Dante’s contradictory treatment of Muslims reflects a transitional medieval-to-humanist ideological moment

Evidence

I would suggest that the discrepancy is ro be undersrood in terms of the contradictions in Dante’s own ideology, and that these contradictions stem from the fact that Dante powerfully represents that transitional moment in European thought wherein the medieval episteme is still there but on the verge of being broken up and superseded by the humanist intellectual revolution. Muhammad is eternally undergoing the most aweful punishment because predominant strands in medieval Christianity treated Islam as the most dangerous of all heresies and pronounced the Prophet of Islam the worst of all heretics. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 774

Categorization

• XREF: Ahmad’s materialist explanation for Dante’s contradiction parallels the Foucault/Hotman treatment of ideologies bearing traces of their transitional epoch — useful for the reader’s project on staged vs lived essentialisms. — connects to: Dante’s Hell punished heresy and rationalism severer than Muslim identity — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 773; A deformed image of Islam hardened in the medieval Christian mind as dogma — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 78; Dante placed the great Muslim philosophers in mild Hell despite their post-Christian status — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 347 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Dante placed the great Muslim philosophers in mild Hell despite their post-Christian status #corroborates (0.92) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 347
• Dante’s Hell punished heresy and rationalism severer than Muslim identity #exemplifies (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 773
• Leibniz’s shifting portrayals of Muhammad reveal an ideological transition in anti-Muslim discourse #expands (0.75)
• A deformed image of Islam hardened in the medieval Christian mind as dogma #exemplifies (0.72) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 78
• Medieval thinkers strained to fit Muslims into a divinely ordained history #exemplifies (0.72) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1090
• Medieval epics imagined Islam as a parodic mirror of Christian crusade religion #exemplifies (0.70) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 672