My latest in PJ Media:
In Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” according to a feature published Thursday in the British Catholic weekly The Tablet, “the Prophet Muhammad, along with four popes, is pictured suffering the torments of Hell.” However, as far as The Tablet is concerned, the big news in this 700-year-old literary masterpiece is not that, but a “less well-known” aspect of the epic poem: “how much Dante’s masterpiece owes to the vibrant culture of early medieval Islam.” Well, of course. All over what used to be known as Christendom, the best and the brightest are eagerly twisting themselves into all sorts of knots in order to argue that Islam has always been a part of the West, and not as a historic adversary, either, but as an integral element of Western culture. Why shouldn’t The Tablet join the party?
“It might seem strange,” writes English author Ian Thomson in The Tablet, “that the poem most emblematic of medieval Christian Europe, The Divine Comedy, should contain so many Arabic loan-words (‘assassin’, ‘alchemy’, ‘zenith’, ‘alcohol’) as well as references to Islamic intellectual life.” Well, no, Ian, it’s not really strange at all. The idea that one may influence and be influenced by an adversary was taken for granted in earlier, saner ages. The modern-day idea that Europe was a racist entity saturated with “Islamophobia” is anachronistic in more ways than there is space to chronicle here. But the arguable influences that may have come to Dante from the Islamic world don’t mean that jihadis weren’t threatening to conquer and enslave Europe, either.
“Eastern treatises on medicine, natural science and mathematics entered the Italian peninsula chiefly by way of Muslim Spain and Sicily,” Thomson continues, “and their fingerprints are all over this masterwork by Dante Alighieri, whose death 700 years ago we are marking this year.” Yet the picture Thomson paints is not all rosy: “In the face of Islam’s rapid westward expansion, however, Dante absorbed also a fierce dislike and incomprehension of Islam. Pointedly, the only Arabic word in his three-volume journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise that refers to Islam as a religion is meschite (‘mosques’). Mosques, in the Tuscan poet’s medieval Christian judgement, were a symbol of stubborn heretical allegiance and false belief. In the poem’s first volume, ‘The Inferno’, the pilgrim-poet Dante approaches the fortified Islamic citadel of Dis in Lower Hell, where gleaming red meschite of the sort seen by Crusaders in the Holy Land emerge from the charred and fatty air….”
The agenda of this Tablet article is clear. There is an all-out ongoing effort by Western “journalists” to condition Western non-Muslims to accept Islam and think of it as an integral part of the West, Islam’s 1,400-year jihad against Christendom and post-Christendom notwithstanding. Nor is The Tablet remotely the first to this particular party. Al Jazeera reported in October 2019 about “a major exhibition in London’s British Museum called Inspired by the East, that explores the significant – yet often unacknowledged – influence of Eastern culture on the West. ‘Discover centuries of art inspired by the Islamic world,’ the museum promises visitors.”
There is more. Read the rest here.
John says
I may be mistaken, but I think I read something recently that said some north west European country translating Dante’s Divine Comedy left out the part about Mohammed burning in hell, as not to offend Muslims.
Wellington says
Eighth circle I believe, but details of such are of little account when a civilization is determined to eradicate itself.
And may I say that I not only despise Islam, I despise the modern Catholic hierarchy led by the worst Pope of all time, one Francis by name.
gravenimage says
Right you are, John:
“DANTE’S WOKE INFERNO DELETES MUHAMMAD”
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/muhammad-escapes-hell-in-dantes-woke-inferno
This is a Dutch translation. How insane is this?
Here’s the translator’s apologia for changing Dante’s work:
Translator Lies Lavrijsen told Belgian Radio 1 that she expunged the founder of Islam from her translation to give it the “widest possible accessibility,” particularly for “a younger audience.”
If this were true, then all sorts of changes could be made to Dante’s work to allow for modern mores–but of course this is not happening.
Wellington says
Well, looking at all this historically and sociologically, the ancient Egyptian religion lasted some three thousand years and it appears ever increasingly the Roman Catholic religion is going to last some two thousand years.
At least the ancient Egyptian religion just gradually disappeared, but it is ever increasingly striking and so terribly sad that the Roman Catholic religion is going to disappear from an absolutely self-destructive and completely stupid suicidal attempt due to sucking up to the twin malevolencies which are Islam and Leftism.
Would break my heart were I a traditional Catholic. So glad I am not—though I take no joy in stating this.
IanB says
To put it bluntly Wellington: why are so many Catholics so eager to kiss Islam’s big fat ugly ass?
Wellington says
Perhaps, IanB, it is due to a combination of ignorance, stupidity and self-loathing.
Donovan Nuera says
But..but… Notre Dame de Paris fire was a work accident, right?!!! The French Govt. is all in agreement, yes??!!
gravenimage says
UK Catholic Weekly ‘The Tablet’ Touts ‘Dante’s Debt to Islam’
……………..
Isn’t that rather like saying that the Divine Comedy has a great debt to Satan?
IanB says
Why are so many Catholics so keen to kiss Islam’s big fat ass?
Donovan Nuera says
Pope Facebook gave that speech on that airplane trip with the journalists and said “There is NO violence in islam”!
I hope for the sake of humanity that Cardinal Burke somehow wins the Papacy in a few years. Why cannot we get an American? Most of the revenue comes from American faithful.
Ecosse1314 says
Dont care where the next Pope is from. So long as he an RC.
Rarely says
During the Middle Ages Europe was far behind in most areas, culturally, economically, scientifically, etc. so it should not be surprising that there was some overflow into Europe. This all began to change with the Renaissance and Europe left Islam far in it’s wake.
Donovan Nuera says
Our ancestors built the Gothic cathedrals in the Middle Ages and invented quite a bit of agricultural tools and built pretty decent sailing ships too.
Our generation has trouble putting up drywall and laying beige short-pile carpet and constructing “Live, Laught, Love” signs for the bookshelves.