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]