Abstract:

The article reveals research on culture, religious philosophy and the history of languages, which occupy an important place in the creative heritage of the outstanding Turkish thinker Hilmi Ziya Ulken (1901-1974). In this sense, his work widely explores the issues of the Crusades in Western Europe from 1095 to 1291 at the initiative of the Catholic Church, which lasted almost 200 years. The poem of the great Italian poet Alighieri Dante (1265-1321) “Divina Commedia” occupies a special place in the history of world literature. Written by him in about 1307-1321, this work consisted of three parts: Hell (Inferno), Purgatory-Araf (Purgatorio) and Paradise (Paradiso). Here he reflects his attitude towards Islam. As Hilmi Ziya Ulken notes, Dante expressed a negative attitude to the Prophet Muammad, as well as to the last caliph Rashid Ali in the Twenty-eighth Song of the part “Hell” of “Divina Commedia”. The Prophet and Caliph Ali are represented here as sinners. Hilmi Ziya Ulken investigated the spread of the scientific and cultural heritage of the East to the West, and showed the influence of the philosophical teachings of the Muslim East on Western countries. Therefore, Hilmi Ziya Ulken stated that Dante wrote a poem, using the legacy created in the Islamic world, as well as relying on the works of Ibn Arabi. Nevertheless, the thinker spoke of Dante’s negative attitude towards Islam and non-Christian scholars.