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Gore’s engraving and similarly Blake’s watercolor show the eternal fate of the Prophet Muhammad and his companion Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, vividly capturing the narrative of Dante’s famous poem. The punishment visited upon Muhammad and Ali by the sword-wielding demon fits their crimes; as they proceed in a single-file line, their bodies are sliced open: “How is Mohammed mangled! Before me walks Ali weeping, from the chin his face cleft to the forelock; and the others all whom here thou seest, while they liv'd, did sow scandal and schism, and therefore thus are rent.” Muhammad and Ali are nearly cut in half, only to be restored and forced to endure this bodily torment over and over again. By portraying two of Islam’s most important figures as schismatics, Dante demotes Islam to the status of a particularly virulent brand of Christian heresy. In terms of negatively stereotyping Islam and Muslims, Dante Alighieri’s description of Muhammad’s torments in the Eighth Circle of Hell is one of the most noteworthy passages found in medieval Western European poetry, not only because of its graphic imagery, but also because of the impression it has left on the imagination of later European scholars and authors. These two images inspired by the Divine Comedy are a testament to an enduring legacy. Dore’s and Blake’s illustrations of Muhammad in Hell came over five hundred years after Dante penned his famous poem.

William Blake’s Watercolor of Canto XXVIII (Lines 30 and 31 of Inferno, the First Part of Dante Alighieri’s Epic Poem the Divine Comedy)

Name: Mohammed by Gustave Dore

Material: Engraving

Size:
Height: 24.0 cm (9.4 in)
Width: 19.2 cm (7.5 in)

Date: 1860

Place of Origin: Unknown

Location: Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

Source and Registration#: Wikimedia Commons. Link to resource (accessed June 24, 2010).

John Woods

Professor of Iranian and Central Asian History and of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago

Alexander Barna

Outreach Coordinator, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago