While Dante’s placement of Mohammed in Hell is, in itself, implied, the latter’s damnation not only comes from a sense of divine justice but also acts as a reflection on and a warning to Dante on his individual journey to God. Dante, along with many of his peers and influences, views Islam as a false sect broken off from the core of Christianity and Mohammed as a Christian with a corrupted view of doctrine that lures potential followers from a true path of righteousness. Mohammed, like Dante, feels a spiritual discontentment that leads him on a reflective journey; however, as Mohammed turns his personal path, beliefs, and interpretations into its own doctrine, he varies from Dante’s poetic but applicable tale of salvation. Dante’s encounter …show more content…
“One foot raised, halted in mid-stride, / Mohammed spoke these words, / then setting down that foot, went on his way” (Alighieri 28.61, 63). Beyond mimicking the image of Mohammed struggling to walk in his own journey, this image also causes one to recall Dante’s own footwork earlier in the epic with his “firm foot always lower than the other,” a stance which communicates the difficulty of his initial attempt to climb the hill towards Heaven in his slowed, weary state (Alighieri 1.30, Hollander). The two instances in the poem differ, however, in the same manner as Mohammed’s miraj and Dante’s Commedia diverge. Mohammed, in Hell as on Earth, continues on his path with a little encouragement despite this pause while Dante is willing to be led completely. The message he delivers in this state also coincides with a man stumbling upon “his own path” as Dolcino attempts to enforce his personal beliefs in the schismatic group of Apostolic Brethren. (Alighieri 28.55-60, …show more content…
The splitting of the genitals relates to the medieval Christian emphasis on the “sexual perversion” of Islam in allowing multiple wives, mates, and sodomites. The codes on sexual conduct, originating in Mohammed rather than his teachers, are part of the doctrine that Mohammed creates himself in his man-made and false path to salvation. The stomach, marked as “the loathsome sack / that turns what one has swallowed into shit,” receives emphasis in the schism as Mohammed takes the teaching of the Bible and Church and alters it, similarly to how “the ‘food of the doctrine’ swallowed by Mohammed [is] turned by him into repulsive faeces” (Alighieri 28.26-7, Lieberknecht). These organs create a timeline in Mohammed’s sin. It begins with discontentment in his bowels that initiates a journey. He then experiences a stumble that he resolves by his stomach turning what truth he had of Christian doctrine to his own purposes, particularly with regards to sexuality, hence the inclusion of the genitalia in the split. The sin comes to completion with the throat, from where he spreads these diverging beliefs. Dante’s timeline shares the bowel disturbance and the stumble, and, if he does not restrict himself in his Commedia, his work may become the