The aim of this article is to demonstrate how external and internal evidence within this previously unknown early modern Latin narrative of the miʿrāǧ lead to assume that Baldassarre Loyola Mandes S.J. (1631-1667) - who was able to read and write in Arabic, Latin and Italian - made use of an Arabic source for writing his version of the legend. What we are going to propose and imply in the following pages is a close relation between Baldassarre’s version and the four long accounts of the miʿrāǧ included in al-Buḫārī’s collection (mainly by Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, ¹ Anas ibn Mālik, ² Abū Ḏarr, ³ and a different version of the ḥadīṯ report passed on by Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa ⁴ ) or to what Roberto Tottoli calls ḥadīṯ-oriented literature, ⁵ rather than to the previous Latin versions which already widely circulated in the West. Furthermore, we will show the way Baldassarre dealt with this Islamic tradition, not only polemizing with it, but also giving a Christian-oriented reading of the story of the ascension of Muḥammad.

Islamic religious literature developed an incredibly extensive tradition of legends regarding the night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, the heavenly ascension of Muḥammad and the subsequent vision of the hereafter. Starting out from only a few Qurʾānic verses mainly contained in two suras and other obscure verses, ⁶ over the centuries Muslim religious culture went on to produce many theological, mystical, poetical and popular works which appeared within the borders of Islamic lands, as well as in European Latin and Vernacular literature. The first and most important Qurʾānic passage regarding the night journey and the ascension of the Prophet is Q. 17:1: ⁷

Contained in Q. 53:1-18 are further more obscure references, which seem to outline a vision of Paradise: ⁸

Both the above suras ⁹ are the main Qurʾānic sources from which the Islamic exegetical tradition on isrāʾ/miʿrāǧ has been developed. According to Colby, the technical Arabic word that meant “night journey” (isrāʾ) also became synonymous for the heavenly ascension. ¹⁰ Discerning whether the night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and the heavenly journey are actually the same event or two different events is not easy in early Islamic sources. Sometimes, the journey from Mecca to Jerusalem is called “night journey” (isrāʾ), while the heavenly one is called “ascension” miʿrāǧ. In other cases, such as in Ibn Ḥišām’s (d. 833) version of the Sīra originally written by Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767), the use of both words became similar, if not identical. ¹¹ Furthermore, as Tottoli states, the early development of miʿrāǧ literature is far from being clear, especially as regards the question of how and when Muslim scholars combined the eschatological themes (tour to Paradise and Hell) with the heavenly ascension of Muḥammad. In fact, in early Muslim literature, these two topics were not linked or connected, but they slowly became a sole legend. ¹²

The version attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās ¹³ - who was a relative of Muḥammad - was widely circulated and recognized starting from the second half of the eighth century or the first half of the ninth century. Cited by Ṭabarī (d. 923) in his Tafsīr - who thus demonstrates that the oral narrative was already in circulation - the first full written evidence of Ibn ʿAbbās’ version pertains to Ibn Ḥibbān Bustī’s (d. 965) critical report - in which he disapproved of the isnād and warned Muslims of its unauthenticity - in his lost work quoted by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505) in the Mamluk era. ¹⁴ Colby has stated that miʿrāǧ literature begun to spread and circulate widely in Eastern lands from the eleventh century onwards and then in the West over the course of the following two centuries. This extensive propagation of the legend was linked to the mysterious name of Abū al-Ḥasān Bakrī (ninth century?), who was either a person or perhaps a group of people. ¹⁵ According to Colby, Ibn ʿAbbās’ narrative circulated extensively due to the texts which were diffused - both written and orally - under the name of Bakrī from the thirteenth century onwards. ¹⁶ Five surviving manuscripts are attributed to Bakrī and the oldest of them is kept in Istanbul (last quarter of the thirteenth century). ¹⁷ This last manuscript is called Ḥadīṯ al-Miʿrāǧ ‘ala al-tamām wa-l-kamāl. ¹⁸ Evidences of Bakrī’s version can be also traced back to Ibn Sīnā’s Miʿrāǧ nāme, written between 1022-1037, ¹⁹ as well as to an incomplete Western Andalusian or North African codex (twelfth century), already referred to by Miguel Asín Palacios as Madrid MS. Gayangos 241. ²⁰ Although Colby agrees with Asín Palacios dating of the North African fragment of Bakrī, he believes that this version - despite its incompleteness - appears to share several features in common with the Liber Scalae Machometi . ²¹ However, scholars disagree regarding the date of Ibn ʿAbbās’ version: according to Guillaume, on the one hand, Ibn ʿAbbās’ report must have appeared after the tenth century, while, on the other, according to Bencheikh it is an apocryphal work which survived in many versions. ²²

