Dante's Muhammad

            I thought it was interesting how it was brought up that Dante focused on Islam more in regard with its origins, and didn’t really focus much on the traditional interpretations of its history. Dante kind of tied it all back to have Christianity be the focus, and showed how, in his opinion, Muhammad was pushing for the divisions in Christianity. Instead of writing about the qualities he thought that Muhammad might have had as a follower of Islam, or about the Islam traditions that he would have followed, Dante went back to his role as a prophet and leader of the people. Thinking about it this way, I do like how Dante focused on the origins of Islam and Muhammad as a prophet. Knowing how something—especially something as important and sacred to people as a religion—came about and the beginnings of its traditions is important. It’s also interesting how his knowledge of Islam was learned in relation to Christianity and tended to be in anti-Islam works, but it’s cool that he kind of looked past that a little and had his own view about it, as the article says. Dante being an intellectual person, and writing this great work of literature, it’s good and important that he had an interest in things other than what was the norm in his part of the world and was educated about other, different things.