Constant Mews claims here that the West owes a great debt to Islam and to Muslims. He even has a few books in mind which he thinks are examples of that insufficiently acknowledged debt.
While there is debate about the extent to which the Italian writer Dante was exposed to Islamic influences, it is very likely he knew The Book of Mohammed’s Ladder (translated into Castilian, French and Latin), which describes the Prophet’s ascent to heaven. The Divine Comedy, with its account of Dante’s imagined journey from Inferno to Paradise, was following in this tradition.
Dante was not “following” in this supposed “tradition,” which consists apparently of one work, The Book of Mohammed’s Ladder. The first, and still the most important, scholar to have suggested that the Kitab al Miraj, or “The Book of Mohammed’s Ladder,” was Dante’s inspiration or model for the Divine Comedy was the Spanish priest Miguel Asin Palacios in 1919. Since then many Dante scholars have questioned his notion that Dante was influenced by the Kitab al Miraj. The celebrated 20th century Orientalist Francesco Gabrieli expressed deep skepticism regarding the claimed similarities, and noted the lack of evidence of a vehicle through which it could have been transmitted to Dante. René Guénon, a Sufi convert and scholar of Ibn Arabi, in The Esoterism of Dante rejected the theory of Ibn Arabi’s influence (direct or indirect) on Dante. Palacios’ theory that Dante was influenced by Ibn Arabi was satirized as an absurdity by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk in his novel The Black Book.
Dante deplored Islam as schismatic, a heresy sowing discord in the world. He places Muhammad in the ninth ditch of the Eighth Circle of Hell (Inferno, Canto 28), designed for those who have caused schism; specifically, Muhammad was placed among the Sowers of Religious Discord. Muhammad is memorably described as split in half, with his entrails hanging out, representing his status as a heresiarch. Would Dante have read, much less emulated, a book celebrating this same Muhammad whom he so detested?
Note how Constant Mews protects himself: he repeatedly says about some unproven claim that “it is very likely.” So he writes that “it is very likely” that Dante knew “The Book of Mohammed’s Ladder.” Why is it “very likely” that he knew that book? Just because it existed? He offers no evidence for this claim; there is no mention of, nor allusion to, the book or its author anywhere in Dante’s writings. It is quite a leap to describe something as “very likely” when not only is there no supporting evidence, but almost every Dante scholar denies a link between Dante’s masterpiece and the Kitab al Miraj.
Dante very likely heard lectures from Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, a learned Dominican who spent many years studying Arabic in Baghdad before returning to Florence around 1300 and writing about his travels in the lands of Islam. Dante may have criticized Muslim teaching, but he was aware of its vast influence.
Riccoldo da Monte di Croce went to the East in order to convert Nestorian Christians to Latin Christianity. He spent roughly 13 years in the East, from 1288 to 1301, where he engaged in theological disputes both with Nestorians and with Muslims. When he returned to Florence, he completed several works, including a damning study of Islamic theology, Contra legem sarracenorum (Against the Laws of the Saracens). That anti-Islamic study is not mentioned by Constant Mews, though it was Riccoldo’s most important work. We have no way of knowing whether Dante attended lectures by Riccoldo, though Mews claims it is “very likely” that he “heard lectures from Riccoldo.” Why is it “very likely”?
Dante is thought to have been influenced by Islamic cultures.
Dante is “thought to have been influenced by Islamic cultures” that he regarded with horror? He places Muhammad himself in the Eighth Circle of Hell, that is, deep in the Inferno. Where is the evidence that Dante was “influenced by Islamic cultures” that he so openly and completely rejected? Notice that Mews, instead of adducing even one bit of such evidence, offers the vague “Dante is thought to have been influenced…” By whom? And what about all the eminent Dante scholars who have denied any such influence? Should we ignore them?
Islam also gave us the quintessential image of the Enlightenment, the self-taught philosopher. This character had his origins in an Arabic novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, penned by a 12th-century Arab intellectual, Ibn Tufayl. It tells the story of how a feral child abandoned on a desert island comes through reason alone to a vision of reality.
