Dante’s Beatrice in Light of Sufism

Introduction:

The question of the Arabic influence on the medieval European literature was especially illustrated in Miguel Asin Palacios’ (a Spanish historian) La Esxatologia Musulmana en la Divina Commedia that was published in Madrid in 1919. Placios explored the similarities between the Divine Comedy and Arabic traditions. In fact, the similarities he referred to indicated ‘picturesque, descriptive, and even episodic similarities ‘. Palacios believed that Dante was inspired by the two Islamic literary works; the Isra, Muhammad’s journey through hell, and the Mirage, Muhammad’s ascension from Jerusalem to heaven that were depicted in Arabic in Abul-‘Ala’ al-Ma’arri’s (973-1057)’Treatise on Pardon’’ (‘’Risalat al-Ghufran’’) and in Ibn Arabi’s two works; ‘’ The Book of the Nocturnal Journey toward the Majesty of the Most Magnanimous’’ (‘’kitab al-Isra’ ila Maqam al-Asra’’) which is in manuscript, and ‘’The Book of the Meccan Conquests’’ (‘’kitab al-futuhat al-Makkiyah’’) which is in print. Between 1260 and 1268 , king Alfonso X the Wise encouraged translating Arabic works to Latin which resulted in producing ‘’Historia Arabum’’ by Archbishop Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada of Toledo ,that is a translation of the Mi’raj legend using the Islamic traditions (Hadith) as its source. Since Brunto Latini, under whom Dante received his literary training, was a Florentine ambassador to the court of Alfonso in 1260, he might have read some of those stories about Muhammad’s ascension to heaven. This possibility is strongly confirmed by the fact that Brunetto Latini’s main works, the ‘’Tesoretto’’ and the ‘’Tesoro’’ show a deep Arabic Influence due to his visit to Toledo and Seville where the translation of Arabic literary works was in its climax. Between 1297 and 1300, another work by St.Peter Paschal, bishop of Jaen and friar of the new Order of Mercy, entitled ‘’Impunaci’on de la seta de Mohomah’’ quoted the book called ‘’Miragi’’ and mentions the ‘’sirat’’ which is ‘’ a thin line or straight path constituting the bridge between hell and heaven’’; an equivalent of Dante’s Purgatory. That indicates that the legend of Mi’raj was widespread throughout Spain and the whole West including Italy. After the death of Palacios in 1944, a translation of an Arabic work‘II Libro della Scala’ depicted the story the ascension of Muhammad to heaven. In fact, historians believe that versions of this work had been going around in Europe in Dante’s lifetime.


Thesis:
In fact, Sufi traditions and literature are known to have contributed to the foundation and the development of the Arabic literature. After historians had questioned the possibility of the Arabic literature influencing medieval European literature, they were inclined to specifically question this possibility. According to Annemarie Scheimmel, the interaction between Sufi ideas or themes and European literature in Middle Ages can be seen in the works of the Catalanian mystic and scholar Ramon Lull (d.1316). In addition, the legend of Rabi’a al-Adawiyya, the great woman saint of the 18th century, was used as a ‘model of Divine love’ in a 17th century French’ treatise on pure love’. General information about’ rites of the dervishes’ were known because of The European travelers to Middle East in the 16th and 17th century. In 1638 a Sufi poem by the great Egyptian mystic Ibn al-Farid was translated and edited by the learned Fabricius of Rostock University. Furthermore, some classical poems were translated many, which were colored by the Sufi flavor.

