[524] Tadhkira, 87.
[525] Qisas, 190.
[526] Sudur, 73 and 74. For the nakedness of Judas, whose face alone is covered with a piece of cloth, cf. Sudur, 117, which depicts some of the damned in hell in the self-same fashion.
[527] Qisas, 135-143, contains several legends on Khidr. A richer collection is that included by Ibn Hijr in his Isaba, II, 114-137. Cf. also Sudur, 109, and Kharida, 92. Other Arabic legends represent Elijah and Enoch as praying on a rock or island. Cf. Chauvin, Bibliographie, 48, 52, 54, 59, and 63.
[528] See Graf, I, 37.
[529] Labitte, 122.
[530] D’Ancona, 50.
[531] The miraculous lighting of the altar lamps, witnessed by St. Brandan on the isle of the monks, is, as De Goeje has pointed out (loc. cit. 55), modelled upon the similar miracle performed each Easter Eve in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. But the author of the tale need not necessarily have seen the miracle himself, nor heard of it from an eye-witness, in 1,000 A.D., as De Goeje suggests. The news may have been transmitted to him through an Arabic medium, for as early as the eighth century Al Jahiz relates the miracle in his Hayawan, IV, 154.
[532] Graf, I, 95.
[533] Qisas, 228.
[534] Graf, I, 116-118.
[535] Qisas, 231.
[536] MS 61 Gayangos Coll., fols. 72-80.
[537] Graf, I, 87-92.
[538] Graf, I, 113 and 116.
[539] Qisas, 215-216.
[540] Qisas, 217.
[541] Guidi, Sette Dormienti.
[542] He merely mentions the legend of the Rabbi Joni as somewhat similar to the story of the monk Felix. Graf, I, 180, note 31.
[543] Loc. cit. 444.
[544] De gloria martyrum, ch. 95.
[545] Cf. Tixeront, II, 199.
[546] Graf, I, 241-260, Il riposo dei dannati.
[548] Graf, I, 250-251.
[549] See Sudur, 76 and 128.
[550] Cf. Ihia, IV, 352, and Ithaf, X, 366.
[551] Cf. Tadhkira, 35.
[553] Sudur, 97.
[554] Sudur, 110.
[555] Graf, I, 251.
[556] Sudur, 111 and 116.
[557] Sudur, 111 and 112.
[558] Graf, I, 255-257.
[559] Sudur, 126-131.
[560] In Miti, II, 103-108.
[561] In Romania, year 1891, p. 41 et seq.
[562] Cf. Graf, II, 104-5.
[563] The Zoroastrian origin of all the legends of this group is evident. Cf. Chantepie, Hist. des religions, 473.
[565] Minhaj, 19.
[566] Sudur, 49.
[567] Sudur, 34.
[568] Ibid.
[569] Ibid.
[570] Sudur, 31-32.
[571] Sudur, 28.
[572] Sudur, 31.
[573] Sudur, 32.
[574] Sudur, 33.
[575] Koran, XVII, 73; LXXXIII, 8-9; 19-20; LXXXIV, 7-10.
[576] Kharida, 180.
[577] It is noteworthy that the feature of the two books of record does not appear in the legendary lore of the West until the time of Bede, or eighth century of our era. Graf, unmindful of the Koranic precedents, considers that the myth was evolved from the Gospel metaphor of the “liber vitae,” to which, by way of contrast, was added a book of sins.
[578] Sudur, 34.
[579] Sudur, 49.
[580] Sudur, 50.
[581] Sudur, 23-24.
[582] Corra, 29-30. The influence on the Christian legends of this hadith, which must have been widely known in the first two centuries of the Hegira, can hardly be denied; for, although unauthorised by either Christian or Zoroastrian doctrine, the scene reappears in Muspilli described in the same terms.
[583] Sudur, 22 and 23.
[584] Islamic precedents exist also for other subjects dealt with in the Christian legendary cycle and discussed by Batiouchkof (op. cit.). Cf. Sudur, 24, 25, and 136.