Hayy ibn Yaqzan was published in Oxford, with an Arabic-Latin edition in 1671, and became a catalyst for the contributions of seminal European philosophers including John Locke and Robert Boyle. Translated into English in 1708 as The Improvement of Human Reason, it also influenced novelists, beginning with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719. The sources of the Enlightenment are not simply in Greece and Rome.
Here again we have the matter of evidence, or of its lack. How does the author conclude that John Locke read and was influenced by the “Hayy ibn Yaqzan” written by Ibn Tufayl? Did Locke anywhere make reference to it? Surely, if he had, Constant Mews would have quoted it. The absence of any such reference is telling. And the Enlightenment did indeed have sources outside of Greece and Rome, but they were not found in Muslim writers. The main influence, “outside of Greece and Rome,” on the European Enlightenment was Spinoza, whom Professor Jonathan Israel credits as the father of the “Radical Enlightenment.”
It is hard to comprehend how Islam, which discourages skeptical inquiry, and encourages the habit of unquestioning mental submission (see the many online sites where Muslims submit questions, and a cleric authoritatively answers them, adducing as unquestioned authority a Qur’anic verse, or a statement of Muhammad in the hadith, in ipse-dixit fashion, brooking no discussion or disagreement), could possibly have been one of the progenitors of the European Enlightenment. Indeed, Islam’s most trenchant contemporary critics, such as Ibn Warraq, point out that Islam never experienced “an Enlightenment,” nor, given the nature of the faith, could it.
As for Daniel Defoe owing a debt to Ibn Tuyfal for his Robinson Crusoe, nowhere did Defoe mention he was even aware of the novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan. Mews is not the only one to make large claims for Ibn Tufayl. We find on Muslim sites such remarks as this: “Ibn Tufayl may have inspired Daniel Defoe’s famous novel about an island castaway.” “May have…” “Very likely…” “Some have thought…” Defoe had no need of Ibn Tufayl’s novel to come up with the idea of an island castaway; he had before his eyes the real-life tale of Alexander Selkirk, a contemporary of Defoe, who had been stranded on a tropical island for four years.
Civilisation is always being reinvented. The civilisation some call “Western” has been, and still is, continually shaped by a wide range of political, literary and intellectual influences, all worthy of our attention.
“Civilization is always being reinvented.” Is that true? Is Islamic civilization “always being reinvented”? In what way? And what exactly does it mean to claim that a “civilization is always being reinvented”?
The quotes around “Western” are meant to call into question the very idea of this so-called “Western civilization.” Western civilization may be “continually shaped by a wide range of…..influences,” but it has not been “equally” shaped by those influences. We are supposed to believe, from what Mews has written, that Muslim writers have had an important influence on Western literature. There are exactly two examples provided as evidence of this, which I have discussed above, but the details bear repeating. The first is Kitab al Miraj, a book concerning Muhammad’s Night Journey to Heaven, that Miguel Asin Palacios, a Spanish scholar-priest, in 1919 first proposed as having influenced Dante’s Divine Comedy. More recent scholars, including the celebrated Orientalist and Arabist Francesco Gabrieli, the Sufi convert Rene Guenon, who wrote on metaphysics and sacred scripture, and the Turkish Nobel Prizewinner, the writer Orhan Pamuk, have all roundly rejected this supposed source for Dante. The second claimed literary influence is that of Ibn Tufayl’s tale of a castaway on Daniel Defoe, but there is no evidence that Defoe ever read Ibn Tufayl’s story, and besides, he had no need: the real-life story of Alexander Selkirk, contemporaneous with Defoe, was influence enough.
