The Spanish original, of which the present is an abridged translation, appeared six years ago under the title of La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia (Madrid, Imprenta de Estanislao Maestre, 1919).

Its author, Miguel Asín y Palacios, a Catholic priest and Professor of Arabic at the University of Madrid, is the disciple of another Arabic scholar of Spain, Julián Ribera, by whom he was initiated in Oriental studies and the methods of historical research. Asín has devoted over twenty-five years of his life to the investigation of the philosophic and religious thought of mediæval Islam—the Islam of the Orient as well as that of Spain—and its influence on the culture of Christian Europe. His training in Arabic philology and his mastery of mediæval scholastics had enabled him several years before to make important discoveries regarding the influence in theology of Averrhoes on St. Thomas Aquinas, of Ibn Arabi of Murcia on Raymond Lull, and of the Ikhwan as-safa on Fr. Anselmo de Turmeda, and so forth. His most important discovery, however, and the one on which his fame is chiefly based, was his discovery of Islamic models the influence of which on the Divine Comedy of Dante forms the subject of the present work. From the very date of its publication in Spanish the book aroused the curiosity of the general public and caused a great stir among the critics of literary history. The Italian Dantists particularly could with difficulty bring themselves to recognise that Moslem sources should have formed the basis for the Divine Comedy, the poem that symbolises the whole culture of mediæval Christian Europe. The book at once became the subject of lively and passionate controversy. Over a hundred articles and pamphlets have been written and lectures delivered in favour of, or against, the thesis propounded by Asín Palacios. The principal reviews devoted to literature and literary history, those both of a general and special character, have published articles from the pens of Dantists and Romance and Arabic scholars of note in Europe and America, expounding or criticising the thesis. Asín has intervened in the controversy to sum up the judgments, favourable, adverse or doubtful, and finally refute his opponents; this he has done in different publications,⁠[1] and the present is a translation of the work containing the original thesis. The balance of opinion is strongly in his favour. Apart from a score or so of adverse critics, mainly of Italian nationality, whose attitude is to be accounted for on the grounds of national or pro-Dante prejudice, an immense majority of critics of all nations, whose competence, whether as Romance or Arabic scholars and whose impartiality are beyond all question, has opted in favour of Asín Palacios’ theory.

Both parties to the controversy have been unanimous and unstinting in their praise of the book.

Pio Rajna, the chief of the Italian Dantists, writing in Nuova Antologia, admits that the importance of the thesis is so far-reaching that “if it were true, it would lead to a conception of Dante differing considerably from that hitherto formed by the Dantists.”

Parodi, another leading figure among the Dantists of Italy, in the Bulletino della società dantesca italiana confesses that “this book has had a more than flattering reception, it has roused a feeling of curiosity mingled with astonishment in all who have read it and has won the approval and assent of not a few.”

Nallino, Professor of Arabic at the University of Rome, stated in the Rivista degli studi orientali that the book was “of great value as a contribution to mediæval studies in general, as proving the hitherto unsuspected infiltration of Islamic conceptions of the after-life into the popular beliefs of Western Christendom; and, especially, as one of the most important works on the religion of Islam that have of late appeared.”

Bonucci, Professor at the University of Sienna, in the Rivista di Studi filosofici e religiosi, affirms that “a book such as this does more to advance the history of, and comment on, Dante’s thought than a whole century of the minutiæ of the Dantists.”

Friedrich Beck, the famous Romance scholar of Germany, writes in the Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie: “No book on Dante of such importance has appeared for years; we wonder whether the Italians, in their patriotic pride, can find a work of theirs to equal that of the learned Spaniard. Asín has given a great impulse to the study of Dante and has opened up vistas so startlingly new that the students will be bound to seek new bearings and adopt fresh points of view.”

Söderhjelm, Professor of Romance languages at the University of Helsingfors, in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, says: “This book is a revelation and an event; it will doubtless be regarded as one of the most notable, perhaps the most notable of all, literary productions that have marked the Jubilee of Dante.”

The review Analecta Bollandiana states: “The author of this book is universally known. There is scarcely any example of a work on Oriental philology having attracted so great attention. The audacity of the thesis could not fail to rouse the most lively interest in all who are initiated in the problems of literary history. The analogies shown by the author to exist between the Divine Comedy and Islam are so numerous and of such a nature as to be disquieting to the mind of the reader, who is forced to picture to himself the great epic of Christianity as enthroned in the world of Moslem mysticism, as if in a mosque that were closed to Islam and consecrated to Christian worship. At all events, there will always remain to the author of this book the honour of having started one of the most memorable debates in the history of universal literature.”

Caballera, Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Toulouse, although disagreeing with the thesis, admits in the Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique that “the reader is bewildered by the prodigious learning of the author, his logic, his talent for argument, which are nothing less than astounding; the clearness of his statements makes a profound impression.”

Lastly, the learned Romance scholar Van Tieghem, in the Revue de littérature comparée, states that “this is an honest, objective book, as clear and well arranged as it is rich in matter, which will remain on record as one of the most daring and fruitful attempts to open up new vistas in the history of European literature.”

I need not refer to the flattering opinions this book has earned from the critics in England and America, as they will be known to the English-speaking public. Both Romance and Arabic scholars, such as Arnold, Browning, Cumming, Guillaume, Jordan, Leigh, Macdonald, and Ryan, have expressed themselves frankly in favour of Asín Palacios.

The almost universal applause which this book has gained, has induced me to contribute towards its diffusion by making it available to the English-speaking peoples. The idea was first suggested to me by Lord Balfour, whose interest in matters of philosophy and literature is universally known. Animated by his advice, I have now had the book translated into English, in the hope that it may reach a wider circle of readers, who, whilst finding difficulty in reading Spanish, may be curious to know of a problem that is of interest for the study of literary history in general and particularly of the Divine Comedy of Dante, who has ever counted so many fervent admirers among the English-speaking peoples.

The translation has been carefully and faithfully made by Mr. Harold L. Sunderland, who is at home both in the Spanish language and in the subject of the book. In order, however, to attain its diffusion among a wider public, the translator has, in agreement with the author, cut out the documentary evidence and critical apparatus that goes to swell the Spanish original—a complete translation of the Spanish original into French will also be published shortly by Paul Geuthner, of Paris—and is useful and intelligible to the specialists only. Thus, the Arabic texts and the tercets of the Divine Comedy that are compared with them, as well as some of the notes and paragraphs of secondary importance for the argument are not contained in the present translation. The essence of the book remains intact, however, with all its dialectic vigour and literary charm.

If the English reader should concur with my opinion, my aims in promoting the translation of the Spanish book will have been fully achieved.

August, 1925.