1. As we have now reached a point in our argument when it might appear that we were treading on dangerous ground, a few words by way of preface to this chapter may not be amiss. The very suggestion of a comparison between Dante’s paradise and the paradise of Islam will most likely occasion surprise even in the minds of people of moderate culture. Surely, it will be thought, any such comparison can only serve to show up the utter antagonism between the two conceptions. Indeed, the spiritualism of Dante’s paradise seems so far removed from the coarse and sensual materialism of the paradise depicted in the Koran that, if the question were to be decided on that issue alone, there could be but one answer. The Koran, however, as has already been pointed out, does not stand for all Islam, nor does it constitute the main source of its dogma. The traditions early attributed to Mahomet, the explanations of the commentators, and the speculations of theologians and mystics, played at least as great a part as the letter of the Koran in determining the essential points of the creed of the Moslem paradise. Of outstanding interest in this connection is the tradition of the ascension of Mahomet. This legend in its various forms, and particularly in Version C of Cycle 2, showed very clearly that paradise was by no means generally conceived on the gross and sensual lines described in the Koran; on the contrary, the picture drawn there was almost exclusively one of light, colour and music, which are the very elements that Dante used to express his conception.

The spiritual interpretation of the delights of paradise must have begun in the first centuries of Islam. The famous traditionist and kinsman of Mahomet, Ibn Abbas, was of old credited with a saying which is significant of its early origin: “In paradise there is none of the things of this world; only their names are there.” The earliest traditionists even place in the mouth of the very Prophet who had described in such glowing terms the sensual joys awaiting the blessed, the same sublime words by which Isaiah and St. Paul had represented the glory of heaven; for a hadith attributed to Mahomet says, “I have prepared for my holy servants such things as the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor the mind of man imagined.”⁠[320] To this Divine promise the Prophet added the verse of the Koran (XXXII, 17): “The soul knows not of the delights awaiting it in reward for its good deeds.” The Moslem books on eschatology record many similar hadiths attributed to Mahomet, in which the Beatific Vision is represented as the supreme bliss reserved for the souls in paradise.⁠[321] It will thus be seen that from the very first centuries Islam had begun to conceive, apart from the sensual paradise of the Koran, a spiritual and essentially Christian heaven, in which beatitude consists in the contemplation of the splendour of the Divine essence.

2. To trace back each of the many controversies that arose in the centuries following would be to exceed the limits of our task. In the end the idealistic conception of paradise emerged triumphant alike over the exegesis of the Koran and the arguments against the anthropomorphism of God of the Mutazili and Kharijite heretics.⁠[322] By the time that the dogma of Islam was given definite shape by its greatest theologians, the Beatific Vision was considered to be the principal, if not the only prize of heaven, and the sensual delights extolled in the text of revelation were discreetly ignored.

The mystics and the philosophers, imbued as they were with Christian theology and neo-Platonic metaphysics contributed to the gradual elimination of the sensual conception of paradise by giving its material delights a mystical or allegorical meaning. And this line of thought was followed by the two great thinkers of the twelfth century, the theologian and mystic, Algazel, and the theologian and philosopher, Averrhoes.⁠[323] Algazel states that, with the exception of the materialists, who denied the immortality of the soul, all cultured minds in Islam more or less openly scouted the idea of any sensuality in connection with the delights of paradise⁠[324]; the philosophers averred that these delights were purely imaginary; the mystics went further and denied their existence; and both philosophers and mystics for the joys depicted in the Koran substituted the sole and sovereign delight of the intellectual vision or contemplation of the essence of God, the enjoyment of which they made equivalent to all the physical and ideal pleasures that man is capable of feeling.⁠[325] This denial, more or less complete in substance, was, however, attenuated in form, to avoid disappointing the masses, who were incapable of so lofty a conception. To save appearances, the philosophers and Sufis affected acceptance of the material descriptions of the Koran on the grounds that they were symbols, the spiritual meaning of which was the patrimony of the enlightened. Algazel and Averrhoes, the champions alike of faith and reason, found means to reconcile the points of view of both the learned and the vulgar by declaring that heaven, as the supreme aim and ultimate bliss of all men, would be a state in which each would attain his particular desire. Those who in this life were tied down to things material, would in heaven be capable of deriving joy only from sensual delights, though they could not say of what these were to consist; whilst those whose conceptions and desires were free from all material taint, would find delight in the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision alone.

Thus, Algazel and Averrhoes in their picture of the mediæval beliefs of Islam provide us with two heavens—the one, material, and the other, ideal. A few years later, Ibn Arabi of Murcia expressed his views on the question in the same concise terms.⁠[326]

“There are two heavens—the one, sensible; and the other, ideal. In the one, both the animal spirits and the rational souls enjoy bliss; in the other, the rational souls alone. The latter paradise is the heaven of knowledge and intuition.”

Not content with this formula, he proceeds to explain the psychological motives that led Divine Providence to lay greater stress upon the sensible than upon the ideal paradise in the Koran, in contrast to the teaching of Christian revelation. And Ibn Arabi’s explanation, arguing as it does the Christian origin of the spiritual conception of paradise in Islam, is so significant that it is worthy of literal transcription.⁠[327]

“God has depicted paradise in accordance with the different degrees of man’s understanding. The Messiah defined the delights of paradise as purely spiritual, when, in concluding the instructions given to his disciples in his testament, he said, ‘Should ye do as I have bidden you, ye will sit with me to-morrow in the Kingdom of Heaven by the side of my Lord and your Lord and behold around His throne the angels singing His praise and glorifying His holiness. And there ye will enjoy all manner of delights and yet will partake not of either food or drink.’⁠[328] But, if the Messiah was so explicit on this point and had recourse to none of the allegories found in our Book, it was simply because his words were spoken to a people conversant with the Torah and the books of the prophets, whose mind was thus prepared for his words. Not so with our Prophet Mahomet. His Divine mission fell among a rude people, who dwelt in deserts and on mountains; who lacked the discipline of learning and believed neither in the resurrection nor in the future life; who were ignorant even of the pleasures of the princes of this world, let alone those of the kings in heaven! Accordingly, most of the descriptions of paradise in his book are based on the body, in order that they might be understood by the people and serve as an incentive to their minds.”

3. The evidence furnished by the Moslem thinkers, Algazel, Averrhoes and Ibn Arabi, is fully confirmed by the writings of the two Christian scholastics who were most versed in Islam—the Spaniards, Raymond Lull and Raymond Martin. Far from falling into the common error of attributing to all Moslems the belief in a voluptuous paradise, they repeat almost literally what those thinkers had affirmed; and Raymond Martin even quotes passages from Algazel, full of the loftiest metaphysical thought, in which this prince of Moslem mystics pictures the sublime delights of the Beatific Vision.⁠[329]

If, therefore, at the very time at which Dante was composing the Divine Comedy two Christian theologians knew of a Moslem paradise just as adaptable as Dante’s to the purest and most spiritual Christian doctrine, the idea of comparing the two conceptions, based as they are on dogmas that are so much alike, can no longer be considered as out of place. That a connection between the two artistic conceptions does exist will appear the less unlikely if it is borne in mind that Dante’s paradise has no precedent in Christian mediæval literature. Dantists have shown that in none of the so-called “precursors” of the Divine Comedy could the poet have found inspiration for his delicate picture. Whereas, to Dante paradise is pure light, and the life of the blessed, one of ecstatic contemplation and Divine Love, in the rude conception of most of his Christian predecessors—who were merely monks or jongleurs—life in heaven is but a grotesque exaggeration of the life of the refectory and the choir, or of the life at the court of a feudal lord.⁠[330] Thus, the question of determining the values to be attributed to the conceptions of paradise current in the Middle Ages may in all fairness be reduced to the following terms: In the Moslem world two antithetical ideas flourished almost simultaneously—the coarse and sensual paradise of the Koran, and the spiritual picture of the philosophers and the mystics. In the Christian world, the same two ideas existed—the materialistic conception, equivalent to that of the Koran, which flourished prior to the Divine Comedy, and the spiritual picture, which was solely the work of the Florentine poet.⁠[331] Dante himself appears to disdain the conceptions of his Christian predecessors when, in announcing his ascension to paradise, he says, “If God ... wills that I may behold his court in a manner quite outside modern use.”⁠[332]