Two further kinds of documents should be mentioned together with Ibn ʿAbbās’ narrative. On the one hand, Ibn Isḥāq’s (d. 767) above-mentioned account of isrāʾ and miʿrāǧ recounted in his Sīra, which survived in the versions written by Ibn Ḥišām - which recounts both the night journey and the heavenly ascension - ²³ and in some recently discovered fragments of an older recension written by Yūnus ibn Bukayr (d. 814), ²⁴ which only deals with the journey of the Prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem. Within this older version, even the negotiation between Muḥammad and God regarding the number of daily ritual prayers occurs in Jerusalem and not in the heavens. ²⁵ On the other hand, the ḥadīṯ literature accounts reported in the collections of the traditionists al-Buḫārī (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875) ²⁶ were another means of spreading the legend in the Islamic lands.

The story of the ascension of the Prophet was a well-known legend in Western literature ²⁷ ever since it first appeared at the Castilian court in Spain in the thirteenth century. ²⁸ As Christians believed this work to be an Islamic holy book, it was translated into a Castilian version (which has not survived) by the Jewish doctor Abraham Alfaquim. Then in 1264 it was translated from the Castilian into both Latin ( Liber Scalae Machometi ) and old French (Livre de l’Eschiele Mahomet), by Bonaventura da Siena, who was a notary and scribe who worked at the court of Alfonso X of Castile “the Wise”. ²⁹ This old French translation appears to be the oldest testimony of the story in a Western language. ³⁰ As is written at the very end of the book, Liber Scalae Machometi mentions Ibn ʿAbbās as a source of the report. ³¹ Due to it being regarded as an Islamic holy book, Liber Scalae Machometi was incorporated into the still surviving texts of Collectio Toletana (Vatican and Paris codex ³² ) produced by Peter the Venerable and his team of translators and polemists in the twelfth century. ³³ Furthermore, a summary of the Liber Scalae Machometti can be found in a Castilian polemic treatise attributed to Saint Pedro Pascual (d. 1300) with the title of Sobre la seta mahométana, ³⁴ while a further account of a description of Paradise related to the Liber Scalae, including a quotation of the title of the book (nel libro suo che Scala ha nome), is reported by Fazio degli Uberti in his Dittamondo (1350-1360). ³⁵

The legend of the ascension of the Prophet also entered into Western literature through different sources other than Ibn ʿAbbās’ report. The Historia Arabum by Ximénez de Rada ³⁶ (1170-1247, Archbishop of Toledo) and Crónica General (which was started to be written under Alfonso the Wise and completed in 1289) ³⁷ both rely on a version of the legend closer to the ḥadīṯ’s narratives. Furthermore, a thirteenth century codex of Uncastillo contains a short account of the ascension at the end of an anti-hagiographic biography of Muḥammad (Vita Mahometi). ³⁸