The West does “owe” Islam in a number of ways. Let us count those ways. It owes Islam for the vast and expensive security apparatus, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, that has been deployed all over the Western world, that Islamic terrorism has necessitated. Think of all the jobs that have been created as a result, in Europe and North America, at airports, train and bus stations, outside government office buildings, around national monuments, at sports stadiums, in museums, in lecture halls, at synagogues and churches. Think, too, of the extra work now provided to defense lawyers, to police, prosecutors, judges, prison guards. It is thanks to Islam that hundreds of millions of man-hours are now spent annually by passengers who must arrive several hours earlier for airline flights, in order to stand in line and go through security, all because of the threat of Islamic terrorism. We “owe” a debt to Islam, too, for the general atmosphere of anxiety that has been created in the West by the fact, and the threat, of Islamic terrorism, and that keeps us from worrying about other matters. We “‘owe” Muslims a debt, too, for allowing us to practice charity, by helping millions of Muslim economic migrants to settle comfortably in the welfare states of Europe, where non-Muslims now lavish every possible benefit on them, including free or highly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, unemployment benefits (even without the need to have been previously employed), and family allowances. We owe Muslims a debt for having brought into the West, undeclared in their mental baggage, a new strain of antisemitism, which makes all our lives just that much more exciting. We Americans owe a special debt to Muslims for making us spend several trillion dollars fighting jihadis in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has put our military in a state of combat readiness, and besides, that is money that otherwise we would no doubt have wasted. We owe Islam a debt for all that, and much, much more.
mortimer says
The US owes Islam the need to send war ships and the Marines to Tripolitania a province-state of the Ottoman Empire led by the Caliph of All Islam, the Sultan in the first international war the United States fought after the Revolution. The Ottoman Empire of the time was running one of the most lucrative slave operations in the world. Slavery is endorsed by huge sections of laws within Sharia law manuals. Slavery is normative Islam.
Angemon says
Let’s assume that’s, indeed, the case. Well, so what? Are we supposed to turn a blind eye to islamic terrorism? To the millions of “refugees” wrecking havoc (in more than one way) in Western societies? To the decades of increasingly hostile, anti-Western, rhetoric? What, exactly, would be the price to pay for this alleged “debt”?
Terry Gain says
I think his point is that Islam is benign and therefore Muslims should be welcomed to emigrate to America. Fortunately, only 50% of Americans agree with him.
Reziac says
We owe them retribution.
KWJ says
Part of it is to assuage their egos, an inferiority complex that festers beneath their Islamic supremacy doctrine. They have to go back centuries because the Arab world just hasn’t offered to the world much of anything from technology to the arts. They didn’t even discover and manufacture their geographical luck with oil.
Westerners from Europe learned things from China, India and wherever they traveled. Islam was resistant and not interested in Western history and culture and going into infidel lands but to conquer…they took what they needed.
Multiculturalism and trying to change the negative attitudes people have had for Islamic countries and ‘we’re not so bad’ even though that doesn’t help what’s going on with their laws and cultural habits.
I’m all for learning any history that’s closer to accuracy but Western academia is white-washing Islamic history and Arab countries affecting Western textbooks as has been the case in France that they wanted people during the Crusades were mean to them.
There’s almost a desperation just as Muslims claim there is science in the Qur’an which shows those Muslims don’t even know what constitutes ‘science’ versus observation and analogies that happen to sort of sound like some predicted later developed science.
Mortimer mentioned the topic though Western academia doesn’t mention that we established our official Navy because of the barbarians during the Barbary pirates wars.
Educational jihad? Coddling the OIC? It’s like Obama’s speech in Cairo in the beginning of his presidency and then his weirdly fast awarded Nobel Peace Prize. It all goes together-part of the Euro-Arab dialogue and UN prostrating for oil dollars and the subsequent investments in foreign countries from those oil dollars while excusing their history. Saudi Arabia still discriminates against other religions and non-Muslims while demanding Western countries afford Muslim immigrants all the rights we have but not free speech.
Perhaps if they were honest and more self-critical they would gain more respect, but again, the present matters more and they are failing in that. I’ve studied some real historical Middle Eastern scientists but who cares when Muslim women today don’t even get some basic equal rights that I have always enjoyed or lashing people for infractions such as drinking alcohol or such. Gender segregation.
