrine argues the sincerity of his conviction. Entire chapters of his _Futuhat_ and whole books are devoted to this superstition; and he even goes so far as to base many of his philosophical demonstrations on the numerical relations thus established.

Another superstition common to the two writers is their belief in astrology. It is needless to dwell upon the many passages in the Divine Comedy and the _Convito_ that testify to the blind faith shown by Dante in the absurd subtleties of astrology. Ibn Arabi, in his whimsical conceits, indulges in still wilder flights of fancy.[651]

The literary artifice of personifying abstract entities is seen in Dante’s _Vita Nuova_, where the vital, the animal, the visual and natural spirits reason and discourse with one another. Ibn Arabi has no equal in the use, or rather abuse, of prosopopoeia. God and His names, the spirits of Being and of Nothingness, Matter and Shape, engage at each step in the _Futuhat_ in lengthy discussions, like persons of flesh and blood.

Finally, whole passages in the _Vita Nuova_ and the Divine Comedy, which purport to be autobiographical, are devoted to the description and mystical interpretation of dream visions. Ibn Arabi also narrates a multitude of dreams, hidden in which he discovers the loftiest metaphysical thought.

4. Of all the visions thus described by Dante, one is of particular interest.[652]

Dante in a dream sees a youth robed in white, seated near him
in a pensive attitude. The youth sighs, as he raises his eyes
to him, and to Dante’s question why he is so sad, replies:
“Ego tamquam centrum circuli, cui simili modo se habent
circumferentiae partes; tu autem non sic.” The poet calls
upon him to explain the meaning of this symbol, but the youth
replies: “Non dimandar più che utile ti sìa.”

Common in the extreme among Moslem mystics is the dream vision of God appearing to them in the image of a youth. A _hadith_ attributed to the ninth-century traditionist, Tabrani, tells how Mahomet first saw the vision.

I saw the Lord my God in a dream—begins the _hadith_—seated on a stool, a beardless youth of great beauty....[653]

Ibn Arabi himself claims to have seen similar visions, in which his Divine beloved, God, appeared to him in human form.[654]

“These apparitions,” he says, “left me in such a state that for
days I could take no food. Each time that I sat down to eat He
appeared standing at the end of the table, gazing upon me and
saying in words that I actually heard, ‘and wilt thou eat in
My presence?’ and eat I could not. In truth I felt no hunger,
for His presence filled and well-nigh intoxicated me ... for
throughout those days His vision haunted me wheresoe’er I went.”

True, none of these visions contains the same cryptic words that Dante places in the mouth of the youth. But these words undeniably have their interpretation in the metaphysics of Ibn Arabi. In his geometrical symbolism, God is the independent centre of a circle and His creatures the points on the circumference, that are dependent for their existence on the centre. God, then, is the centre of gravity towards which all creatures are drawn by the love inspired in them by the infinite beauty of the Divine essence.[655]

It may be argued that this interpretation does not necessarily furnish the key to the enigma of Dante’s vision, but it does offer an explanation. In the obscure words attributed to the youth Dante would indeed seem to express the love he felt in his heart towards God, the centre of creation. This is the very doctrine he unfolded later in the Divine Comedy, where he asserts that the entire universe is swayed by the love of God, which is the principal and the final goal of all movement.[656]

5. Coincidences of literary artifice even more striking will be found by comparing the _Cancionero_ and the _Convito_ with two books of Ibn Arabi, “The Interpreter of Love” and its commentary, “The Treasures of Lovers.”[657] Indeed, it will be seen that the literary principles underlying the works of both authors are the same. The intermingling of verse with prose, which is characteristic of the _Convito_, is to be found in almost all the works of Ibn Arabi, but no two works of the poets coincide so remarkably as “The Interpreter of Love” and the _Convito_. Both poets represent their work to be autobiographical, and the theme and mode of expression in each are almost identical.

In the _Convito_ Dante declares his intention to interpret the esoteric meaning of fourteen love songs which he had composed at an earlier date and the subject of which had led to the erroneous belief that they dealt with sensual rather than intellectual love. The poet desires to clear himself of the accusation of sensuality, and thus has written the _Convito_ as a commentary on those songs and in explanation of the allegory underlying the literal meaning.

