In my recent work on the neo-Platonic mysticism of the Spanish Moslem philosopher Ibn Masarra,⁠[2] I had already hinted that his doctrines, filtering through into Christian scholasticism, had not only met with acceptance at the hands of theologians of the Franciscan or pre-Thomist school, but had even influenced a philosopher-poet of such universal renown as Dante Alighieri, whom all critics and historians had hitherto held to be an Aristotelian and Thomist.⁠[3] After enumerating briefly the fundamental reasons underlying my vague surmise, I ventured to call the attention of specialists to the close resemblance that I found between the general outlines of the ascension of Dante and Beatrice throughout the spheres of Paradise, and another allegory of the ascension of a mystic and a philosopher, in the Futuhat, written by the great Sufi of Murcia, Ibn Arabi, who was undoubtedly a follower of Ibn Masarra.⁠[4]

The question so raised was of obvious interest: for if not merely the neo-Platonic metaphysics of the Cordovan Ibn Masarra and the Murcian Ibn Arabi, but the allegorical form in which the latter cast his Ascension may have exercised an influence as models, as they certainly existed as forerunners, of the most sublime part of the Divine Comedy, Dante’s conception of Paradise, then Spain may be entitled to claim for her Moslem thinkers no slight share in the world-wide fame enjoyed by the immortal work of Dante Alighieri. And again, the absorbing influence exercised by the latter over our allegorical poets, from the end of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, from Villena to Garcilaso, not to mention Francisco Imperial, Santillana, Mena and Padilla, would be balanced in a measure by the antecedent influence of our Moslem mystics in the complex genesis of the Divine Comedy.

Such was the starting-point of my research, but soon the horizon opened out unexpectedly before me. On closer study of Ibn Arabi’s quasi-Dantesque allegory I found that it was itself no more than a mystical adaptation of another ascension, already famous in the theological literature of Islam: the Miraj, or Ascension, of Mahomet from Jerusalem to the Throne of God. As this Miraj was preceded by an Isra, or Nocturnal Journey, during which Mahomet visited some of the infernal regions, the Moslem tradition at once struck me as a prototype of Dante’s conception. A methodical comparison of the general outlines of the Moslem legend with those of the great poem confirmed my impression and finally quite convinced me: the similarity had extended to the many picturesque, descriptive and episodic details of the two narratives, as well as to what is called the “architecture of the realms,” that is to say, the topographical conception of the infernal regions and of the celestial abodes, the plans of which appeared to me as drawn by one and the same Moslem architect. But on reaching this stage of my research, a new doubt arose. How if these resemblances between the Divine Comedy and its hypothetical Moslem model should be due to the fact that both derived from some common source? In other words, might not the features of Dante which appeared foreshadowed in Moslem sources, be traced to mediæval Christian legends that preceded his great work? At this juncture, therefore, it became imperative, in the first instance, to turn to those legends, and to make sure that I were not ascribing a Moslem origin to anything in Dante that might be adequately accounted for by those Christian legends.

This further process of inquiry and comparison held in store an even more unexpected conclusion. It not only confirmed that in Moslem sources there were to be found prototypes of features in the Divine Comedy hitherto regarded as original because nothing similar to them had been discovered in the Christian legends, its predecessors; it further revealed the no less Moslem origin of many of those mediæval legends themselves; it let in a flood of light upon the whole problem. The Moslem element thenceforth appeared as a key to much that had already been accounted for, and to what was still obscure, in the Divine Comedy. The conclusion was consonant with what students of Dante had hitherto ascribed to the influence of Christian precursors, and it explained what, as being inexplicable, they had attributed solely to the creative genius of the poet himself.

The above is, in outline, my thesis.⁠[5] It will sound to many like artistic sacrilege, or it may call an ironic smile to the lips of those—and they are not a few—who still conceive an artist’s inspiration as something preternatural, owing nothing to any suggestion outside itself. This is a very common attitude towards works of such universal renown as the Divine Comedy. Ozanam, in his inquiry into its poetic sources, had already brought out this point.⁠[6] For a long time—he says—this poem was considered as a solitary monument, standing in the midst of the mediæval desert. When, a century ago, Cancellieri pointed to some passages of Dante’s Inferno and Paradiso as being closely modelled upon the Vision of the monk Alberic, the devotees of Dante rose up in wrath at the sacrilege of supposing the Master capable of servile imitation of an obscure monk of the twelfth century: they, who were none too ready to admit even the undeniable fact of his imitation of classic models.

But time has passed and the nineteenth century, the age of cold dispassionate criticism, has peopled the deserts of the Middle Ages with living realities. Labitte, Ozanam, D’Ancona, Graf, a whole host of scholars and labourers in research have studied the legends of the after-life, both classical and Christian, which explain the genesis of Dante’s poem; and the lovers of Dante no longer resent the more sober and more scientific view of poetic inspiration which has gained acceptance. It is now admitted that the essential trait of genius does not lie in the absolute novelty or originality of the work of art; neither can it consist in the power—the prerogative of God alone—of creating both Form and Matter out of nothing.⁠[7]

The greater equanimity of the modern school of Dantophiles encourages me to hope that they will not be moved to ire by the suggestion of Moslem influences in the Divine Comedy. D’Ancona, in his inquiry into its Christian and classical sources,⁠[8] remarks that Dante showed himself ever keen to study and to learn, with a receptive mind towards the ideas and sentiments of his age; and surely it will not be denied that his century was steeped in the learning and art of Islam. In the opinion of D’Ancona it may always be difficult to affirm specifically that any one legend was the actual and original model that Dante had in his mind, the pregnant germ from which his divine poem was to grow. Yet I venture to think that the difficulty will not be found insuperable, if only the Moslem originals be considered, to wit: the above-mentioned legends of the Nocturnal Journey and Ascension of Mahomet, completed and adorned as they were with a mass of topographical and episodic detail, whether derived from other Islamic legends of the Life beyond the grave, from the Apocalyptic scenes of the Day of Judgment, or from the theories and conceptions of certain of the Moslem mystics in respect of Heaven and the Beatific Vision, which in spirituality and idealism were not unworthy of Dante’s own conception of Paradise. To throw into relief such resemblances and analogy, as conducive to the imitation which they suggest, is of necessity the main task of the present work. To complete the demonstration, render the conclusion unavoidable, and forestall all reasonable objection, it will finally outline and enumerate the coincidences of the Christian mediæval legends that preceded the Divine Comedy, with Moslem legends of a remoter date.

Madrid, 1919.