In the case of the Divine Comedy, the impact of Sufi literature on European literature was fed by the increased association between Dante and Mysticism in general. This association is especially related to the possibility of the Sufi impact on Dante’s views of God and love in his Commedia. The Sufi impact is strongly confirmed and enhanced by the projection of the ultimate goal of the Pilgrim in Paradiso, the Vision of God, which is also the goal of the Sufi seeker (Murid) in his spiritual journey or his (Path). Since God’s love for Sufis is the source of all kind of love because it’s the ‘original love’, they believe that human love leads to its source, God’s love. Thus, human love for the Sufis is a means to the unification with God because according to their traditions the beloved is identified with God. In other words, the beloved is the means through which the Self of the Divine is manifested and with its assistance His revelation is accomplished. On the other hand, Dante treated Beatrice as his source of inspiration, his guide in his mystical voyage to unification with God and as the manifestation through which God revealed Himself to the pilgrim, in addition to her being his lure.

In light of these facts, I will argue that Dante’s treatment or portrayal of Beatrice in the divine comedy is parallel to the Sufi’s belief that human love leads to divine love. I will display some of Dante’s poems addressed to Beatrice in both the La Vita Nouva and the Divine Comedy, as well as some Sufi poems to illustrate the parallelism between Dante’s portrayal of his beloved and the Sufi poet’s.


What is Sufism?

According to Annemarie Scheimmel in her Mystical Dimensions of Islam says that Sufism is the ‘’accepted name for Islamic mysticism ‘’, but she points out that it’s hard to agree on one definition of Sufism since ‘’nobody venture to describe it fully’’ because it varies according to what the Sufi experiences. So, she referred to the origin of the term Sufi that Hujwiri talked about in the mid-eleventh century:

‘’ Some assert that the Sufi is so called because he wears a woolen garment (ja’ma-I suf), others that he is so called because he is in the first rank (saff-I awwal), others say it is because the Sufis claim to belong to the ashab-I Suffa (the people of the Bench who gathered around the Prophet’s mosque). Others, again, declare that the name is derived from safa’ (puri ty).

But most definitions of Sufism focused only on one aspect of the concept and ignored the ‘threefold meaning of tasawwuf ‘which is to the shari’a, the Muslim law, the tariqa, the mystical path, and the haqiqa, the Truth. That is according to Lapidus:

’’It is the spiritual quest that leads to direct experience of the reality of God’s being’’

Sufi traditions evolve around the pursuit of spiritual truth that enables the Mystic to reach unification with God, which is his ultimate goal. According to the Sufis, there is neither veil nor barrier between man and God. The seeker can reach that unification with God through the spiritual striving and thirst for the ultimate truth . The spiritual striving causes the seeker to go through mystical stages and states that enable his self-transformation to emerge on the Mystic path. One of those states is (fana), Annihilation in the Essence .That state according to the Sufis ’’ must be a momentary experience, still ‘colored’ by the individual archetype.’’ Sufis use the symbol of the ‘path’ to refer to the mystical experience they go through before their union with God. Sufis need a guide in their spiritual journey who can help them to know God, this guide is considered‘A heavenly’ messenger which can be found In the Divine Comedy in Beatrice’s role as the Pilgrim’s guide during his journey. However, the ultimate truth, According to Al-Ghazzali, can be attained through man’s heart because the capabilities of the intellect are quite limited when it comes to eternal truth. Thus, Al-Ghazzali referred to the heart as a mirror that reflects the divine light.

‘’ when one’s heart is purified, the ‘’light of divine secrets’’ is reflected in the mirror of the heart “Al-Ghazzali

Human and divine love in Sufism and in the Commedia:


Since Sufis believe that God is the Root of everything, they accordingly believe that everything in the universe is part of god’s love. In fact, they see that ‘all things are lovers’, and accordingly each being seeks union with its ‘true Beloved’, God;’’ they seek the Infinite Root’’ . The Sufi thinker, Ibn Rumi has expressed this very concept in the following poem:

God’ s wisdom in His destiny and decree has
made us lovers of one another.
That foreordainment has paired all parts of the
world and set them in love with their mates.
Each part of the world desires its mate, just like
amber and straw.
Heaven says to the earth,’’Hallo! Thou drawest
me like iron to a magnet! ‘’…
The female desires the male so that they may
perfect each other’s work.
God placed desire within man and woman so
that the world might find subsistence through their union.