[585] Needless to say, the themes of the Christian legendary lore have not been exhausted in the above survey. D’Ancona (83-95) and Graf (I, 256-7) quote legends belonging to the political and comic or burlesque cycles. The Moslem counterparts of the former may be found in Sudur, 30, 31, and 121; and of the latter, in Tadhkira, 80, and Sudur, 118, 120, and 123.
[586] The author has dealt with the problem here presented on the lines laid down by his master Ribera, who in his book, Orígenes del Justicia de Aragón (lectures 5 and 6) has systematised the laws governing imitation.
[587] Cf. Babelon, Du Commerce des Arabes dans le nord de l’Europe avant les croisades, pp. 33-47, and passim.
[588] Brehier, L’église et l’orient au moyen âge, pp. 20-50.
[589] Ibid. pp. 89-100; 354.
[590] Ibid. p. 211.
[591] Dozy, Recherches, II, 271. Cf. Amari, Storia dei musulmani di Sicilia, III, part 2, 365, 445 et seq. Schiaparelli, Ibn Giobeir, 322 and 332.
[592] Amari, III, 2, pp. 589-711; 888-890.
[593] Simonet, Hist. mozárabes, pp. 216-219, 252, 273, 292, 346, 368, 384, 690. Throughout the tenth century Arabicised monks and soldiers flocked to Leon, where their superior culture secured them high office at the court and in the ecclesiastical and civil administration of the kingdom. Cf. Gomez Moreno, Iglesias mozárabes (Madrid, 1917, Centro de Estudios Históricos), pp. 105-140.
[594] Ribera, Discurso Acad. Hist., pp. 40-45.
[595] Ribera, Disc., 46, Note 1.
[596] Ribera, Orígenes Justicia, 19-84. Fernández y González, Mudéjares, 224, et passim.
[597] Jourdain, Recherches sur les anciennes traductions latines d’Aristote, pp. 95-149.
[598] Jourdain, pp. 149-151. Fernández y González, 154-159. Amador de los Ríos, Hist. crít. de la liter. esp., III, ch. 9-12.
[599] Al-Makkari, Analectes, II, 510. Cf. Ihata, II, fol. 153 vᵒ.
[600] Ihata, III, fol. 85.
[601] Amador de los Ríos, III, 496. Ballesteros, Sevilla en el siglo XIII, docs. Nos. 67 and 109. La Fuente, Hist. de las Universidades, I, 127-130.
[602] Blochet in his Sources orientales de la Divine Comédie, omits or disregards the nearest and most constant channels of communication between Eastern and Western culture. To him the main channels are the trade routes from Persia to the North-East of Europe via Byzance; the intellectual relations between Ireland and Italy, and Italy and Byzance; and, finally, the Crusades. Moslem Spain is hardly once mentioned as a means of communication. This appears to be due to the fact that, in Blochet’s opinion, the pre-Dante legends (such as the Voyage of St. Brandan, the Visions of St. Paul, St. Patrick, Hincmar, Charles the Bald, and Tundal, and the Tale of the Three Monks of the East) are derived rather from the Persian ascension of Ardâ Virâf than from Arabic and Islamic sources. He admits, indeed, that the Miraj may also have influenced these legends, but only as transmitted by the Crusaders from the East. The vast majority, however, of Islamic elements in the precursory legends have been shown to be derived from hadiths of the future life and only very few from the Miraj. Still less can there be any question of direct relation between the precursors and the Persian legend. Blochet, moreover, contents himself with pointing out analogies between the precursory legends and the Eastern sources, but hardly ever furnishes documentary evidence; though, even if he did so, it would still be more natural to account for the resemblance as due to the effect of Islamic religious literature, rather than any direct contact with Persia. Jourdain (Recherches, 208 et seq.) long ago pointed out how insignificant was the influence of Byzance and the Crusades on the transmission of science and philosophy to Western Christendom, compared with that of the Hispano-Arabic centre.
[603] The early Moslems, who were Arabs by race and, like the Prophet, illiterate, felt the same aversion for writing as did Mahomet; and at first it was thought unlawful to record the hadiths in writing.
[605] Simonet, 377, notes 2 and 3. Cf. Indic. lum. in España Sagrada, XI, 249.
[606] Eulogius, Apologeticus, fol. 80 vᵒ.
[607] Jourdain, Recherches, 100-103. Cf. Wüstenfeld, Die Übersetzungen arabischer Werke, 44-50.
[608] Amador de los Ríos, Hist. crít. de la liter. esp., III, 415 et seq., mentions a Castilian version of 1256. The text here used is the Latin text from Erpenius, Historia saracenica.
[609] It should be remembered that Alphonso the Wise had ordered the Koran to be translated. Another translation was made in the 13th century by a canon of Toledo, named Marco. Cf. Jourdain, Recherches, 149.
[610] See the Primera Crónica General of Alphonso the Wise, pp. 270-272, chapters 488 and 489, entitled “De como Mahomat dixo que fallara a Abrahan et a Moysen et a Ihesu en Iherusalem” and “De como Mahomat dixo que subira fasta los syete cielos.”
[611] Recently published under the title “El Obispo de Jaén sobre la seta Mahometana,” by Fr. Pedro Armengol in vol. IV of the Obras de San Pedro Pasqual (Rome, 1908). The Catalan Dominican Raymond Martin also mentions the Miraj in his Explanatio simboli apostolorum, written in 1256-1257. Cf. Edit. March, p. 41: “... non sicut Machometus qui jactavit se ad celos ascendisse, sed de nocte et nullo vidente.”
[612] Cf. Amador de los Ríos, Hist. crít. de la liter. esp., IV, 75-85.
[613] Cf. Armengol, IV, 3, 4, 28, 29, 37, 41, 49, 143, etc.
[614] Cf. Armengol, IV, 28, 53, 55, 66, 143. Incidentally it is also mentioned in the Tratado contra el fatalismo musulman (III, 54-91) on pp. 55, 72, and 83.
[615] Cf. Armengol, IV, 90-138.
[616] How close these ties were is shown by the mere fact that shortly after the reconquest of Seville Italian nobles and merchants occupied whole streets and quarters of their own. Cf. Ballesteros, Sevilla, ch. III, Los extranjeros, 42-46.
[617] Cf. Rossi, I, 118 and 138.
[618] Scartazzini in his comment on Inf., XV, 23-54, gives a bibliography of the person and works of Brunetto Latini. The work here consulted is Sundby, Della vita e delle opere di Brunetto Latini.
[619] Inf., XV, 58 and 60; 79-87; 119-120.
[620] Cf. Scartazzini, loc. cit., Inf., XV, 32.
[621] Cf. Vossler, II, 118-120; D’Ancona, 101, note 1.
[622] Sundby, 29-41.
[623] Cf. Sundby, 86-88, and Carra de Vaux, Avicenne, 177-180, and note the classifications given by Avicenna in his Rasail, 2-3 and 71-80.
[624] Sundby, 136, and passim, acknowledges that he does not know the origin of some passages; on p. 111 he admits that Brunetto availed himself of Arabic texts of the physician Ishaq ibn Hunayn. D’Ancona (Il Tesoro di B.L. versificato) points out the Arabic origin of some episodes of the story of Alexander the Great as told in the Tesoro (cf., p. 141). The very title of Tesoro is reminiscent of Arabic literature. Brockelmann quotes over sixty works bearing that title, some far earlier than the thirteenth century, when the fashion spread to Christian Europe.
[625] Cf. D’Ancona (Tesoro, 176-227).
[626] Sundby, 6-10. Brunetto mentions the date of his mission in the first verses of his Tesoretto (1-25).
[627] Amador de los Ríos, IV, 17-23.
[628] Apart from the legend of the Miraj, Brunetto may have obtained philosophical and theological information in Spain about the eschatology of Ibn Arabi, whose Ishraqi and mystical school of thought lived on in the works and teaching of other Murcian Sufis.
[629] A knowledge of Islamic lore may have been transmitted to Dante by a learned Rabbi, such as Emmanuel Ben Salomo, of the Zifroni family, a poet and philosopher of Rome and a friend of Dante; or Hillel of Verona. [The importance in this connection of the Italian Rabbis, who were perhaps better informed of the Moslem sources than the Christians of Dante’s time, has lately been pointed out by Beck, in Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie (Berlin, 1921, vol. XLI, p. 472) and Van Tieghem, in Revue de Littérature Comparée (Paris, April/June, 1922, p. 324). Other critics of the thesis have suggested further likely channels of communication. Thus, Cabaton, in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions (Paris, 1920, p. 19) recalls the fact that Dante’s friend, the poet Guido Cavalcanti, had visited Spain on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Nallino, in Rivista degli Studi Orientali (Rome, 1921, vol. VIII, 4, p. 808), mentions the following as likely means of contact between Dante and Islam: The captive Moslems of all ranks of society living in Tuscany, and particularly at Pisa; or, the Italian troubadours who flocked to the Court of Alphonso the Wise; or, again, the innumerable Italian traders who came and went between Italy and Spain and the Moslem ports of Africa and the East. He adds: “If the Pisan merchant Leonardo Fibonacci could acquire in the Aduanas of the Moslem ports the knowledge of Algebra that he introduced into Europe early in the 13th century; and if other, nameless, travellers could be the bearers of the popular Oriental tales that later passed into Italian literature; is it unlikely that among other fantastic tales the legendary story of Mahomet should be thus transmitted, a story that was in perfect keeping with the mentality of the people in mediæval Europe?” Finally, the critic Gabrieli, on pp. 55-61 of his pamphlet, “Intorno alle fonti orientali della Divina Commedia,” in Arcadia, III (Rome, 1919), though generally adverse to the theory, makes two interesting suggestions. As possible means of transmission he names the Spanish Franciscan Lull and the Florentine Dominican Ricoldo de Monte Croce. Lull, who had a vast knowledge of Islamic culture and knew and imitated the doctrines of Ibn Arabi, repeatedly visited Italy between 1287 and 1296, residing two whole years in Rome as well as in Genoa, Pisa, and Naples. Even more likely appears the intervention of Ricoldo, who lived in the East from 1288 to 1301, preaching the Gospel in Syria, Persia and Turkestan, whence he returned to the Monastery of Santa Maria Novella at Florence and there died in 1320, at the age of 74. In Chapter XIV of his famous work Contra legem sarracenorum, or Improbatio Alchorani, he treats of the legend of the Miraj. Dante is known to have had dealings with the Dominican friars of Santa Maria Novella; indeed, it appears that during his youth he attended their cloister schools, where letters and sciences were also taught to laymen.—Note added since the publication of the Spanish original.]
[630] Ozanam, 437, 467.
[631] D’Ancona, 108, 113.
[632] Cf. Rassegna dantesca, in “Giorn. stor. della letter. italiana” (1914, Nos. 2-3), pp. 385, 390.
[633] That the lyrical and epic poetry of the then rising Christian literatures were also influenced by Hispano-Moslem models has been shown by my master Ribera in his Discursos de ingreso en las Academias Española y de la Historia (Madrid, 1912 and 1915). He has also traced the connection between Hispano-Moslem music and that of the French troubadours, in La música de las Cantigas (Madrid, 1922) and La música andaluza medieval en las canciones de trovadores y troveros (Madrid, 1923). How profound and extensive the influence of Arabic poetry was has also been shown by S. Singer, in Arabische und Europäische Poesie im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1918), and by Burdach, in Ueber den Ursprung des Mittelalterlichen Minnesangs (Berlin, 1918); these authors give the Arabic sources of poems such as Floire et Blanchefleur, Aucassin et Nicolette, and legends such as that of the Grail, Parsifal, and Tristan.—Note added.
[634] Typical of the vogue for Arabic is the following text, taken from the Liber Adelardi Batensis de quibusdam naturalibus questionibus (MS. Bibl. Escur., III, o, 2, fol. 74). Adelard of Bath was one of the learned Englishmen who worked at the Toledan School of Translators. The text is from the prologue and is addressed to a nephew.
“Meministi, nepos, quod, septennio iam transacto, cum te in gallicis studiis pene puerum iuxta Laudisdunum una cum ceteris auditoribus in eis dimiserim, id iter nos convenisse ut arabum studia ego pro posse meo scrutarer.... Quod utrum recte expleverim re ipsa probari potest. Hac precipue oportunitate quod cum sarracenorum sentencias te sepe exponentem auditor tantum noverim earumque non pauce satis utiles mihi videantur, pacienciam meam paulisper abrumpam, teque edisserente, ego siccubi mihi videbitur obviabo. Quippe et illos impudice extollis et nostros detractionis modo inscitia invidiose arguis....”
