Note 119 — PART I THE LEGEND OF THE NOCTURNAL JOURNEY AND ASCENSION OF MAHOMET COMPARED WITH THE DIVINE COMEDY (continued 2)

One of the poets he consults begs to be excused on the plea that he lost all memory of his poetry in the fright he received at the time of Judgment, when he was in imminent danger of falling into hell. The traveller takes this opportunity to relate his adventures prior to entering paradise. The story is told with so fine an irony, that the reader is continually in doubt as to whether it is to be taken seriously or not. For, after depicting in vivid colours the severity of the Judge and the terror of the souls condemned to fire, the traveller proceeds to relate the artful dodges by which he managed to escape his due reward and enter heaven. After a vain endeavour to suborn the angels at the gates, he appealed to Hamza, an uncle of Mahomet, who referred him to Ali; the latter demands the certificate proving his repentance and this the traveller remembers he must have dropped in the confusion of the judgment scenes when called upon to intercede in favour of a literary master. In vain he offers to provide witnesses in place of the missing document, and he is on the point of being dragged off to hell, when he espies Fatima, the daughter of Mahomet, approaching in a brilliant procession accompanied by Khadija, the Prophet’s spouse and his sons, mounted on steeds of light. Fatima allows him to seize her stirrup and he is carried to the bridge leading to the celestial mansions; this he crosses riding on the back of one of her maidens. A final obstacle remains to be overcome on the other side; the angel janitor refuses to admit him without a ticket, but one of Mahomet’s sons intervenes and drags him inside paradise.