Prophet Muḥammad in Dante’s Divine Comedy: An anxiety of influence

This article explores the century-long topic ‘Dante and Islam’ from the perspective of Harold’s Bloom’s theory of influence. It argues that Dante’s placement of Muḥammad in Inferno 28 could have been caused by an ‘anxiety’ incited by the Islamic influence on the Commedia as first suggested by Miguel Asín Palacios in 1919. With the intention of complementing the close readings of Maria Corti and Karla Mallette, the article’s analysis of the relevant verses in Inferno in light of Bloom’s theory reveals that there could be more to the famous scene of torture than the medieval antagonistic or ambivalent positions from Islam. The article also tackles the history of European and Arab scholarship dealing with the topic, showing that it has been filled with religious, political and nationalistic anxieties, not ending with the censorship of the scene in most contemporary Arabic translations of Dante’s Commedia