Therefore, according to Rumi all beings are mates that attract one another and each mate seeks the union of the other because they are all interconnected to God’s being as if they are pieces in one puzzle!

This very concept of the oneness of the source of love and goodness is seen in the Commedia too. Dante says to St. John:

And I : By the arguments of philosophy
And by authority that descends from here
Such Love has clearly stamped its seal upon me.
For the good, to the extent imperfect sense
Grasps its goodness, kindles love; the brighter
The more we understand its excellence.
To the Essence then in which lies such perfection
That every good thing not immediate to It
Is nothing more than Its own ray’s reflection-
To it, above all else, the mind must move
Once it has seen the truth that is the proof
And argument that so compels man’s love.

(Par. XXVI, 25-39)


Dante here describes God’s love as the source of all goodness in human beings. In fact, he refers to God as the ‘Essence’ of Eternal light from which all other rays come from. Man becomes good because of his Source of goodness, he becomes even better since love enkindles through him even more. This is how the circle of love goes on and on since it grows like the Source of it, Eternal Light.

Although Sufis believe that there are two kinds of love ‘true love’ (‘ishq-I haqiqi) and what they call ‘derivative love’ (ishq-I majazi), they still believe that all kind of love leads to God’s love even if humans are not aware of it ‘’since whatever exists is His reflection or shadow ‘’. Therefore, whenever a human being channels his love it will ultimately lead him to God. Rumi says in Sufi Path of Love:

‘’All the hopes, desires, loves, and affections that people have for different things-fathers, mothers, friends,, heavens, the earth, ,gardens, palaces, sciences, works, food, drink-the saint knows that these are desires for God and all those are veils, then they will know that all were veils and coverings ,that the object of their desire was in reality that One Thing.’’

Rumi here describes human love as if it is the crust of a fruit while God’s love is the core or the Essence of that fruit because the crust (human love) always and ultimately leads to its core (Divine love) since it branches out of God’s love. Thus, Rumi also sees human love as a kind of rehearsal of the Divine love or a practice for It. He states:

“ The warrior gives a wooden sword to his son so
that he may master it and take a sword into battle.
Love for a human being is that wooden sword.
when the trail reaches its end, the object of love will be the All-Merciful.”

The same idea is seen in what Beatrice said to Dante:

“Well do I see how the Eternal Ray,
which, once seen, kindles love forevermore,
Already shines in you. If in your way
Some other thing seduce your love, my brother,
It can only be a trace, misunderstood,
Of this, which you see shining through the other.”

(Par. V, 7-12)


Beatrice describes Dante’s intellect as a shining being from which the eternal light springs. She refers to Dante’s mind as his source of love since it is what made him observe and appreciate God’s grace in his creation and accordingly to yearn for His love. Dante’s mind, before anything else, is created by God and to Him it returns but it’s first purified by Dante’s journey through Hell and Purgatory. Nevertheless, Beatrice draws the Pilgrim’s attention to the fact that he might see light in objects that would seem to him to be the Eternal light because of his imperfect mind. Thus, she asks him, as in the Sufi poem, to seek the true source of Eternal Light, the Creator, instead of seeking Its rays, His Creation.

Although Sufis are aware that women only reflect God’s Attributes of’’ Beauty, Mercy, Gentleness, and Kindness’’, they still insist that this reflection can only be attained when those beloveds are seen as means of transformation into ‘True Love’, God’s love. So most Sufi poets although inspired by beautiful women, knew that it was only God’s reflection manifested in them. That was the case with Ibn Arabi when he wrote ‘The Interpreter of Desires ‘to his beloved, Nizam, by her beauty and her ‘’ spiritual attainments and eloquence’’ he was taken. One of the commentators on Ibn Arabi’s works suggests that Nizam to Ibn Arabi was like Beatrice to Dante by stating:

“If Nizam was to him (and manifestly she was nothing else) a Beatrice, a type of heavenly perfection, an embodiment of Divine love and beauty, yet in the world’s eyes he ran the risk of appearing as a lover who protests his devotion to an abstract ideal while openly celebrating the charms of his mistress.’’ 

