Why haven´t we been told this before?

Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy" is still considered to be one of the Great Books of Western Christendom or Western Civilization. Catholic fundamentalists extol it, and presumably the Neo-Cons want it included in the curriculum alongside Plato, Shakespeare and one Alan Bloom. And, of course, Dante places Muhammad and Ali in hell! No political correctness on campus there.

But what if this jewel of the Dead White Male Christian crown is actually inspired by...Muslim sources?

Such is the thesis of Miguel Asin's book "Islam and the Divine Comedy", originally published in Spain in 1919. The English translation and abridgement is from 1926. More recent Western reprints do exist, but none of them seem to be published by respectable university presses. This particular edition is Indian, brought out by a Muslim publisher in New Delhi three years ago. The silence apparently surrounding this book in the West, can mean two things. Either Asin was gloriously wrong, or...

It should be noted that Miguel Asin y Palacios wasn't a pseudo-scientific crackpot. He was a distinguished professor of Arabic and a member of the Spanish Academy. Asin's thesis sparked a lively controversy all over Europe and North America among scholars of similar stature. Nor was he particularly pro-Muslim. According to the English translator's preface, Asin was actually a Catholic priest. In the book itself, he occasionally refers to Muslims as "Mahometans", doubts whether a "polygamist and soldier" such as Muhammad was really spiritual, and points out that the Koran (of course) is inspired by Judaism and - surprise - Christianity. He is also something of a Spanish nationalist, calling the Muslim mystic Ibn Arabi a "Muslim Spaniard", and gleefully pointing out that his influence on the Italian Dante means that Spain, too, has some part in the writing of the famous "Divine Comedy". Italian scholars, as expected, weren't amused.

I guess you can say that the author has all the right, politically incorrect credentials!

This makes his thesis even stronger. Or at the very least more respectable than the writings of a maverick like René Guénon (who claimed that Dante was an esoteric Templar).

"Islam and the Divine Comedy" speaks for itself, but I must say that Asin has uncovered a staggering amount of parallels between Muslim sources and Dante's work. Dante's descriptions of Hell, the frozen lake of the Devil, Limbo, the mount of Purgatory, the Earthly Paradise, the animals blocking his way in the dark forest and even Beatrice all have parallels in Muslim lore, sometimes uncannily close ones. The author analyzes similarities with the Muslim legends of Muhammad's descent to Hell and ascension to Heaven. He also believes that the entire corpus of Dante, not just "The Divine Comedy", shows affinities with the writings of Muslim mystic Ibn Arabi. As for similarities between Dante's poetry and the Provencal or Sicilian troubadours, Asin believes that the Provencals were influenced by the Muslims as well. As for the Sicilian poets, they were active at the imperial court of Frederick II, the most Islamophile Christian ruler of the High Middle Ages!

Since all cultures constantly influence each other, it's not always easy to disentangle all the criss-crossing influences. Islam probably got its elaborate visions of Hell from Syrian Christianity. Zoroastrian influences may have been present. The idea of a gradual ascent to Heaven, where the soul has to pass various intermediate stations and suffer interrogations from spirit-beings, seems to be Egyptian in origin and was later taken up by Gnostics and Eastern Christians. Miguel Asin's point is that these motifs would have been unknown in 13th and 14th century Europe, except in Muslim forms. Hence, a Muslim influence on Dante is the most likely.

Personally, I'm not particularly interested in "The Divine Comedy", but the fact that "Islam and the Divine Comedy" is more popular in India than Europe or the United States, does raise some hard questions. Or eyebrows.

Why haven't we been informed about Miguel Asin Palacios' thesis before?

Well...?