Fear and Hope in Dante's Divine Comedy and Islamic Mysticism: A Comparative Study

By comparing Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and Islamic mysticism (including its Quranic, discursive and literary foundations), it is possible to find many common issues between their epistemological foundations. The present article attempts to consider the state of fear and hope in the preface of Inferno (the first part of Divine Comedy) and Islamic mysticism by using analytic-comparative method. The results indicate that the cantos of Inferno, like Islamic mysticism, refer to the need of a wise old man (pir-e dānā) in the spiritual journey, following him in the beginning of suluk (the spiritual journey) to reach rational knowledge, going along with him after helplessness and the inability of reason to attain the Truth. But, in Inferno, contrary to Islamic mysticism, the concept of fear is prominent, love is seen less and fear of punishment is more prominent than fear of God's cunning. The reason for these differences is that Dante was influenced by the teachings of the Church; he was scared of God and was obliged by religious laws.