Dante also realized that the goal of his journey is not to be united with Beatrice but to be united with God who was manifested in Beatrice as God can be found in his Creation too. In fact, Rumi talks about God’s manifestation in all things and how God can be worshiped in all forms since his love is ‘formless’ and as it exist in ‘all forms’. Some people might forget the essence or the goal of their worship but as they go on along the road they become aware of the real goal and eventually forsake the fake goal. So, according to Rumi, even if one is not aware that God is the goal of his path, he will eventually realize that he is walking towards Him because all roads lead to God since the branches of a tree always lead to one trunk .Rumi says:

‘’ When you go to a friend’s form, you go for the
sake of your companionship with him.
Hence in meaning you have gone to the
formless, even if you are unaware of your goal.
So in reality God is worshiped by all things, for
they all travel their paths in search of joy.
But some have turned their faces toward the
tail. The head is the root, but they have lost it. “

With regard to the previous poem and the conception of forms and formlessness Ibn Arabi, (an Arab Sufi thinker who was born in 1165 in Murcia, Spain and died in 1240 in Damascus),believed that seeking and striving for ‘love of wisdom ‘ is what leads to what he called the “knowledge inherent in God” (‘ilm laduni’). That knowledge, he believed, can be attained through God’s revelation, which can be manifested in different forms whether in things or people. It didn’t matter to Ibn Arabi in what form God revealed himself because he followed the essence of His love, not the form of it. He saw God in all forms and in everything. He talked about his belonging to the ‘religion of love’ when he said:

“I follow the religion of Love,
Now I am sometimes called
A Shepherd of gazelles
And now a Christian monk,
And now a Persian sage ‘’

Peter lamborn Wilson commenting on this poems says : ‘’ When Ibn Arabi says his religion is love, he is not talking about some aimless generalized sort of caritas, but about Eros, and this is so because he sees God in the girl he loves, not in an abstract principle. Religions deal in abstractions rather than in the thing itself; those individuals who see and ‘taste’ the palpable manifestation of the divine no longer care to quarrel over vague generalization .’’

So, according to Ibn Arabi the Divine Self was embodied in his beloved, and that made the conception of the Divine not vague anymore. Ibn Arabi loved a fourteen years old girl, Nizam Ayn al-Shams (‘’Harmony Eye-of-the- Sun’’), who was the daughter of a Persian Traditionist named Mkinu’ddin al-Isfahani. Ibn Arabi met with her in Mecca in 598 A.H. He identified her with God when he addressed her in his poems which meant that he was a follower of the Sufi tradition of ‘’ vision of God in created things’’ since he was an opponent of the orthodox mysticism which was devoted more to the ‘’vision of things in God’’. Palacios in Islam and the Divine Comedy found many similarities between Ibn Arabi and Dante and they even thought that Dante got the idea of his Commedia from Ibn Arabi’s works. He suggests that images, ideas and symbols used by both Dante and Ibn Arabi are common. They both used ‘numerical values, letters and ideological values’ in addition to describing god’s manifestations by ‘similes of light (diffusion, illumination, reflexion and irradiance)’. Furthermore, they both had the same picture of the realms beyond the grave and the same way of decorating the afterlife (Araf Vs. the prototype of the Limbo, the Gehenna Vs. the model of Inferno, the Sirat of the Purgatorio, the meadow between Purgatory and hell, the Terrestrial Paradise Vs. the eight gardens) . He argues that Illuministic Sufi teaching is found in the Divine Comedy since it presents the metaphysics of light. So, he suggests that it’s impossible that this parallelism is only a coincidence since Ibn Arabi had introduced the concepts of life after in his Futuhuat 25 years before the birth of Dante, and Dante depicted it with ‘topographical details’ which are identical to Ibn Arabi’s.