They also mention authors such as Khalil Gibran from Lebanon though he moved to New York City.
gravenimage says
Yes–even though Khalil Gibran was not Muslim–his family was Maronite Christian. As an adult, he had a vague idea of some sort of ‘unified religion’. He also had strong associations with the Baha’i.
Mario Alexis Portella says
Let not forget the 1,400 year history of Islamic conquest and continual expansion!! I’m sure Constant Mews is one of those who holds that the Crusades were oppressive towards Muslims, as many revisionists do today. No, they were not “ideal” but they were necessary – a matter of opinion, of course to salvaging civilization.
william carr says
“through reason alone to a vision of reality” Surely that is a direct contradiction of the teachings of Islam. Which are that everything is only achieved though worship of and obedience to ‘allah’
Wellington says
Instructive how excuse makers for Islam, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, never seem to get around to discussing what Islam owes to the West, which, in general, adds up to numerous attempts in numerous ways to save Islam from itself, which “errand” I personally would like to see discontinued, or at least reduced to an absolute minimum, since Islam is the longest-lived evil ideology in man’s history, an inveterate enemy of liberty, a prescription for the closing of the mind, a guarantee of terrorism replete with death and scattered body parts aplenty, and, overall, a monumental pain-in-the-ass.
Terry Gain says
So long as that evil ideology is regarded as a religion there is not a chance in hell that Islam will be correctly understood or confronted.
Wellington says
Oh, I don’t know about that, Terry. Satanism is a religion and the vast majority of people think of it as both malevolent and stupid. Wiccanism isn’t evil but is widely looked upon as wacky and it also is a religion. Scientology has religious status in the US but it is widely and deservedly denigrated. One can study religions of the past which were horrible, rotten to the core, such as the Aztec religion and which required human sacrifices (in huge amounts—as Victor Davis Hanson narrates in his work, Carnage and Culture, some 84,000 were deboweled in just 4 days in 1487 to appease the Aztec gods, five years before Columbus made his first voyage).
For all your intelligence and knowledge, you just can’t seem to accept the idea that a religion can be evil—or at least very, very goofy (and thus quite deserving of being mocked). Well, here you are wrong. It’s that simple.
gravenimage says
+1
gravenimage says
Terry, you keep claiming that Islam can only be defeated when all people start pretending that it is not a religion–but since this has never happened, how you can claim that it would have such an effect makes little sense.
I think that exposing Islam for what it really is–including an evil religion–gives us our best chance at facing Islam down. Indeed, we have done this before. Facing reality is always better than constructing fantasies.
Gray says
Islam is still regarded in the West as a true religion, ‘one of the three Abrahamic Faiths.’ Accordingly Islam can claim all the benefits and protections that many Western countries still confer on organised religions. In this tragic naivety lies the seeds of the West’s own destruction. If Western countries instead regarded Islam as a secular, totalitarian and socialistic political ideology, one which has more in common with Nazism than Christianity, and one which has assumed some of the trappings of a religion without ever actually becoming one, then it would become much easier for the West to deal with that undiluted evil that is Islam.
Terry Gain says
This is exactly what I have been saying for years.
gravenimage says
Islam is by any definition a religion–no one said it was a true one.
Gray says
So Islam is not a true religion, but it is, by any definition, a religion?
gravenimage says
Gray, here is the definition of “Religion”:
religion[ ri-lij-uh n ]
noun
1) a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2) a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects:
the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3) the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices:
a world council of religions.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion
Check any dictionary–Islam does indeed fit the definition of a religion. Nowhere does the definition of religion say that the set of beliefs must be true.