The literal sense is the love of the poet for a fair and virtuous maiden, learned yet modest and devout, of a winning grace and courteous manner, whose bodily and moral perfections the poet extols in an outburst of impassioned verse. Beneath this cloak of voluptuousness Dante avers there is hidden the love for the Divine science of philosophy, personified by the maiden. Her eyes represent the demonstrations of wisdom; her smiles, its persuasions; the rays of love that descend from the heaven of Venus upon the lover are the philosophical books; and the love-sick sighs he heaves are symbolic of the anguish of the mind tortured by doubt and the longing for truth.[658]

Finally, Dante explains how he came to write the original songs. One day after the death of his beloved Beatrice, Dante is walking alone, when of a sudden he meets a gentle maiden of great beauty and learning, with whom he falls in love; not daring to declare his passion, he seeks solace in the ecstatic contemplation of his idol and sings his emotions in melancholy rhymes.[659]

An identical occurrence and motive inspired Ibn Arabi to compose the love poems contained in his “Interpreter of Love” and write the commentary upon it known as the “Treasures of Lovers.” In the prologue to the commentary the author furnishes an explanation, of which the following is a summary:

When I resided at Mecca in the year 598 (1201 A.D.) I made the
acquaintance of a number of worthy people, pre-eminent among
whom was the learned doctor Zahir ibn Rustam, a native of
Ispahan, who had taken up his abode at Mecca. This master had a
daughter, a tall and slender maiden. Virtuous, learned, devout
and modest, she was a feast for the eyes and bound in chains of
love all who beheld her. Were it not that pusillanimous minds
are ever prone to think evil, I would dwell at greater length
upon the qualities with which God had endowed both her body and
her soul, which was a garden of generous feeling.

It was from her that I drew the inspiration for the poems,
telling of the sweet fancies of a lover. In them I sought to
convey some of the passionate feelings treasured in my heart
and to express the tender longings of my soul in words that
should suggest how dearly I loved her and how the thought of
her filled my mind in those bygone days as it haunts me even
now. Thus every name mentioned in this work refers to her,
and hers is the dwelling of which I sing. But also, in these
verses I make constant allusion to spiritual revelations and
to relations with the Intelligences of the Divine spheres.
This is customary in our allegorical style, for to our mind
the things of the future life are preferable to those of
this world; moreover, she herself knew full well the hidden
meaning underlying my verse. God forbid that the reader should
attribute unworthy thoughts to the writers of poetry such as
this—men whose aims are loftier and who aspire but to the
things of heaven.

My reason for composing this allegorical commentary upon my
songs was that my pupils had consulted me about them. They had
heard learned moralists of Aleppo deny that holy mysteries lay
hidden in my poems and allege that, in trying to affirm this,
I merely sought to conceal the sensual love which I had felt.
I therefore set to work to write this commentary upon all the
amorous poems I had composed during my stay at Mecca in the
months of Recheb, Shaban, and Ramadan. In all these poems I
constantly allude to spiritual mysteries and to the teachings
of philosophy and ethics. If, to express these lofty thoughts,
I used the language of love, it was because the minds of men
are prone to dally with such amorous fancies and would thus be
more readily attracted to the subject of my songs.

Ibn Arabi then introduces a fragment from his book of songs, in which he enumerates the more usual among his poetic metaphors and interprets their general allegorical meaning. He adds:

“All these figures of speech should be regarded as symbolic of sublime mysteries and Divine illuminations vouchsafed to me by the Lord God. Turn thy thoughts, oh! reader, from the mere words and seek the hidden meaning that thou mayest understand.”

Having thus duly warned the reader, Ibn Arabi begins his commentary with the fictitious story of the vision of a beautiful maiden.