References to the miʿrāǧ can be found in the Contra legem Sarracenorum, a well-known work written by the Dominican missionary Riccoldo da Montecroce, ³⁹ whose source regarding the ascension of the Prophet is contained in the Liber Denudationis . ⁴⁰ According to Elsheikh, evidence included in such writings as the codex of Uncastillo, Historia Arabum , Crónica General, Contra legem Sarracenorum and a Pisan legend ⁴¹ - to which we add the brief summary of the ascension in Alfonso Bonihominis’ Disputatio Abutalib (fourteenth century) ⁴² - demonstrate that the miʿrāǧ was not only introduced into Western literature via Ibn ʿAbbās’ version - to which the Liber Scalae Machometi seems to be related - but also by means of other sources, such as Anas ibn Mālik’s report which was mainly propagated by ḥadīṯ literature starting from the Middle Age. ⁴³ Further citations of the miʿrāǧ can also be found in some fifteenth century authors, like Pope Pius II, Alonso de Espina, Juan de Torquemada, Roberto da Lecce, ⁴⁴ and Roberto Caracciolo, who fashioned a summary - perhaps based on the Latin version of the Liber Scalae - contained in his Specchio della fede. ⁴⁵

The legend of the miʿrāǧ continued to spread throughout Europe in the early modern age. An essential work that deals with the miʿrāǧ, and which we will return to later, was the Confusión o confutación de la secta mahomética y del Alcorán (1515) written by the former Muslim jurist converted to Christianity Juan Andrés and then translated into Italian by Domingo de Gaztelu in Seville in 1537. ⁴⁶ The book was rediscovered by Tirso González de Santalla S.J. in a library in Granada more than a century later, ⁴⁷ and inspired his Manuductio ad conversionem Mahumetanorum (Madrid 1687), which dedicated a section to the story of the conversion of Baldassarre Loyola Mandes S.J. and contained a Latin version of the miʿrāǧ taken from Juan Andres. ⁴⁸ Ten years after the Italian translation undertaken by Domingo de Gaztelu, the Italian version of the miʿrāǧ within the Confusión was then revised by Giovanni Battista Castrodardo in L’Alcorano di Macometto, nel qual si contiene la dottrina, la vita, i costumi e le leggi sue, edited by Andrea Arrivabene in Venice (1547) ⁴⁹ and partially based on Theodeor Bibliander’s printed edition of the Colletio Toletana (Machumetis Saracenorum principis Eiusque Successorum Vitae, doctrina ac ipse Alcoran, 1543 and 1550). Bibliander’s printed edition contributed to spreading the ascension of Muḥammad in Europe: in fact, it contained Riccoldo’s version of the miʿrāǧ following a previous Greek translation of the Contra legem which was carried out by Demetrio Cidonio and then translated into Latin by Bartolomeo Piceno da Montearduo ⁵⁰ (the Contra legem was also translated into German by Marthin Luther in 1542).

Finally, Vigliano has recently given an account of another seventeenth century representation of the miʿrāǧ written by the French Christian Cabbalist Blaise de Vigenère in his work called Vision, ou plustost pipperie controuvée par Mahomet, et ses sectateurs d’un voyage qu’en dormant il fit en Ierusalem, et de là au ciel monté dessus l’Alborach (1612). According to Vigliano, Juan Andrés’ Confusión, Antoine Geuffroy’s Briefve description de la cour du Grant Turc (1546) and its Latin translation (1573) can all be identified as Vigenère’s sources. ⁵¹

Muley Muḥammad al-Tāzī - the original Arabic name of Baldassarre Loyola Mandes S.J. (1631-1667) ⁵² - was a Moroccan Muslim prince, the son of the ruler of Fez ‘Abd al-Wāḥid. He was born in an age of political disorder and therefore tracing his royal lineage is not an easy task. ⁵³ In fact, there is disagreement among scholars regarding his regal origin. On the one hand, according to de Castries, Baldassarre belonged to a family related to the Zāwiya of Dilā’, a Sufi brotherhood which increased its political power after the death of Aḥmad al-Mansūr and the subsequent instability. ⁵⁴ On the other, Goldáraz stated that the reports regarding Baldassarre regal lineage were most likely true and, more recently, Colombo has suggested that Baldassarre belonged to the Sa‘di dynasty, and was probably the great-grandson of Aḥmad al-Mansūr. ⁵⁵ In disagreement with the preceding statements, Matar stated that Baldassarre had no regal origin. ⁵⁶