Gray says
Yes, I acknowledge that Islam fits the bare definition of a religion, and that the dictionary definition does not require a ‘religion’ to be ‘true’ or indeed ‘good.’ And look where this leads. This approach requires us to give Islam the protection of the First Amendment, to give it taxpayer funds to run Mosques and schools, to allow Saudi funded mosques to proliferate throughout the West, and to allow Middle East endowed Chairs of Islamic Studies to be set up in all our leading Universities – and that’s just for starters. Our civilization can not survive, if we allow Islam to insinuate itself into the very fabric of Society, any more than it has already. Rebecca Bynum has been prepared to look critically at this issue, as (I believe) we all must. See her book ‘Allah is dead. Why Islam is not a Religion,’ and her articles for the New English Review. She argues that Islam, like the duck-billed platypus, is truly unique, and should not be treated like all other religions. It should not be entitled to special rights and privileges, because its precepts are inimical to the survival of the Nation State. It strikes me particularly that most Western countries are predicated on the separation of Church and State. Islam does not recognize this basic principle. It can not co-exist with a post-enlightenment Nation State. One will win and one will lose, and, according to Robert Spencer’s ‘History of Jihad,’ the West has already lost the will to live. So whether she is right or wrong, let’s just pray that Rebecca Bynum’s approach prevails in the West. I have nothing more to say on this subject.
gravenimage says
Thank you for your reply, Gray. You wrote:
Yes, I acknowledge that Islam fits the bare definition of a religion, and that the dictionary definition does not require a ‘religion’ to be ‘true’ or indeed ‘good.’ And look where this leads. This approach requires us to give Islam the protection of the First Amendment, to give it taxpayer funds to run Mosques and schools, to allow Saudi funded mosques to proliferate throughout the West, and to allow Middle East endowed Chairs of Islamic Studies to be set up in all our leading Universities – and that’s just for starters.
………………………
Gray, your belief that the fact that Islam is a religion requires us to appease it is quite mistaken. In fact, this bowing to Islam is quite recent–it does not date back more than a few decades.
And we *do not* have to allow children to be taught the persecution and murder of Infidels–this has *far* more to do with willful ignorance and “political correctness” than it does that Islam is an evil religion.
Charles Martel, the heroes of the battle of Lepanto. and Jon Sobieski all fought Islam–an won–without having to pretend that Islam is not a religion.
More:
Our civilization can not survive, if we allow Islam to insinuate itself into the very fabric of Society, any more than it has already. Rebecca Bynum has been prepared to look critically at this issue, as (I believe) we all must. See her book ‘Allah is dead. Why Islam is not a Religion,’ and her articles for the New English Review. She argues that Islam, like the duck-billed platypus, is truly unique, and should not be treated like all other religions. It should not be entitled to special rights and privileges, because its precepts are inimical to the survival of the Nation State.
………………………
I have a lot of respect for Rebecca Bynum, and admire her work at the New English Review. But there is nothing in the First Amendment that demands that Islam be given special treatment–the opposite, really.
I don’t believe that we should destroy our Constitution for Muslims.
More:
It strikes me particularly that most Western countries are predicated on the separation of Church and State. Islam does not recognize this basic principle.
………………………
This is true. The problem is that we allowing Islam to make such inroads, which violates both our values and our laws.
More:
It can not co-exist with a post-enlightenment Nation State. One will win and one will lose, and, according to Robert Spencer’s ‘History of Jihad,’ the West has already lost the will to live. So whether she is right or wrong, let’s just pray that Rebecca Bynum’s approach prevails in the West. I have nothing more to say on this subject.
………………………
The idea that we have lost the will to fight because we acknowledge that Islam is a religion is, with all respect, ridiculous. Why were the great fighters against Islam able to do this? It was not because they rewrote the definitions of their words to pretend that Islam is not a religion–it is because they knew that Islam was evil and sought our destruction.
We can do this again–it does not mean that we have to ignore reality–in fact, ignoring reality and engaging in willful ignorance is a major part of the problem.
Mario Alexis Portella says
+1
Savvy Kafir says
The West owes Islam a bullet to the head. A quick, humane death. Actually, that’s not even true. (The “quick, humane” part, I mean.) But I’m feeling generous.
