1. Any one of the channels mentioned may have served as the means of communication, even to the farthest ends of Europe, for the news of the legends on the after-life that were popular throughout Islam.⁠[602] It has been shown that the legends that sprang up in Ireland, Scandinavia, France, Germany and Italy—the so-called precursors of the Divine Comedy—were most probably based on Islamic models. These may have been introduced into Christian Europe by pilgrims, Crusaders, merchants or missionaries; or, again, by Norman adventurers, slaves, men of learning or simple travellers. Once the possibility of a connecting link has been established, the hypothesis of imitation tends to become that moral certainty that historical demonstration requires and is content to accept.

It must be borne in mind that the majority of the Christian legends prior to the Divine Comedy originated later than the tenth century, whereas the hadiths on the after-life date much further back. That these hadiths were of popular origin is, moreover, evident. Until the ninth century they were transmitted solely by word of mouth, a fact that helped to spread them and rendered the creation of new legends easier.⁠[603] Not until the formation by the two great critics, Bukhari and Muslim, of the collections of authentic hadiths can the era of invention be considered closed. Their popularity did not, however, diminish on that account. Moslems everywhere, of all ages and every social rank, acted as transmitters, often undertaking long journeys to hear new tales and so increase their stock of religious lore; for, apart from the attraction that the fantastic nature of the theme held for the masses, it was considered an act of faith to learn these tales and share in their dissemination. No wonder, therefore, that the teachers of hadiths prior to the ninth century were reckoned by thousands.

2. It may be said that from the earliest times Spain was the country most addicted to the study of these legends; for the intolerance of the Faqihs alone produced a superabundance of traditional lore. Indeed, in the ninth century, it was regarded as the home of the traditions of the Prophet and of all these it was but natural that the story of the Miraj, or ascension of Mahomet, should have the widest diffusion, as narrating an important part of the biography of the Prophet—the story of the performance of his supreme miracle, which has been accepted as a dogma, and is solemnly commemorated to this day throughout Islam.

Knowledge of these Moslem tales would, sooner or later, inevitably filter through the slender barrier separating the two peoples in their conception of the hereafter.⁠[604] Indeed, poor as are the records of the beliefs of Islam left us by mediæval Christian writers, there is evidence that the Christians in Spain were, from the first centuries of the conquest, aware of these legends, and especially of the legend of the Miraj.

3. At the very outset of the ninth century, in the apologetic writings of the Mozarabs of Cordova, mention is made of Moslem hadiths. Alvaro of Cordova, in his Indiculus luminosus; St. Eulogius, in his Memoriale Sanctum; and the Abbot Esperaindeo, in his Apologetico contra Mahoma, repeatedly allude to tales “leves et risu dignas” describing the life and miracles of the pretended prophet.⁠[605] In his Apologeticus Martyrum St. Eulogius interpolates a brief biography of Mahomet. Founded largely upon spurious data, it is in the main a baseless fabrication that, nevertheless, shows a considerable knowledge of the Koran and the hadiths.⁠[606]

4. This biography of Mahomet, St. Eulogius found at the Monastery of Leire in Navarre, which proves that as early as the ninth century the legend had penetrated to the north of Spain. This explains why Spain should have been the country from which it first passed into Western literature. Indeed, in 1143 a Latin version of the Koran was written by the Archdeacon of Pamplona, Robert of Reading, an English ecclesiastic who had formerly worked at the college of translators founded at Toledo by Archbishop Raymond. Together with this version, the archdeacon wrote a treatise entitled “Summa brevis contra haereses et sectam Sarracenorum” and derived from Arabic sources.⁠[607] It is unlikely that a polemical work of this kind would omit to mention the Miraj, which by its very extravagance would readily lend itself to refutation; but it is impossible to make any definite assertion on the point, as the treatise in question has not been preserved complete.

5. Another document of the same century still exists however—the “Historia Arabum,” written in Latin by Archbishop Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada of Toledo.⁠[608] In the prologue the author states that his compendium will start from the time of Mahomet, and that his data upon the origin, teaching and government of the Prophet will be taken “ex relatione fideli et eorum scripturis.” Nor should this have been difficult, seeing that he wrote in Toledo, where at the time many Arabic books on religion, science, and lighter literature were then being translated.⁠[609] In Chapter V of this “Historia Arabum,” which is entitled “De sublimatione 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.