An Italian troubadour poem from the thirteen century was found, without any reference to its writer, showing the Arabic influence of courtly love on European poetry, which indicates that, the exchange between the two cultures was occurring.

In her face I have seen [sic] the moon,
smiling with her radiant look. Did she
Appear to me, I ask my eyes, while I was
awake or in a dream?
That look is a true mystery! It makes my
Body sick, but it also cures it.

The poem sounds like most Arabic courtly love poems in describing the physical features of the beloved and associating those features to nature elements (the beloved face as the moon or the sun, her cheeks as roses). In addition to talking about the beloved eyes and her gaze as the mystery of love, and about her lips as the ultimate desire of passion there are also the emotional states that the lover falls in due to his intense emotions that affect his body too.

Here is one of Ibn Arabi’s poems from his ‘The Interpreter of Desires ‘that deals with almost the same concepts of the previous Italian poem with further modification:

In my heart, fire of passion
in my mind the full moon of darkness sets.
Oh musk! Full moon! branches above the dunes!
how green the branches ,bright the moon, fragrant the musk !
Oh smiling mouth whose taste I loved!
Salvia, redolent of white honey!
moon that appeared to us veiled
in the very blush of shame upon its cheek!
had she unveiled, what torment!
and for this reason, still veiled.

We can notice here the repeated expressions used in courtly love; fire of passion, torment of love, addressing the moon to complain about the killing gaze of the beloved.

On the other hand, Dante himself used some of those components of courtly love in his works that expressed his love to Beatrice by describing her beauty and relating it to nature’s beauty and magnificence. In the XIX of Vita Nuova, Dante described Beatrice as follows:

Her colour is the paleness of the pearl,
In measure suited to her graciousness;
She is the highest nature can achieve
And by her mould all beauty tests itself.
From out her eyes, wherever they may move
Come spirits that are all aflame with Love;
They pierce the eyes of any one that looks
And pass straight through till each one finds the heart;
Upon her face you see depicted Love,
There where none dares to hold his gaze too long.

In another chapter of the Vita Nouva, Dante identified Beatrice with Virgin Mary (Divinity) when he talked about her virtues that were the cause of her being taken to the heavens where Dante thought she belonged:

The gentle lady who through her virtue
Was placed by the highest Lord
In the Heaven of humility where Mary is

(Vita Nouva XXXIV) 


Moreover, the way Virgil described Beatrice in the Inferno can be considered to indicate some of the Arabic courtly component as well since he described her as being “so blessed, so lovely…her eyes surpassed the splendor of the star’s’’ (canto II, 53-55)

Furthermore, Dante described the effect of Beatrice’s beauty and smile on him as he was entering the heaven of Saturn and how it could blind him since the brilliance of it was increasing as he was ascending through the spheres of heaven. The Pilgrim said that her ‘brilliance’, which indicates her divinity too, made him as weak as a branch that can be easily cracked.

She did not smile. Instead her speech to me
began: "Were I to smile, then you would be
like Semele when she was turned to ashes,
because, as you have seen, my loveliness –
which, even as we climb the steps of this
eternal palace, blazes with more brightness –
were it not tempered here, would be so brilliant
that, as I flashed, your mortal faculty
would seem a branch a lightning bolt has cracked." (Par. XXI)

According to the above examples we can see that the way Dante portrayed Beatrice is very similar to the way Arab poets treated their beloved. We can see a more specific Sufi influence on his poems by displaying more examples.