Once the mind is free from the prejudice, as common as it is ill-founded, that regards all Islamic conception of paradise as materialistic, it will the more readily grasp how it came about that Islam, as early as the eighth century of our era, conceived so spiritual a picture of heaven as that found in Version C of Cycle 2 of the legend of the Miraj. The many striking features of resemblance borne by that description to the paradise of Dante were exhaustively dealt with in the first part of this work, and the wealth of coincidence afforded room for so minute a comparison that but little is now needed to complete the parallel.

4. To begin with the general scheme of the Paradiso, we know that Dante’s paradise is formed of the nine astronomical heavens of the Ptolemaic system. In the first seven heavens it is only by chance that the poet sees the blessed, who are distributed according to their merits. Their real residence is in the Empyrean, or immobile sphere, which is thus the true paradise or theological heaven. There Dante pictures them as seated on thrones, benches or seats of light in the form of an amphitheatre, which gives the whole assembly the appearance of an immense rose of light, in the centre of which God stands revealed to the contemplation of His Chosen. The Empyrean is the celestial Jerusalem and lies in the vertical projection of the earthly Jerusalem, whilst beneath the latter opens the abyss of hell. The most perfect symmetry exists between the realm of reward and the realm of punishment. Both contain ten mansions and, just as the depth of each infernal mansion indicates the gravity of the sin punished therein, so does each degree of merit find its reward in a correspondingly high mansion in heaven.⁠[333]

Most, if not all, of the architectural features of this plan have already been shown to exist in one or other of the versions of the legend of the Miraj. Thus, many of those versions represent the astronomical spheres as being inhabited by saints, prophets, and angels, who were seen to be allotted to the spheres according to their merit.⁠[334] This conceit, though shared by Dante and Islam, had however no Biblical foundation; for neither the Old nor the New Testament definitely mentions the astronomical heavens as being the dwelling-places of the blessed. The idea can only have been derived either from the Cabbalists or some of the apocryphal Christian writers⁠[335]; for the Fathers of the Church and the early ecclesiastical writers were careful not to attempt any specific localisation of the theological heaven.⁠[336]

One outstanding feature of Dante’s general scheme of paradise has been universally admired for its originality. The site of glory, or celestial Jerusalem, he places directly above the Jerusalem on earth, which according to the poet occupies the centre of our northern hemisphere.⁠[337]

Exactly the same conception existed in Islam as early as the seventh century, that is to say, in the time of Mahomet himself. A legend attributed to the famous traditionist and companion of the Prophet, Kaab al-Akhbar, a Jewish convert who introduced many rabbinical myths into Islam, runs: “Paradise is in the seventh heaven, opposite Jerusalem and the rock (of the Temple); if a stone were dropped from paradise, it would surely fall upon the rock.”⁠[338] Similar rabbinical sayings, attributed to the same traditionist, or to another Jewish convert, Wahb ibn Munabbih, and sometimes to the kinsman of the Prophet, Ibn Abbas, must have contributed to spread the belief that paradise lay in the vertical projection of Jerusalem and its Temple. Indeed, geographical treatises of the tenth century describe Jerusalem as follows⁠[339]:—

“Jerusalem is the navel of the earth. The Gate of Heaven stands open on its temple. In Jerusalem is the Divine Light and the Divine Fire. To visit Jerusalem is to enter heaven. God said of the rock (of the Temple), ‘Thou art My lower throne; from thee heaven rises unto Me; underneath thee stretches the earth; in thee lie My heaven and My hell.’ From Jerusalem Jacob saw the ladder that rose to heaven. Jesus ascended into heaven from Jerusalem and thither He will descend again. That part of the earth that is nearest to heaven is Jerusalem.”

