{"id":205209,"date":"2018-12-02T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=205209"},"modified":"2018-12-04T16:36:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T18:36:36","slug":"the-arab-influence-in-the-divine-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/the-arab-influence-in-the-divine-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arab influence in The Divine Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The Divine Comedy, written between 1300 and 1321 by Italian author Dante Alighieri became one of the most famous works from the Middle Ages. But what if this work was heavily inspired by other authors? Arab authors. \u201cThis poem, which became the icon of Christianism, in fact is full of Arab influence. This is noteworthy to show the influence of the Arab and Islamic culture in European literature. In the case of Dante, particularly, is astonishing, because it is, practically, the main medieval work, the most known,\u201d underscored the researcher and PhD student at University of Porto<\/a>, Portugal, Fernanda Pereira Mendes (picture above)<\/em>, in an interview to ANBA.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian researcher, who currently lives in Portugal, will launch the first translation into Portuguese of The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder. The book gathers texts in Arabic and is key to identify the similarities between its excerpts and the ones that would have been reproduced in the classic The Divine Comedy. The translation into Portuguese will be launched in February 2019 in Portugal and in Brazil. \u201cThe Divine Comedy was inspired by a great work. Nowadays, amid all this anti-Islamic bias, it is a recovery of these fruitful ties. Two literary canons, which shine a light on a historical period where coexistence was alive, with the Jewish people also,\u201d says Mendes.<\/p>\n

The coexistence period with the Arabs and Moors began around the 8th<\/sup> century at the Iberian Peninsula, leaving the so-called Al-Andalus legacy. \u201cIn that time, there was a coexistence between the peoples in the Peninsula, Portugal and Spain territories nowadays, it was a miscegenated culture in a way,\u201d pointed the researcher that, then, found out about the Arab influence in The Divine Comedy. \u201cDante is recognized as a genius, but due to the expulsion of Arabs, people relegated their influence in European culture. Thus, Dante\u2019s work wasn\u2019t properly studied. This influence is not properly described.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder<\/strong><\/p>\n

To get to the hands of the Italian author, the Arab manuscripts got first into the hands of scholars, probably Jewish and religious scholars, which presumably did the translations, reveals Mendes. She says that The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder could have gotten into the hands of European scholars after the translations done by King Alfonso X of Castile and Le\u00f3n, who was a member of the Toledo school of translators. It was the noble king who translated the work, from the Arabic to Castilian, Latin and French, according to Fernanda.<\/p>\n

Dante was born in 1265, while the translation by Alfonso X is from 1264, as revealed by the researcher. \u201cThe translation spread from Spain to other places, one of them being Tuscany, where Dante lived. We know that now because of testimonies left in monasteries by religious scholars in their writings, most of them dated,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Just like in the Italian poem, the Arab story describes how its main character, Muhammad, visits places in heaven and hell, guided by another character, the angel Gabriel. \u201cThere are passages very similar. You cannot just say that it is not, see? It is undeniable. The passages about heaven are a little different, but the passages about hell have excerpts that are the same, such as a sinner being punished that is turned into ashes and then into himself again, for the whole day, in both works. It is not just a coincidence,\u201d emphasizes the researcher.<\/p>\n

Even before The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder was discovered, a visionary had identified the Arab influence. He was Miguel As\u00edn Palacios, a Jesuit priest that lived in Spain. \u201cHe would identify a parallelism between the Dominicans and the Sufi, both monastic orders. The Sufi had visions, for instance, and in the manuscripts found in Arabic and in Latin there were such narratives,\u201d explained Fernanda. \u201cPalacios identified this in excerpts of authors such as Ibn Arabi (Arab author) and conducted studies proving that The Divine Comedy would repeat whole plot points. He went farther and said that this narrative was very famous in the Middle Ages and that Dante was familiar with it,\u201d she said. The Sufi are not exactly monastic, since there are no such orders in Islam, but certain followers of this school, such as the Dervishes, can be considered as the ones that resemble the monks the most among the Muslim.<\/p>\n

At the time, Palacios was accepted into the Royal Spanish Academy for his work, considered scholarly and sound. \u201cBut it was a scandal because Europe was colonizing the Arab countries. To the Italians, thus, a controversy, divergence was created,\u201d says Fernanda. Only in 1949, two Dante scholars found the manuscripts of The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder, in two translations: in Latin, found in the Vatican and in Paris (France), and in Old French, found in Oxford (England).<\/p>\n

Translations into Portuguese <\/strong><\/p>\n

To publish and translate The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder into Portuguese, she specifically chose the year 2019, since it marks the Centennial of Palacio\u2019s work and the 800 years of Dante. In the 1990s, the work had been translated into Spanish, French, Italian and English. \u201cPortugal is also part of the Al-Andalus legacy. Many people forget the close relations that have always existed between the Western and Islamic cultures. They forget these historical periods and the contribution by the Arabs and Muslim to world culture,\u201d said the researcher. The work will be funded, in Portugal, by the University of Porto, and, in Brazil, by a partnership with the Arab Studies Center (CEArusp<\/a>) of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Translated by S\u00e9rgio Kakitani <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Press Release<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder\u2019, an Arab work with plot structures that were reproduced in \u2018The Divine Comedy\u2019, was translated by Brazilian researcher Fernanda Pereira Mendes and will be launched for the first time in Portuguese.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2324,"featured_media":205170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[418,419,6308,6307,2093,232,6291,6298,6309,6310,29325,1748,2137,6312,6311,6306,35130,6313,6314,180],"class_list":{"0":"post-205209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-portuguese","9":"tag-university","10":"tag-arab-influence","11":"tag-asin-palacios","12":"tag-book","13":"tag-brazil","14":"tag-dante-alighieri","15":"tag-fernanda-pereira-mense","16":"tag-launching","17":"tag-muhammad","18":"tag-pesquisadora-en","19":"tag-porto","20":"tag-portugal","21":"tag-researcher","22":"tag-the-book-of-muhammads-ladder","23":"tag-the-divine-comedy","24":"tag-traducao-en","25":"tag-translation","26":"tag-university-of-porto","27":"tag-usp"},"wps_subtitle":"\u2018The Book of Muhammad\u2019s Ladder\u2019, an Arab work with plot structures that were reproduced in \u2018The Divine Comedy\u2019, was translated by Brazilian researcher Fernanda Pereira Mendes and will be launched for the first time in Portuguese. ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}