The Pilgrim in Paradiso talks about losing his consciousness when seeing the Eternal Light, God’s manifestation in things. In fact, The two conceptions of Sufi traditions; seeing God’s manifestation in created things and things in God (God speaking to people by things and in things) are represented in the two gazes in Paradiso XXXIII in which the ‘illuminating light’ (god) meets the gaze of the ‘’illuminated light’ ‘’ (the pilgrim, and also every person yearning for god)’’. The ‘’illuminated light’’ refers to God’s manifestation in created things, light. And the ‘illuminating light’ refers to man as a representation of God. That gaze’s meeting produces the ecstasy that Sufis refer to as the Annihilation in the essence. That’s why it was said that ‘’ Dante-pilgrim ,looking at God-as-light, interprets himself as a person –stared –at-by-the-light, as a looking individual –who-is-being –looked-at, a knowing-person-who-is-already-known’’.

“But on how much my words miss my conception,
which is itself so far from what I saw
That to call it feeble would be rank deception!
O light Eternal fixed in Itself alone,
By itself alone understood, which from Itself
Loves and glows, self-knowing and self-known”

(Paradiso XXXIII)

Moreover, the higher state of the Annihilation that Sufis speak of is the state of ‘Permanence’ or ‘baqa’ in which the mystic ‘‘returns ‘from Unity to multiplicity’’. That’s why it’s called bliss (Sanskirt ananda) because it involves no such ‘’ split between consciousness and form’’. This very state is what can be interpreted from what Dante describes about his vision of God:

‘’What then I saw is more than tongue can say.
Our human speech is dark before the vision
The ravished memory swoons and falls away.
As one who sees in dreams and wakes to find
The emotional impression of his vision
Still powerful while its parts fade from his mind-
Just such am I, having lost nearly all
The vision itself, while in my heart I feel
The sweetness of it yet distill and fall. ‘’ (Pardiso 33, 55-63)

And it is the state he refers to by the very end of the poem by:

Here my powers rest from their high fantasy ,
But already I could feel my being turned-
Instinct and intellect balanced equally
As in a wheel whose motion nothing jars-
By the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.

(Paradiso XXXIII)


The Pilgrim reaches that state of Permanence because he achieves his full perfection when united with God. That achievement of perfection is reflected in the flash of light that blinds the Pilgrim and makes him speechless and unable to express what he is experiencing.

In addition, the concept of God as three is used by Sufis in their poems to represent the multi -sided nature of the self of the Divine, which is associated with the beloved or created things in general. Ibn Arabi in the poem below identifies his beloved with God and sees her as three:

My beloved is three-
Three yet only one;
Many things appear as three,
Which are no more than one.
Give her no name,
As if to limit (her to) one
At sight of whom
All limitation is confounded”

Ibn El-Arabi (1165-1240)

The same Sufi concept is seen in the last canto of Paradiso, when the pilgrim sees the divine light (a created thing) as three circles that represent God:

Within the depthless deep and clear existence
of that abyss of light three circles shone –
three in color ,one in circumference :
the second from the first, rainbow from rainbow ;
the third, an exhalation of pure fire
equally breathed forth by the other two.

Making the Divine love a concrete conception is found in both the Divine Comedy and Sufi poetry. We can see it in the Commedia in the following part:

“Long as the feast of Paradise shall be,
So long shall our love’s bliss shine forth from us
And clothe us in these radiant robes you see.
Each robe reflects love’s ardor shining forth;
The ardor, the vision; the vision shines down to us
As each is granted grace beyond his worth.
When our flesh, made glorious at the Judgment Seat,
Dresses us again, then shall our persons
Become more pleasing in being more complete.
Thereby shall we have increase of the light
Supreme Love grants, unearned, to make us fit
To hold His glory ever in our sight.
Thereby, it follows, the vision shall increase;
Increase the ardor that vision kindles;
Increase the ray its inner fires release.