It should be remembered that in several versions of the Miraj Mahomet began his ascension from the same rock of the Temple of Jerusalem, and this the commentators explain by quoting in a slightly altered form the legend mentioned above as told by Kaab al-Akhbar: “The Gate of heaven, named the Mount of the Angels, lies opposite Jerusalem.”⁠[340]

This obsession for symmetry in design is characteristic of Moslem eschatology, in which the world beyond the grave was conceived on the lines of this world. All versions of the Mahometan ascension tell of a temple in heaven called the “House of Habitation,” which is but the counterpart of the Holy Shrine at Mecca; and, as the Caaba is supposed to have been built by Abraham, so the latter is represented as residing near the heavenly temple. Moreover, in some legends this temple of paradise is supposed to lie in the vertical projection of the Caaba, just as the Celestial Jerusalem lies directly above the Jerusalem on earth. One of these legends Ibn Arabi quotes: “Were the House of Habitation to fall to the earth, it would assuredly fall on the temple of the Caaba.”⁠[341]

Nor does this desire for symmetry, which so imbued the minds of Moslem traditionists, end there. The realms of pain and of reward, hell and heaven, correspond in design just as perfectly as they do in Dante’s design. This may be seen from the general plan that Ibn Arabi traces with almost mathematical precision.⁠[342]

“The degrees of heaven are as many in number as the degrees of hell; for each degree in the one has its counterpart in the other. This is but natural, for man can but comply, or fail to comply with any one precept. If he complies with it, he gains a degree of glory commensurate with his merit; but, if he fails to do so, he suffers condign punishment in hell. Thus, were a stone to fall from any one degree in paradise, it would of a surety fall in a straight line on the corresponding degree in hell.”

5. The actual description of Dante’s abode of glory is contained in Cantos XXX, XXXI, and XXXII of the Paradiso.⁠[343] As the rays spread from the centre of Divine Light throughout the Empyrean, they create a number of luminous circumferences of immense diameter on planes that lessen in extent as they gradually descend. Each of these circles, like the tier of an amphitheatre, is formed of a row of seats, benches or thrones. The ranks thus formed Dante likens to the petals of an immense rose, each petal of the mystic flower representing a seat in glory, and the petals on one and the same plane, a circle or tier of the celestial amphitheatre. Dante also compares the abode of bliss to a realm, a garden, or a hill around which the blessed are grouped in ecstatic contemplation of the Divine Light; but the simile he mainly uses is that of the mystic rose, which, although he never actually employs the figure, he derived, no doubt, from the more graphic image of an amphitheatre.

The moral principle underlying the distribution of the blessed in the various tiers of the amphitheatre is applied with as strict a regard for symmetry as is shown in the geometrical design. All is governed by law and nothing is left to chance. The greater or lesser height of each circle corresponds to the greater or lesser degree of holiness attained by the souls, who, again, occupy a position on the left or right in each circle according to the nature of their faith before or after the advent of Christ. Further, the saints of the Old Testament are separated from those of the New Testament by subdivisions within each sector, some of which are in a vertical, others in a horizontal, sense. Men and women, children and adults, all are grouped in their respective classes in the various parts of the rose. Perfect symmetry marks the whole scheme throughout. Thus we find that Eve, the mother of human sinners, sits underneath Mary, the Mother of Christ the Redeemer; on the left of Mary sits Adam, the father of mankind, and on her right, St. Peter, the father of the Church. The blessed occupy their seats in Glory for one or the other of two reasons—either owing to their works plus grace, or to Divine grace alone; in the former category are the adults, in the latter, the children who were only saved through the faith of their parents. A third class, formed of the children and adults who sit in the places left vacant by rebel angels, might indeed be added. In conclusion, the spirits occupying the principal seats in the first circles, though not actually so classified by Dante, fall into three groups—the patriarchs and apostles, such as Adam, Moses, John the Baptist, St. Peter, and St. John the Evangelist; beneath them, the holy doctors of the religious orders, such as St. Francis, St. Benedict, and St. Augustine; and, still lower, the laymen and clergy who followed the teaching of these doctors.