“One night,” he says, “I was in the temple of the Caaba,
walking, as required by rite, round and round the holy
dwelling. My mind felt at ease and a strange peace overcame my
soul. To be alone, I went out of the temple and started to walk
along the roadway. As I walked, I recited aloud some verses,
when, of a sudden, I felt a hand softer than velvet touch me
on the shoulder. I turned and lo! a Greek maiden stood before
me. Never had I beheld so beautiful a countenance, nor heard so
soft a voice; never had I met a woman more endearing or with
speech so refined, who expressed such lofty thoughts in more
subtle language. Verily she surpassed all the women of her day
in delicacy of mind, in literary culture, in beauty and in
learning....”

Prefacing his work with the narration of this fictitious episode in his life, which he alleges led to the composition of his songs, the author proceeds to give the allegorical meaning of each verse. His beloved, he explains, is the symbol of Divine wisdom[660]; her virgin breasts, the nectar of its teachings; the smile on her lips, its illuminations.[661] Her eyes are the emblems of light and revelation.[662] The mournful sighs of the lover represent the spiritual longings of the soul.[663] Among a host of other subjects, the author deals with the origin and destiny of the human soul, the nature and phenomena of love, and the essence of spiritual beauty. In matters of faith, he discusses the relations between reason and belief, the hidden trinal sense of the conception of God, the transcendental value of universal religion in comparison with other religions, and Islam as a religion of love.

6. The coincidence here shown between the _Convito_ of Dante and the _Treasures_ of Ibn Arabi may prove of further interest, as furnishing an answer to the vexed question of the origin of that form of lyrical poetry known in Italy as _dolce stil nuovo_. In this new school of poetry, of which Guido Guinicelli, Guido Cavalcanti and Dante were the contemporary creators, the theme of each song is love. The emotion of the poet at the sight or remembrance of his beloved is described in two forms—either it is a mystical adoration, a sweet beatitude of the soul that in ecstasy longs for spiritual union with its beloved and thus strives heavenward; or else it is an affliction of the heart torn by anguish, a morbid fever that consumes the life blood of the lover, a dread disorder of the mind that pervades his whole being and makes him long for the approach of death as a relief from the torture he is suffering. In subtle inquiry into the emotional processes of love, Cavalcanti stands supreme, more especially when dealing with love as an affliction. His songs are tragic outbursts of this mode of feeling which is found to a less degree in Guinicelli and Dante, who treat love rather as a gentle melancholy, or as an ecstatic contemplation or mystical and semi-religious aspiration.

Another characteristic of the _stil nuovo_ poetry is the analysis and philosophic interpretation of the emotions. The psycho-physiological faculties and spirits controlling the heart are distinguished and even personified. This scholastic manner, which robs the poetry of much of its charm, is used to excess in Cavalcanti’s “Donna mi prega.”

The mere possession of the woman they love is far from being the sole desire of these poets. On the contrary, their elect appears to them rather as an ethereal image, a being who is worthy of Platonic love. Indeed to them real love lies, not in marriage, but rather in a perpetual state of chastity; and the figure of their beloved they idealise either as an angel of heaven or the symbol of Divine wisdom or philosophy. In either conception, she is the instrument by which God inspires the lover with noble feelings and sublime ideas. And so, earthly and heavenly love are merged in one.

Vossler has pointed out the absence in either classical or Christian literature of anything that might serve to account for this hybrid theory of a love that is at once earthly and spiritual; this curious and new form—to quote his own words—of Platonism, which yet is not directly derived from Plato.[664] There is nothing in the doctrine of the Church, in Ovid, or in Aristotle, to explain such an idealistic and romantic conception of woman, so spiritual a love, which, as Vossler says, must have appeared grotesque to the philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages. Vossler’s efforts to find an explanation are more remarkable as examples of ingenuity and erudition than they are convincing. The ideas expressed by the Italian poets of the _dolce stil nuovo_ he traces back through the songs of Provençal troubadours to the chivalry and psychology of the Germanic race.

7. But Vossler’s argument, based on complicated transformations of social psychology, is brought to nought by one outstanding fact: far earlier than the first of those many stages, Islam in the East and in Spain had furnished works, both of prose and poetry, treating of love in the same romantic spirit.

