Note 351 — PART II THE DIVINE COMEDY COMPARED WITH OTHER MOSLEM LEGENDS ON THE AFTER-LIFE (continued 2)

Ibn Makhluf, II, 58. The elaboration of this fantastic picture of glory was continued, more notably by the Spanish and African sufis between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, until about the time the Divine Comedy was produced. Although Ibn Arabi’s is undoubtedly the one that most nearly approaches the Dantean version, the following by Izzu’d-Din ibn Abd as-Salam of the fourteenth century, is also of interest:—

In heaven there are as many grades as there are virtues, and each of these is again subdivided into the lowest, the intermediate, and the highest grades. Thus, for example, the martyrs of Islam occupy the hundred highest grades as a reward for faith; another hundred correspond to each of the other virtues; then come a hundred grades for just rulers; then a hundred for sincere witnesses, and so forth. If two of the elect are equally deserving by reason of faith (whether mystic or theological), both occupy the same grade; but, if there is any difference in either the quantity or the quality of their faith, then they are placed apart. And so it is with the other virtues.