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The Middle East as Seen Through Foreign Eyes

Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

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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)

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)

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.

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