This volume is an abridged translation of ‘La Escatologia Musulmana en la Divina Comedia, originallty published in Spanish in Madrid in 1919. The author, Prof. Miguel Asin Y Palacios, though a Catholic priest, was attracted by the Muslim philosophers and Sufis of Spain, particularly Ibn Massara, Ibn Hazm, Ibn Rushd and the great sufi Ibn al-Arabi. He wrote several books on Hispano-Islamic philosophy and Sufism, but the international renown he earned as on account of this book. After years of extensive research, he discovered parallels between the Islamic lore about the after-life based on Hadith and the Divine Comedy by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a work for which he is justly famed. The similarities, far from being superficial, pervade the entire poem. Prof. Asian concluded that Dante had derived most of the features of an episodes about the hereafter from (i) the Hadith literature relating to the Prophet Muhammad and his ascension (miraj) and (ii) to the spiritual visions of Ibn al-Arabi. In his opinion, the Divine Comedy was not an entirely original work, as Dante had had before him a ready made pattern based on Islamic writing on the after-life. With the publication of this work, Prof. Asin found himself in the eye of a storm, as nationalist Italians, the roman catholic clergy, and other European Christians could not reconcile themselves to the thought of their most cherished religious poem being based on non-Christian sources. Prof. Asin, however, faced up to his critics by enumerating the possible sources from which Dante could have obtained the salient features of Islamic eschatology. The consensus of opinion of all eminent scholars of Europe and America is now in favor of Prof. Asian’s thesis.
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