( Paradiso XIV)

The concept of God’s love, which is abstract, is embodied and manifested here through the image of light. God’s love is what makes souls shine, not their earthly deed. That divine light embraces them as if it were their robes that cover more than they would expect and more than what they think deserve. The souls ask God who is manifested in that Eternal Light to shine upon them in the Judgment Day when they regain their unmerited bodies in addition to their souls that are shining originally because of His light. The souls become full of gratitude because of this act of grace and accordingly their love for God increases even more. This view of love as a divine manifestation or a divine object, rather than an abstract, is seen in most Sufi works. And this is what A.A.Affifi discusses Ibn Arabi’s theory of love by stating:

“Ibbnul ‘Arabi’s pantheism is clear, when he says that the ultimate goal of love is to know the reality of love and that the reality of love is identical with God’s Essence. Love is not an abstract quality superadded to the Essence. It is not a relation between a lover and an object loved. This is the true love of the ‘’gnostics’’ who know no particular object of love..

In fact, even the conception of death among Sufis is related to the goal of their mystical path. Indeed, they think of death as the bridge through which they finally become united with their Beloved, God. Annemarie Schimmel in the Mystical Dimension of Islam talks about the meaning of death ‘’ Death means the annihilation of the individual qualities, the lifting of the veil that separates the primordial beloved from the lover created in time.

Sufi poets say in that regard;

“Death is a bridge whereby the lover rejoins the beloved “Rabia

“ when you see my funeral, don’t say,’ what a separation!’ it is time for me to visit and meet the Beloved. Since you have seen my descent, then do see my rising.’’ Rumi

We see Dante views death in the same way as Sufis do because he longs to be united with his Beatrice in whom God is manifested. In La Vita Nouva and after the death of Beatrice, Dante envies ‘all who die’ because they are closer to her than he is which means that they are embraced by God’s gentleness. He even invites Death to come take him because in it he takes ‘refuge’ from the suffering of longing for Beatrice in whom he sees God.

Then I call on Death,
As to a sweet and gentle refuge:
And I say: ‘Come to me’ with such love,
That I am envious of all who die.

(Vita Nouva XXXIII)


Beatrice as a Sufi theme:


Houris (spiritual and beautiful women in heaven found in Islamic traditions) play a big a role in the mystical path of the seeker as depicted in Sufi traditions, which is similar to the role that Beatrice plays in guiding Dante to his vision of God in Paradiso. Since Houris in the Quran were merely depicted as ‘’ instruments for carnal delights ‘’ and since it wasn’t possible to ignore those verses that talked about the sensual joys of them, Sufis decided to substitute the houris by one celestial bride who served as ‘‘a spiritual being whose love is chaste and whom god appointed to each of the blessed.’’ That spiritual bride was depicted in Sufi literature as ‘’ as a heavenly spouse ‘’who is mainly a ‘’ guardian angel’’ that inspires the Sufi to seek spiritual perfection and love for god on earth till he is united with Him in heaven. Sufis confirm the conception of the celestial brides by referring to Muhammad’s saying ‘’ he who loves and remains chaste unto death, dies a martyr ‘’ which sheds light on the importance of the role of the beloved in the Sufi’s reaching spiritual wisdom and spiritual perfection. Therefore Sufis view women in general in an extremely idealized angelic way even their own wives. In fact, they see woman as their ‘companion or sister in asceticism ‘instead of seeing her as the ‘sexual mate’. This ‘idealistic romantic conception’ of woman became a new’ trend’ that was expressed in both the European and Arabic literature. Examples of literary works that reflected that trend are; Ibn Daud’s of Ispahan (Book of Venus) of the 9th century, Ibn Hazm’s of Cordova (Necklace of the Dove) and (Character and Conduct). That means that the Islamic treating of love was common in both the East and in Spain and both in prose and poetry.

Dante’s ultimate goal of his voyage to the heavens is to be united with Beatrice, which is the same as the Sufi wish to be united with spiritual brides in eternal bliss. According to the Sufis, celestial brides are the main source of inspiration and through them they see visions of God with whom they yearn to unite with. Sufis see the beauty of God in the bride’s beauty, as; spiritual brides are what Sufis initially travel their path for till they realize that the brides are only guides to the real Beloved. Rumi addresses man who seeks God and tells him that spiritual brides will ‘boil up from his heart’ as he goes on his path towards God.

