Dante and the Legend of the Miʿrāj

The study with which Cerulli supports his edition of the Libro della scala is a model of historical research, tracing, as it does, by strict lines of literary dependence the spread of the knowledge of Muslim otherworld beliefs among certain Christian writers in the later Middle Ages. With Dante it attempts to follow the same delimited pattern, resisting the temptation to canvass all of Islam for analogues, and centers chiefly on the Libro itself. It thus avoids one of the chief methodological pitfalls which hampered Asin. Dante, however, never refers to the legends or quotes them as some of his contemporaries do. Whatever the historical possibilities now apparent, therefore, the editors of the Islamic text are in the end obliged, as scholars have been for various other sources, to attempt proof of connection by means once more of parallels and comparisons. The Libro della scala is a description of Muhammed's otherworld experiences which includes both the ascension and the visit to the places of torment. It thus combines the incidents of the Micraj and the Isr2', in a form that places it with Asin's Cycle III.112 This is the most elaborate of the cycles, displaying in repetition and inconsistency its composite character. Much of what it contains is already known to Dantists from Asin's texts and summaries, and whatever valid objections were voiced against them might be raised, with reference to that part of the contents, in the present case also. But there are also certain details, particularly in the section on Hell, which take a shape peculiar to this text and bring up new questions for the Inferno. Though marked in general by considerable restraint, Cerulli's comparisons, as they concern the Paradiso, hardly ever surmount the stage of doubt. Beyond the general consideration of the vision in large as a flight through the heavens, together with its astronomical assumptions, they chiefly deal with the motifs of the angelic guide who answers questions, the heavenly ladder, the eagle, the garden of Paradise, and the celestial Rose.'13 To the student of the vision literature the first of these motifs will be recognizable as one of the commonest of all its themes, and the next two are equally widespread in Christian tradition, which provided both the figures themselves of ladder and eagle and a range of allegorical -mystical uses that molded them in part to Dante's needs, With respect to the eagle, Asin had already insisted on comparing it with the gigantic Cock of Heaven in Muslim legends, and Cerulli cannot quite give this up. While recognizing the prior importance of the traditional figure of the imperial eagle and of such biblical references as those of Ezek. 17:3, Isa. 40:31, and Matt. 24:28, he thinks that se la questione concerne la concorrenza di un motivo del Libro della Scala ... con altre fonti, [il Gallo] a mio parere 6 ammis

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Islam · Legend · Literature · Theology · Classics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Historical Astronomy and Related Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Philosophy

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