The common prejudice—common both by its wide diffusion and the absence of all logical foundation—denying all idealism to the conception of love of the Arabs, and Moslems in general, is quite contrary to fact. The Yemen tribe of the Banu Odhra, or “Children of Chastity,” were famous for the manner in which they upheld the tradition of their name. “I am of a race that, when it loves, dies,” said one of them. Jamil, one of their most celebrated poets, died mad with love for his lady, Butayna, upon whom he had never dared lay hands. Two other poets of the same tribe, the lovers Orwa and Afra, died together consumed by the flame of a lifelong passion, which left them in a state of chastity to the end. The romanticism that prefers death to the defilement of the chaste union of the souls is a feature of all the melancholy and beautiful songs of these poets.[665] The example of abstinence and perpetual chastity set by the Christian monks of Arabia may well have influenced the Banu Odhra. The mysticism of the Sufis, directly inherited from the Christian hermits, also drew its inspiration from the lives and writings of the romantic poets of Arabia.[666] Regardless of the fact that neither the Koran nor the life of Mahomet himself furnishes the slightest ground for so idealistic an interpretation of love, they do not hesitate to attribute to the Prophet the saying: “He who loves and remains chaste unto death, dies a martyr.” Ibn Arabi adopts this motto[667]; and the doctrine is followed by many Sufis who, although married, stand as heroic examples of perpetual chastity. Thus idealised, the wife is no longer the sexual mate of the Sufi, but rather his companion or sister in asceticism; and his love for her is part of his love for God.

This new trend of thought is promptly reflected in the literature both of the East and the West. Ibn Daud of Ispahan, in his _Book of Venus_ of the ninth century, analyses and defends romantic love. Ibn Hazm of Cordova, who lived in the eleventh century, has left us in his book called the “Necklace of the Dove,” but better known as the “Book of Love,” and in a smaller work, “Characters and Conduct,” a whole treatise dealing with the passion of love and breathing the purest romanticism.[668] He regards the essence of love as consisting not in the commerce of the bodies but in the union of the souls. Moreover, his “Necklace” abounds in authentic stories of Spanish Moslems, drawn from all ranks of society, whose love is Platonic and who render silent homage to their beloved and worship her with an almost mystical adoration. At times, in his anguish, the lover writes letters bathed in tears or even written in his blood. Many, in a paroxysm of despair, meet with a tragic end in madness or death.

But this romantic form of love, as sung by the poets of the Banu Odhra and described and classified in the books of Ibn Daud and Ibn Hazm is perhaps rather than ascetic continence an ultra-refinement of an erotic sensibility that has been worn out by excess. Accordingly, it appears at three epochs and in three centres that in this respect had reached the zenith of hyperæsthesia—in the Yemen, where the pre-Islamic poets had exhausted the theme of sensual love, and at the highly civilised courts of Baghdad and Cordova, where decadence had begun to set in.

8. We are thus still far from the Platonic conception of woman, idealised as an angel and a symbol of philosophy. The origin of this strange conception would seem to be due to an attempt to idealise the sensual coarseness of the Koranic paradise. The houris of the Koran, although celestial, are intended solely to be instruments of carnal delight. This idea was incompatible with the spiritual longings of the later Moslem mystics, who had been profoundly influenced by the asceticism preached and practised by the Christian monks. But it was impossible to eliminate from the Koran the verses proclaiming those sensual joys. The mystics, therefore, in their legends of the after-life replaced the houris by one celestial bride, a spiritual being whose love is chaste and whom God has appointed to each of the blessed.[669] In all those legends, this heavenly spouse is depicted as a guardian angel, who serves to inspire her lover with a desire for spiritual perfection and a greater love for God during his life on earth.