‘’Oh impotent man, when you become a man of God, brides will boil up from within your heart.
Like the moon, Venus, the sun and the Pleiades, peris will show their faces within the well of your eyes.
Drink down what we say, for these are Love’s instructions-instructions will not profit you much in the grave.’’ Rumi

On the other hand, Dante describes the one who is able to look at Beatrice as a ‘pilgrim’ which suggests the Sufi perspective of pilgrimage as the Path on which the Sufi walks till he’s united with his beloved, whether God in the beloved or the beloved in God. He says in the La Vita Nouva:

“Beyond the sphere that circles most widely
Passes the sigh that issues from my heart:
New intelligence, that Love
Weeping instills within it, drives it upwards.
When it is near where it desires,’ it sees a lady, who receives honour,
And is a light, that by its splendor
The pilgrim spirit can gaze upon her.

(Vita Nouva XLI)


Dante also refers to Beatrice’s role in his inspiration of writing his Commedia in his commentary on this same poem when he says : ‘’if it pleases Him by whom all things live ,that my life lasts a few years, I hope to write of her what has never been written of any woman ‘’. So, he asks god that he lives a few more years to honor his guardian lady by writing her a magnificent work that no writer could dedicate greater than it for his beloved, which came to be ‘The Divine Comedy’.

As a matter of fact, the way Dante presented Beatrice in the Commedia was balanced ‘’between love and knowledge’’ , her love that guided him to the knowledge of God that made Dante loves her even more since she led to that Divine knowledge . Dante thanks Beatrice for saving him from being lost in Hell .He says:

“O lady in whom my hope shall ever soar
And who for my salvation suffered even
To set your feet upon Hell’s broken floor;
Through your power and your excellence alone
Have I recognized the goodness and the grace
Inherent in the things I have been shown.
You have led me from my bondage and set me free
By all those roads, by all those loving means
That lay within your power and charity.
Grant me your magnificence that my soul,
Which you have healed, may please you when it slips
The bonds of flesh and rises to its goal.’’

( Paradiso XXXI)


The Pilgrim here refers to the fact that Beatrice descended to Hell to save him and he appreciates how she suffered to do so. He also mentions how she helped him to realize God’s greatness and grace in things, which led him to recognize that God is the one whom he should yearn for. That knowledge, that she guided him to, was the reason for him being released from seeking God’s creation instead of its Source, the Creator. So, the Pilgrim is full of gratitude for her since she dragged him out of his confusion and clarified the ultimate goal of his Path, which is union with God.


Conclusion:

It is evident from the many examples displayed that Dante used Beatrice as means to perceive God through his creation the same ways as the Sufis. In comparing Dante’s Commedia with Sufi poems it is possible to see the similarities in using Gods love as the ultimate goal.

Although this is not conclusive proof of confirming my suggestion of what Dante meant or tried to refer to or is what the reason behind him saying the way he did. The only thing we can assure and prove is the common conceptions and images of both European and Arabic literature that are resulted from their interaction. And since Arabic poetry is listed as a great source for Sufi literature, it can be claimed that Sufi literature had a significant influence on the European literature. Palacios says in Islam and the Divine Comedy: ‘’the mysticism of the Sufis drew its inspiration from the lives and writings of the romantic poets of Arabia.’’ And the Divine Comedy being a remarkable literary fingerprint in the Medieval Europe caught some of that Sufi flavor in its conception of romantic love as guide to the Divine love. Reading through Sufi poetry, I can see how Beatrice’s name could be replaced in those poems whether the addressed beloved is God or a female ideal. Whether it was Ibn Arabi’s Nizam or Dante’s Beatrice, she is before everything a bridge to the spiritual knowledge that leads to God’s love!

She smiled, showing her side teeth.
Lightning flashed.
I couldn't tell which of the two
split the darkness.
Isn't it enough she said
I am in his heart
where each moment he sees me,
isn't it, no?

(Ibn Arabi)


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