Returning to Baldassarre’s life, he was captured by the Knights of Saint John in 1651 while he was travelling on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Imprisoned in Malta, he became a well-known preacher among the Muslim slaves, as well as a copyist and writer of Islamic books. Despite this intense activity as an anti-Christian preacher, Baldassarre was afflicted by visions and dreams that caused him torment and doubts regarding his faith. In particular, he had an unusual vision of a personification of the Holy Baptism in the middle of the sea, which finally led him to convert to Christianity right after his ransom was paid after five years of imprisonment. ⁵⁷ He became a Christian in 1656, joined the Society of Jesus as a novitiate at Sant’Andrea al Quirinale in 1661, then became a priest in 1663 and finally spent the last few years of his life (1664-1667) trying to convert Muslims in Italian port cities like Naples and Genoa. ⁵⁸ He died in Madrid on September 15 1667, shortly before travelling to India on a mission. After his death, Baldassarre became renowned, with his story featuring in several Jesuit literary writings, and in 1669, the dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca wrote a sacred drama about his story called El Gran Principe de Fez. ⁵⁹ The story of Baldassarre had been long forgotten since the eighteenth century, up until the twentieth century when Louis Lebessou, Wlodimir Ledóchowski, and Louis Pouzet all mentioned it in their works. ⁶⁰ However, until Colombo’s latest studies, Goldáraz’s work has been the only one to take the sources held at the Archive of Pontifical Gregorian University (APUG) into account.

The Latin version of the miʿrāǧ Baldassarre wrote is found in a booklet (APUG, Ms. 1060-04) kept in the Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University. ⁶¹ Specifically, the Latin miʿrāǧ is located in the first part of the booklet (pp. 1-44), which consists of a discourse against Islam called Oratio contra Mahomettem et eius sectatores. The discourse begins with a brief introduction (pp. 1-2), after which Baldassarre sets out the tripartite scheme of his work (p. 3): 1) Falsitas Mahomettanae legis (pp. 3-19); 2) in tenebris vita sequacium illius (pp. 19-36); 3) Lex Christi sola unicam medium ad salutem (pp. 36-44). The miʿrāǧ covers six pages (those between pages 8 and 13) in the first part of the oration, namely the section regarding the falsehood of Muḥammad’s law. As can be read at the very beginning of the discourse, it was written by Baldassarre in 1665. The Latin text of the miʿrāǧ is the following:

The text can be divided into the following core themes:

The story of the ascension is interspersed with several of Baldassarre’s polemical comments.

An initial and crucial clue regarding the sources of this version of the miʿrāǧ is provided by Baldassarre himself in a letter he sent from Genoa to his spiritual director Domenico Brunacci S.J. in Rome dated June 26th, 1664 (hence before the oration was written). The text of the letter that most interests us here is the following:

After two quick reminders Baldassarre sent to Brunacci on August 28th, ⁶⁴ and September 21st, ⁶⁵ Baldassarre finally got the Arabic book on October 12th, 1664: Rendo gratie infinite à Vostra Reverenza della licenza, che procurò per me di leggere quel libro arabico, e l’Alcorano. ⁶⁶

