[Gozmand]

I think he means that by European standards Dante thought a lot higher of the prophet . Christians saw him as a false prophet, perhaps even an antichrist, and associated Muslims with Satanism, heresy, and all kinds of things. Dante at least categorized the prophet (saw) as a believer and not a disbeliever. In fact, putting him in the Schismatics sounds like he thought Islam even branched off from Christianity in a way which would have been a revolutionary view of Islam in an age where they thought Muslims were monsters (which is what SHY is referring to, Dante viewing believers as one community).

It's obviously still an unacceptable insult but it's historically significant because it was a departure from accepted practice in his time and place (we shouldn't lump Dante in with the rest of the Christians of his time).

Defending as he uses it does not mean defending absolutely but relatively from being associated with the worse Christians/Europeans.

And this is probably because Dante, like so many other Europeans, shamelessly copied from Islamic texts that were translated into Latin. At least Dante felt guilty enough to give the Islamic prophet a slightly higher place in his hierarchy of non-Christians.

For comparison, according to our 'aqeedah, a "schismatic" could potentially be saved from Hellfire (the difference between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox is less than the difference between Sunni and Shi'a from what little I know) after spending a certain amount of time there. We would never say this of a false prophet yet Dante gave that status (because the rest of the Christians saw our Nabi in that way) though for Christian theology I assume Hell is permanent. I think that is evidence enough that he had some special reason to treat the Muslims differently (probably because he was plagiarizing their stuff).

Dante was also a poet and a philosopher (not to mention a scholar of language who was influential in developing Italian language, so he would be one to have access to translated works from other parts of the world). To confuse his work for some official Catholic text would be a mistake. It is undoubtedly metaphorical in nature. He wasn't just writing it to talk about how disbelievers will burn, it's seen (by pretty much everyone who studies Europe of that age) as a social commentary due to his hierarchy. He even wrote blasphemic things by Christian standards. I doubt Dante even believed in a real Hell, he just used the imagery because it served his purpose. And without a doubt the parallels between his 'Inferno' and the story of the prophet's night journey are too numerous to be coincidental. He was copying it (and the ignorant Church didn't know better).

The only point of invoking any reference to Dante's work (Inferno in particular) is philosophy about morality in the Western/Christian tradition, and SHY's target audience is Western Muslims and non-Muslims. If you're going to draw parallels about universal or mutually shared morality between Islamic and Christian traditions you pretty much have to reference 'Inferno'.

The lecture in question is regarding the morality surrounding different ways of treating money (a huge ill in today's society). The other reference was in a work about modern pornography (another huge ill in today's society). Both ills which were magnified by Western civilization.

The author of this blog needs to stick to his studies. I don't know any dars nizami student who has time to waste on running blogs.

EDIT: For those who use the minds which Allah have given them: Ask yourselves, who or what is he "defending" Dante from? From Allah's judgment? Certainly not (and anyone who claims that is a slanderer). He's defending him from Muslims instinctively discarding or dismissing Dante and his works because of his opposition to Islam when there is value in them for purposes of dawah to the West (even for Muslim Westerners who don't know about their own deen).

SHY and American Muslim scholars, have to also look after their own community. They're invested, for life, in that country. If you want to publicly campaign against riba and pornography (the two subjects here) on moral grounds in a Christian/Western country, you will probably have to reference Christianity and Western philosophy! Christians and non-Muslims won't care what Islam says about these topics. His work on pornography (Climbing Mount Purgatorio) has been pretty popular among non-Muslims, I've even linked many to it on public forums, bulletin boards or comments sections on news articles relating to pornography and saw it receive a lot of praise from Westerners (who now also gained an interest in Islam).