Dante Alighieri, a conservative, devout Christian poet, is remembered for his poem "The Divine Comedy", which depicts the Prophet of Islam, our liege-lord Muhammad and his cousin 'Ali in 8th circle of hell. In canto XXVIII, he says: Since they allegedly caused schism in life, Dante has eternally punished them in a gruesome manner by having their wounds sealed and then reopened by a devil. Needless to say, such blasphemy is passible by death according to the four Sunni schools of law. How troubling then that people considered by many as great scholars and intellectuals of Islam are on record praising Dante's filthy poetry. Hamza Yusuf, for instance, feels the need to "defend" Dante and even makes light of Dante’s blasphemy commenting that he would like to make a theme park based on the ‘Inferno’: http://adoptingorthodoxy.wordpress.c...nte-alighieri/ Similarly, Hossein Nasr, a perennialist Shiite praised by Hamza Yusuf, quotes Dante often in his works and states: Now recently Mahmoud Shelton of eShaykh.com, a Haqqani website which is supervised by Hisham Kabbani, cited Dante approvingly, even suggesting that "The Divine Commedy" is an esoteric and spiritual masterpiece: Guard your iman brethren and be wary of those who address you with sweet, eloquent speech but whose hearts lack ghayra for the liege-lord of creation, sayyidina Muhammad ...