Abstract

ǦIHĀD’S MUḤAMMAD VS. DANTE’S MUḤAMMAD IN THE ARABIC VERSION OF INFERNO’S CANTO XXVIII. This contribution focuses on the analysis of Kāẓim Ǧihād’s Arabic translation of verses 22-63 of Inferno's Canto XXVIII, in which Dante meets Muḥammad and his cousin ‘Alī. This analysis was carried out with the following questions in mind: to what extent does Ǧihād’s translation reflect and respect Dante’s original text in terms of form and content? What does Ǧihād’s Muḥammad “lose” and what does it “gain” compared to Dante’s Muḥammad? And why? To answer these questions, I first contextualised the translation of Ǧihād within the eventful history of Arabic translations of the "Divine Comedy", with particular reference to Canto XXVIII of the Inferno. I then compared Ǧihād’s translation with Dante’s original, also taking into account previous Arabic versions, dwelling in particular on the author’s lexical and formal choices.