Paradiso And The Night Journey

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Paradiso is the third part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy, written in 1321 by Dante Alighieri. Paradiso, Italian for Paradise, is Dante’s last stop after visiting Purgatory and the circles of Hell in Inferno. In Paradiso, Dante becomes acquainted with the ten spheres of heaven in his mystical ascension towards God. Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascension into Heaven, both found in the Sirat Rasul Allah translated by Ibn Ishaq, tell the story of Muhammad’s travel to heaven, in the year 621, where he is shown the seven realms of heaven. While there are some differences between both Paradiso and the Night Journey, both stories also overflow with such specific similarities. Although written over 800 years apart, Muhammad's Night Journey and …show more content…

Dante and Muhammad are both humans and both in the latter stages of their lives (latter for the time period), Dante, 35, and Muhammad, 50, when they are escorted to heaven by a non-mortal being. Beatrice, a beautiful spirit, serves as a guide for Dante, helping him along the way by answering some of his questions and encouraging him to ask his own questions to those he is greeted by. Likewise, Muhammad is guided by the Angel Gabriel, who up to this point has been the channel through which God sends the surahs of the Qur’an to Muhammad. Both Dante and Muhammad are given the privilege of visiting a place that no mortal human being before has ever laid eyes on. Although there is no evidence to support that Dante was trying to mirror the Night Journey when writing Paradiso, it is a definite possibility that he used the Night Journey as inspiration. In his essay, Dante’s Paradiso: Cantos XXIV-XXVI, Edward L. Walter writes: “St. Augustine in the ‘Confessions’ expressly says that it can be argued properly that the inspired authors have foreseen all the truth that can be drawn from the Scriptures, or even if the authors themselves have not seen it, the spirit that inspired them has foreseen it” (Walter 28). According to Walter, Dante’s vision of heaven is at least partially inspired by some spiritual being. The fact that many themes from both stories resemble each other does give the reader some proof of Dante’s knowledge of Muhammad’s Night Journey and his ascension into

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