[allvideO]

Salams,

I was very shocked at this respected sheikh defending the book and author who insulted the Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) and Sayyidina Ali (RA):


Sheikh defends insulter

Here is part of the article:
Dante Alighieri. A thirteenth century Christian philosopher, poet and supposed literary theorist. The case is that often a literary genius’ brilliance is misunderstood and is perceived as being politically incorrect or incoherent with the social and religious ideals of the time. However, in said individual’s case his works are often laden with pure sacrilegious ‘humour’, hence the reason one of his most prominent works is entitled Divina Commedia ‘The Divine Comedy.’ Dante, apart from being a staunch critic of Islam (as will become clear soon), was also criticised by ‘men of the cloth’ of his own tradition, of having committed blasphemy and treachery.

More demanding of our attention however; is Dante’s despicable portrayal of the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) & Mawla Ali (May Allah ennoble his noble face) as being denizens of the inferno. Wal Iyadhu bi Allah! His ‘Inferno’ is an account of his symbolic journey into the depths of hell, where he encounters several prominent figures each being tormented for immoral crimes they committed whilst in the material world. Each circle which Dante explores brings forth an individual who was committed for indulging in a particular vice. Upon entering the circle of the fraudsters and schismatics, Dante falsely asserts that he encountered the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) & Mawla Ali (May Allah ennoble his noble face). Regarding the two he writes:

“No barrel, not even one where the hoops and staves go every which way, was ever split open like

one frayed Sinner I saw, ripped from chin to where we fart below.

His guts hung between his legs and displayed His vital organs, including that wretched sack Which

converts to **** whatever gets conveyed down the gullet.

As I stared at him he looked back And with his hands pulled his chest open, Saying, “See how I

split open the crack in myself! See how twisted and broken Mohammed is! Before me walks Ali, his

face Cleft from chin to crown, grief–stricken.”

The above has been taken from Seth Zimmerman’s contemporary translation of Dante’s Inferno.

However, even more doctrinally problematic is Hamza Yusuf’s self proclaimed defence of Dante’s blasphemous portrayal of the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him):

“[Speaking of the eighth circle] and then soars of scandals and schism. This is where unfortunately

for Muslims he has the Prophet Muhammad with Ali…now I want to… and I… you know… It is

difficult for me but I would like to defend a little bit Dante. Dante… Dante put him in… in… among

the schismatics, there is another group in the heritage world where the false prophets were he is

not… I’m sorry not in the uh… not in the uh… the false prophets are in the…uh… they’re in the

eight circle, I think they’re in the first bolgia. He does not put them in with the false prophets, he

puts him with the schismatics. Now the schismatics are the Eastern churches, and this in essence

acknowledging that these are believers, but they saw schism was actually… because it created

violence and rupture in society. It’s also not a disease of fraud, and this is pointed out by the

commentators in Dante, he puts him here because the fraud is in their own misperception of the

world…this…this is how he does it. And I also want to say that these people that he puts here are

not the people, and that’s why people say ‘He put his enemies in Hell and he was just cruel’… no

these are personifications, he is personifying the idea of schism and that was something very close

to a deeply divided world between Christians and Muslims, who were fighting then as

unfortunately we are know. And then he puts the falsifiers…” [09:00 onwards]

[Rounteetepehryn]

wow....so we're supposed be grateful that some Christian mal'oon considered the Prophet and Ali to be heretics and not infidels.

[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).

[Gozmand]

wow....so we're supposed be grateful that some Christian mal'oon considered the Prophet and Ali to be heretics and not infidels.

No. The point is that Dante is considered an influential voice of the time. His work is used to reflect on general trends in Christian society. He copied the prophet's night journey story. One of the most influential Christian personalities was little more than a plagiarizer (and felt guilty enough to not damn Muslims as disbelievers). This shows the enormity of Islam's impact on Christian/Western civilization which is a running theme in all of SHY's talks (and a very potent message when talking to Westerners who are ignorant of Islam). The context of these discussions is commentary on ills in Western society (regarding money lending and pornography).

I don't get the judgmental attitude towards SHY here. This man's converted more people to orthodox Islam than almost anyone posting here will in their lifetimes. It was through him that Allah awakened my own moral conscience and interest in deen. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't even have been a Deobandi (maybe a Salafi instead if I found some other road to the deen in the West where I grew up).

Regarding that blog's name: Yes, please save the orthodoxy from the man who's driven more people to the orthodoxy and away from the ghayr muqallideen in one of the hearts of ghayr muqallideen society! (Western Muslims are influenced by a lot of Gulf Arab money).

At the very least you could ask him to clarify his remarks... which is how any scholar (in fact, any Muslim) should be treated.

[w4HPpbSW]

Just lost all respect for this man...

[Gozmand]

After being astonished by that blog I want to make an additional comment.

Deobandis of all people should know that reforming Islamic society is distinct from defending Islam from external attacks. There are plenty of guidelines in the Qur'an, Sunnah, and works of the 'ulema of every age regarding how to deal with fellow Muslims. This blog violates all of them. Attacking Muslims with polemics (characterized by not giving the other a chance to engage in discussion) in a public arena dominated by non-Muslims is not how you do it. Those kinds of polemics are self-serving and self-aggrandizing with no other point than boosting one's ego. And that's the most optimistic interpretation of them.

My advice to everyone here is to not use the internet to personally attack other Muslims (if you feel you want to attack doctrines of other groups of Muslims consult your shaykh/ustadh for advice on how best to do it). You can use the internet as a personal communications tool or as a public arena of published ideas (like newspapers, books, etc). Keep your interactions with Muslims (debates, arguments, etc) in the first context. The latter should be reserved for dawah. Feel free to use the tactics of the kuffar against the kuffar but don't turn them on other Muslims.

[brandiweb]

That guy is a Barelwi, not a Deobandi. Note the 'Imam' used for Ahmed Raza Khan. He may be connected with ********* or what-have-you because I've seen a lot of critique and near-takfir of Hamza Yusuf on that forum.

[Gozmand]

That guy is a Barelwi, not a Deobandi. Note the 'Imam' used for Ahmed Raza Khan. He may be connected with ********* or what-have-you because I've seen a lot of critique and near-takfir of Hamza Yusuf on that forum.

Thanks for the correction though I suppose we could all learn a lesson from that person.

This is actually really funny because I left a comment on their blog saying the trashing of Shaykh Hamza was just how Barelwis trash the 'ulema, LOL.