In spite of these differences in degree, the life of the blessed is essentially one and the same. With their gaze fixed on the focus of Divine light, they contemplate God and know Him more or less perfectly according to the strength of their vision, which, in turn, depends on the purity and intensity of the Divine love they felt on earth. The difference in degree is made outwardly manifest by the greater or lesser brilliance each spirit emits; but it does not imply any essential difference either in the vision itself or in the spiritual delight of the souls; nor can it give rise to any desire on the part of those in the lower ranks to occupy a higher seat, and still less can it cause any feeling of envy, for this would be incompatible with the spirit of brotherly love that unites them in the love of God; each, moreover, is aware that the joy experienced in the degree allotted to him is greater than he could possibly deserve.

6. Of this clearly defined scheme the Dantists have been able to trace but little to other Christian authors; indeed, with the exception of the situation of paradise in the Empyrean, almost the whole of Dante’s architecture of heaven has been attributed to the inventive faculty of the poet himself. Again, therefore, before pronouncing final judgment on the originality or otherwise of the conception, we would suggest that the Moslem sources be consulted. In this respect especial interest attaches to the works of the mystical writers of Islam, and more particularly to the detailed and picturesque descriptions of the realm of glory given by the Sufi of Murcia, Ibn Arabi.

The division of heaven into seven mansions, in diametric opposition to the seven stages of hell, dates from the early centuries of Islam. Ibn Abbas, in a hadith that is repeated again and again in the holy books of Islam, refers to these divisions indiscriminately as gardens, gates, mansions, stages or circular strata; and with names derived from the Koran he enumerates them in the following order⁠[344]: The first and highest is the mansion of the Divine Majesty; the second, the mansion of peace; the third, the Garden of Eden; the fourth, the garden of refuge; the fifth, the garden of eternity; the sixth, the garden of paradise; and the seventh, the garden of delight. Other versions of the hadith change the order of the mansions, add one to their number, or vary the names given above.

As early as the tenth century a moral principle, in the form of a graduation of the bliss of glory, was introduced into the architectural scheme. The author of the Corra, who lived at Samarcand in that century, says that at intervals, according to their merits, God grants the Beatific Vision to His blessed; they, for example, who mortified their flesh and gave their whole life to His service, shall enjoy the vision every Friday; those who indulged in the pleasures to which youth is prone, shall behold it but once a month; and they who only served God toward the end of their days, but once a year; whilst such as spent their life in sin and only repented on their death-bed, shall see the vision but once throughout eternity.⁠[345]

Other hadiths attempt to connect the seven or eight mansions of bliss with as many categories of blessed.⁠[346] One such classification may serve as an example: The first heaven is reserved for the prophets, the envoys of God, the martyrs, and the saints; the second for such as fulfilled the rites of prayer and ablution; the third for men of holy meditation; the fourth, for the devout in religious practice; the fifth, for the ascetics; the sixth, for those militant in the spiritual strife with passion; the seventh, for pilgrims; and the eighth, for those who were chaste and charitable towards their neighbours.

From these hadiths the mystics gradually elaborated their doctrine of the Beatific Vision, which, besides being originally Christian, was influenced by the neo-Platonic tradition of Moslem philosophy. Ibn Ayshun, of Toledo, who lived in the first half of the tenth century, describes the vision of the countenance of God as being like the contemplation of the sun or moon when unhidden by clouds.⁠[347] Two centuries later, Shakir Ibn Muslim, of Orihuela, enumerates the different aspects in which God appears to the blessed according to his attributes of perfection, beauty, eloquence, mercy, bounty, wisdom, and kindness.⁠[348] The author of the Tadhkira, in the middle of the thirteenth century, completes the doctrine by stating that even after each vision of the Divine essence the eternal light continues to reign in the souls of the blessed, so that the bliss of glory may be uninterrupted.⁠[349] The Cordovan ascetic further establishes a difference of degree in the enjoyment of the vision, according to the merit of the soul; to each precept of the Divine law there corresponds a degree of bliss that can only be attained by compliance with that precept.⁠[350] In the twelfth century, the famous Oriental theologian and philosopher, Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi, availed himself of the elements contained in the Koran and the hadiths to trace a general scheme of paradise showing eight main divisions, subdivided into a hundred degrees or stages.⁠[351] Thus, in the centuries immediately preceding the Divine Comedy the structure of paradise, as conceived in the mind of Eastern and Western Islam, appears complete in outline and detail.