Monday, June 19, 2006

Islam, & Dantes Comical Divinity

Hi all.. I am still awaiting delivery of my personal copy of M. Asin's 'Islam and the Divine Comedy', but this is a review i picked up at amazon.com which might whet the appetite somewhat...

Sometimes people do cheat, February 19, 2006
Reviewer:
Y. Misdaq aka Yoshi "writer & musician" (Brighton UK / D.C. USA) - See all my reviews

This book is not even listed in most places. You can't even see the cover here on Amazon. That's a crime, because it's one of the most convincing and important books I've read. It's important because people hold dantes 'divine comedy' to be such a landmark in Western literature. Indeed, more than one copy of dante's work is available to read on Amazon, and this is barely listed. An influential piece of writing 'the divine comedy' may have been, but there's a story behind every story. And this one is quite eye-opening. The evidence in this book, to put it simply, shows that Dante's 'divine comedy' was in fact largely plagiarized from a story that was told by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, over 1400 years ago. The evidence is given in very matter-of-fact way, in a comparative form, firstly looking at the Prophets words (which have been recorded and kept for, as I say, over 1400 years and will be well known to all educated Muslims) and dante's 'divine comedy' which was written at a... much later time! A time when the stealing of knowledge (without giving credit to the source) from the Islamic world to Europe was quite prevalent (also essential fuel / the main ingredient to what is now known as 'the renaissance') This book is irrefutable because of how it's written, you'll just have to read it for yourself if you want to be convinced. The argument is given all the more weight because Miguel Asin Palacios comes across as an incredibly scholarly writer and does not waste even an inch on giving his own personal opinion on Dante, OR Islam. Rightly so. He was, in fact, a Christian, indeed, a priest, who just so happened to have a good knowledge of Islam and, evidently, a need for truth in the world. He doesn't claim that dante was a total phoney without an inch of talent- again, he's balanced and smart. In fact, he even gives the cheeky little italian some credit as an artist for the creative ways in which he has interwoven the Prophet Muhammad's experiences into his writing. However, it just becomes fact during the reading of this book that little dante aligheri was as gifted in stealing as he was in writing. And that is all. As I've said, the evidence is just so overwhelming that you'll never look at 'the divine comedy', dante, and maybe the whole renaissance, in the same way. Enough talk, read it. Peace to all of the 'Tulab el Haqq' (seekers of truth) in this world, of whom Miguel Asin Palacios was clearly one.
Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi.
PS- some robbers stole my copy of this book, in Barcelona, March 2004.

3 comments:

Bilal said...

Hmm, interesting. Give us the low down once you've read it!

zee said...

actually, it sounds very interesting...now u got me tempted to buying it to!:)

Shafinaaz Hassim said...

for some wierd reason its not available in johannesburg as far as i can figure///got a buddy in london looking out for a copy at some clandestine few bookshops that he frequents or sumthing..let me know if u have any luck gettin a hold of it!
amazon lists it but says unavailable:(