[635] Opus majus (Edit. Jebe, 1733), p. 246:
“Latini nihil quod valet habent nisi ab aliis linguis....” Ibid. p. 476. “Et iam ex istis scientiis tribus patet mirabilis utilitas ... contra inimicos fidei destruendos.”
[636] In so delicate a matter as the question of the union of the active intellect with man, he declares (Opera omnia, III, 3, De Anima, 166):
“Nos autem dissentimus in paucis ab Averroe....” “His duobus suppositis, accipimus alia duo ab Alfarabio....” “In causa autem quam inducemus et modo, convenimus in toto cum Averroe et Avempace, in parte cum Alfarabio.”
and he rejects the opinion of the Latin scholars (Ibid. p. 143), “Sed isti, absque dubio, numquam bene intentionem Aristotelis intellexerunt.”
[637] Cf. Blanquerna, II, 105, 134, 158-160 in Ribera, Lulio, II, 193-197.
[638] Ibn Hazm, Fasl, I, 72:
“... the countries in which there are none of the arts and sciences mentioned (i.e., medicine, astronomy and the mechanical arts), such as the countries of the Sudan and of the Slavs and among the majority of peoples, both nomad and settled....”
Said, Tabaqat, 8:
“The other peoples (apart from the Chinese and Turks) that do not cultivate the sciences, resemble rather beasts than men; as regards those that live in the lands of the far North, bordering on the uninhabited part of the globe, the prolonged absence of the sun renders the air cold and the atmosphere in which they live less clear; accordingly they are men of a cold temperament and never reach maturity; they are of great stature and of a white colour, with long and lank hair. But they lack all sharpness of wit and penetration of intellect, and among them predominate ignorance and stupidity, mental blindness, and barbarism. Such are the Slavs, Bulgars and neighbouring peoples. (Ibid. 9) As to the Galicians and Berbers, they are ignorant, rebellious and hostile people.”
It should be borne in mind that by “Galicians” are meant the Christian inhabitants of the North-East of Spain and Portugal, and by “Slavs” and “Bulgars” all the peoples of the North and East of Europe.
[639] The different opinions and bibliography on this point may be found in Scartazzini (Inf. VII, 1; XXXI, 67).
[640] De vulgari eloquio, I, ch. VI.
[641] Inf., IV, 143, 144.
[642] Inf., XXVIII, 22-63.
[643] See D’Ancona (Tesoro, 186-277).
[644] Cf. Franceso de Buti’s commentary of the fourteenth century (in D’Ancona, Tesoro, 268):
“Ali, secondo ch’io truovo, fu discepolo di Maometto: ma per quel ch’io credo, elli fu quel cherico che l’ammaestrò, lo quale elli chiama Ali forse perchè in quella lingua così si chiama il maestro: ... Di queste istorie m’abbi scusato tu, lettore, chè non se ne può trovare verità certa.”
St. Peter Paschal, on the other hand, to whom Arabic sources were available, knew about Ali and his death (Cf. Armengol, IV, 10 and 61).
[645] Inf., XXVIII, 32-33.
[646] Tarikh al-Khamis, II, 312-314. Isaba, IV, 270. Al-Fakhri, 90.
[647] Convito, II, 14, 15; III, 2, 14; IV, 13, 21. De Monarchia, I, 4.
[648] Cf. Asín, El Averroismo teológico de Santo Tomás de Aquino, 299-306.
[649] Sigieri di Brabante nella Div. Com. e le fonte della fil. di Dante (Rivista di fil. neoscolastica, 1911-12). Cf. Bruno Nardi, Intorno al tomismo di Dante e alla questione di Sigieri (Giornale Dantesco, XXII, 5).
[650] Cf. Asín, Abenmasarra, 120, 121.
[651] Futuhat, I, 64-117.
[652] Vita Nuova, § XII.