Islam is, and always has been, implacably hostile to the West and its people. Islam is explicitly hostile to everything we believe in, and to all non-Muslims. We owe the Allah junkies a fight they cannot win.
Michael Copeland says
“…between us and you enmity and hatred forever..”
Koran 60:4, part of Islamic law
Dennis says
The last paragraph of this article says it all in a precise and accurate manner. It justifies, at least for me, my Islamophobia, as it should likewise be expected of our world leaders, who seem to ignore the obvious “clear and present” danger represented by the Islamic belief system.
gravenimage says
While there is debate about the extent to which the Italian writer Dante was exposed to Islamic influences, it is very likely he knew The Book of Mohammed’s Ladder (translated into Castilian, French and Latin), which describes the Prophet’s ascent to heaven. The Divine Comedy, with its account of Dante’s imagined journey from Inferno to Paradise, was following in this tradition.
………………….
What utter rot. Mohammed in Dante’s work is not ascending to heaven–he is being punished in the very depths of Hell. And while Dante is clearly at least somewhat sympathetic to some of the denizens of Hell such as star-crossed lovers Paolo and Francesca, there is *no* such sympathy for the “Prophet” of Islam, who is purely evil.
As for the idea that this work served as model for Dante, this also seems unlikely. Far more likely that he was influenced by classical tales, which we know he did read.
More:
Islam also gave us the quintessential image of the Enlightenment, the self-taught philosopher. This character had his origins in an Arabic novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, penned by a 12th-century Arab intellectual, Ibn Tufayl. It tells the story of how a feral child abandoned on a desert island comes through reason alone to a vision of reality.
………………….
This is even more grotesque. The “self-taught philosopher” is not a Muslim invention–and Islam had *nothing* to do with the Enlightenment. In fact, Islam has jettisoned its last links to philosophy with Al Gazali in the 11th century. This most influential figure after the “Prophet” himself was known as the “Destroyer of Philosophy”.
In fact, Ibn Tufayl was influenced by Aristotle, not Islam–and he complained that the Commander of the Faithful condemned Aristotle and all philosophers.
Islam opposes everything the Enlightenment stands for–reason, skepticism, rationality, tolerance, liberty, progress, and the scientific method. None of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment cite Islam as an influence, nor was there a single figure of the Enlightenment who was Muslim.
This is all just revisionist history.
Ap says
Dracula, was also influenced by islam, must have been harsh.
simpleton1 says
Thanks to HF and many of the commentators, for continuously exposing and espousing the truth
Great refutation here of inventions and islamic ideology. Also interesting comment section.
“Another pretentious approach to praise islamic inventions is made through the internet. An article titled “How Islamic inventors changed the world” was written by Paul Vallely”
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/05/18/how-muslim-propagators-swindle-the-western-civilization-islam-and-science-expropriation-b/
Why is Paul Vallely so esteemed? and is rewarded with honours?
I think it is a self fulfilling circle of quoting each other, whether in full, or in snippets.
He moves in such aid, charity, churches, trade, academia, media, and ethics.
It seems to be a “popular feelz” of raising up islam, as social justice feels that it should not be denigrated.
It tries to kick aside all truth.
Then it becomes a feelz that entitlement should be authorized, as it points out, as we “owe”, so the next step is, the western world should pay.
There does seem a history in islam about entitlement/protection, like jizya. Anything to gain, and retain power, in the name of ……..
A contentious point or two to raise and keep ones profile alive to aid in keeping the snout in the trough, to maintain tenure and sinecure. and so following the flavour of the month, as detecting a flow of money and esteem, particularly if there is some controversial flag to wave.
john kohn says
If there is or was a Devil, it is he that created islam.
Giacomo Latta says
To all you Trivial Pursuit buffs out: name the Muslim intellectual who discovered that the earth revolves around the sun, and lived his natural lifespan. Hint: this may be tougher than you think.
Lauren Hermann says
I believe his name was Tamerlane–I don’t know if that is the correct spelling. But wasn’t it Copernicus who made the same discovery before Tamerlane did?