Il Muḥammad di Kāẓim Ǧihād vs il Maometto di Dante nella versione araba del Canto XXVIII dell’Inferno

This contribution focuses on the analysis of Kāẓim Ǧihād’s Arabic translation of verses 22-63 from Inforno’s Canto XXVIII, where Dante encounters Muḥammad and his cousin ‘Alī. The analysis is guided by the following questions: 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 Mahomet? And why? To answer these questions, I first contextualized Ǧihād’s translation 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 text, also considering previous Arabic versions, with particular attention to the author’s lexical and formal choices.