Later, when to the asceticism inherited from the Christian monks the Sufis applied a pantheistic and neo-Platonic form of metaphysics, the idealisation of sexual love reached the acme of subtlety and abstruseness. This has been shown by the erotic poems of Ibn Arabi, in which the beloved is a mere symbol of Divine wisdom and the passion felt for her allegorical of the union of the mystic soul with God Himself. The psychological phenomena attendant upon love he analyses with a surprising delicacy and penetration, and shows himself far superior, especially in the _Futuhat_, to any of the Italian poets of the _dolce stil nuovo_.[670] Not content with distinguishing between the different degrees of feeling that separate love from sympathy, from affection, from passion and from desire, he probes into the subconscious states of the heart and mind, and interprets them in a mystical sense. The sighs, the tears and mental anguish of the lover; his languor and melancholy; his bewilderment and his secret grief mingled with jealous anger; his fits of brooding and dejection, of ecstasy and rapture—the whole gamut of the psychology of love is closely analysed in the pages of the _Futuhat_, which is at the same time a metaphysical exegesis of the passion. For, after admitting a threefold aim in love, viz., the union of the sexes, the union of the souls, and the spiritual union with God, he has the sublime audacity to assert that it is God who appears to every lover in the image of his beloved.[671] In order that we may learn to love Him, He assumes the form of the fair Zaynab, of Suad, of Hind, of Layla—of all those beauties of whose charms the poets sing, little suspecting that in their songs of love they are praising the only Beauty of the World, God, incorporate in those sensual forms.

9. Let us at this juncture glance backwards and collect the threads of the argument presented in this last part of our work.

The numerous symptoms of a leaning towards Islamic culture that have been discovered in the writings of Dante are proof that his mind, far from being averse from the influence of Moslem models, was rather inclined towards their assimilation. In a previous chapter it was shown how likely the transmission of these models from Moslem Spain to Italy and the Florentine poet was. In the first two parts of this work the great wealth of Moslem feature in the Divine Comedy was demonstrated after minute examination. In the third part it was seen how the majority of pre-Dante Christian legends are also derived from the literature of Islam. It would seem, therefore, that the chain of reasoning is complete, and that no serious objection can be raised to the assertion that imitation did indeed exist, once we have established as facts the _resemblance_ between the model and the copy, the _priority_ of the former to the latter, and _communication_ between the two.

Nor is it possible any longer to deny to Islamic literature the place of honour to which it is entitled in the stately train of the forerunners of Dante’s poem. For this literature, in itself, furnishes more solutions to the many riddles that surround the genesis of the poem than all the other precursory works combined.

But at every step of the long journey we have travelled in the research into the Islamic models of the Divine Comedy, the figure of one writer has stood out as the most typical and the most likely to furnish in his works the key to what is still obscure in Dante. We refer to the figure of the Spanish mystic and poet Ibn Arabi of Murcia. His works in general, and particularly his _Futuhat_, may indeed have been the source whence the Florentine poet drew the general idea of his poem. There also Dante could have found the geometrical plans of the architecture of hell and paradise, the general features of the scenery in which the sublime drama is laid, the vivid picture of the life of glory led by the chosen, the Beatific Vision of the Divine Light, and the ecstasy of him who beholds it. Moreover, it would be difficult to find two thinkers whose poetical and religious temperaments are so alike as those of Dante and Ibn Arabi; for the resemblance extends not only to their philosophical thought, derived from the illuministic school of Ibn Masarra, but also to the images by which their ideas are symbolised and the literary means by which they are expressed. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the _Convito_ and the _Treasures_. Conceived and composed in the self-same manner, these works were written with the same personal object; and both authors follow the same method in the allegorical interpretation of the amorous theme of their songs. The share due to Ibn Arabi—a Spaniard, although a Moslem—in the literary glory achieved by Dante Alighieri in his immortal poem can no longer be ignored.

The gigantic figure of the great Florentine need not thereby lose one inch of the sublime height it has reached in the eyes of his compatriots and of all mankind. Blind admiration of genius is not the most appropriate form of homage. Nor could the worship of his memory, inspired by a mere spirit of patriotism, satisfy a man who placed above his love for Italy and the Latin race, the lofty ideals of humanity and religion; who laid proud claim to the title of a citizen of the world; and who breathed into the exquisite form of his divine poem an universal and eternal spirit of morality and mysticism that was the natural expression of the deepest Christian feelings.