In the first astonishing source quoted, Baldassarre is asking Brunacci to approve the reading of an Arabic book called Hadit almehrag ⁶⁷ that according to modern transliteration is Ḥadīṯ al-miʿrāǧ. Moreover, the second sentence of this request provides additional information regarding the nature of the book: on the one hand, Baldassarre reports that the author of the book is anonymous (E l’autore di esso libro non stà ivi scritto il suo nome). On the other, when he asserts that the sources of the unknown author can be traced back to Muḥammad as the first relater of the story (ma andava descrivendo tal storia per discendentia, che uno ha sentito tal cosa dall’altro sino all’ultimo il quale dice che l’habbia sentita raccontar dal medesimo Mahometto), he makes an implicit reference to the isnād, the chain of transmitters from the Prophet which validates the probity of each ḥadīṯ. Furthermore, the reference to isnād (discendentia) is conclusive proof that the book Baldassarre was asking for is an Arabic one: Liber Scalae Machometti (with the exception of the reference to Ibn ʿAbbās at the very end of the text) and other Western miʿrāǧ literature make no reference to the chain of the transmitters, even when they are related to Anas ibn Mālik’s report and ḥadīṯ literature ( Historia Arabum , Crónica General, Contra legem Sarracenorum, etc.). In addition, in the letter dated September, he is also informing Brunacci that it is of great importance for him to obtain this Arabic book.

As regards the internal evidence, Baldassarre’s narrative begins with an angel (civis angelicus, later introduced as Gabriel) who is descending from heaven riding a mule and followed by a donkey, with the aim of making Muḥammad able to shoot lightning. According to al-Buḫārī’s reports, the creature outlined is indubitably al-Burāq - smaller than a mule and bigger than a donkey - which Baldassarre represents as two different animals: a mule, which Muḥammad is riding, and a donkey, which is following them. Then, Baldassarre describes the purification of Muḥammad’s heart. ⁶⁸ It differs from ibn Ḥišām’s recension of ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra and ibn ʿAbbās who do not report this event, ⁶⁹ as Baldassarre relates the purification of Muḥammad’s heart as taking place just before the ascent to the first heaven, while the prophet was dozing. This scene can be found in all four al-Buḫārī’s long accounts, even though here Baldassarre’s version seems closer to those of Abū Ḏarr and Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa who do not refer - unlike Anas ibn Mālik and Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, Version 2 - to the night journey. However, the manner in which Baldassarre outlines how the angel purified Muḥammad’s heart is slightly different from the ḥadīṯ’s reports: while in al-Buḫārī’s version, Gabriel brought Muḥammad a golden tray full of wisdom (ḥikma) and faith (imān) and then cut his body to purify his heart, Baldassarre does not make any reference to the body-cutting scene, but refers only to a golden tray full of God’s grace by means of which the angel purified his heart (ille Angelus habens prae manibus poculum aureum Dei gratia plenum, statim cor Mahomettis accepit, et, purgavit).

The reason why a Western text could not have been a source becomes clear when we compare some of the events and sentences of Baldassarre’s version with other Western versions of the miʿrāǧ. The first event is the question Gabriel and Muḥammad are asked upon reaching the first heaven. After they reply to the questions at the gate to the first heaven, they are admitted through the gate of Paradise in the versions of the story according to Liber Scalae Machometi , Juan Andrés’ Confusión, and Baldassarre. According to both the Confusión and Baldassarre, but not to Liber Scalae Machometi , Gabriel and Muḥammad also meet Adam just after the admission into the first heaven, as shown in Table n.1:

The events narrated in the table immediately reveal the following differences: those who ask Gabriel and Muḥammad to disclose their identity are respectively: an angel (angelus, according to Liber Scalae), a gate-keeper (el portero, according to Juan Andrés) and the heavenly citizens (habitatores caelestes, according to Baldassarre). ⁷³ The sentence habitatores caelestes can be easily identified as a translation from the Arabic ahl al-samāʾ (the people of the heaven who ask Muḥammad and Gabriel to disclose their identity) which can be found in Anas ibn Mālik’s account. Then, after the greetings, in both Juan Andrés and Baldassarre’s accounts, Adam appears on the scene as the prophet of the first heaven, while after entering the first heaven, Liber Scalae Machometi presents additional angels, creatures and eschatological symbols before the moment when Gabriel and Muḥammad meet John the Baptist and Jesus. ⁷⁴

The sequence of the prophets whom Gabriel and Muḥammad met in their way through the seven heavens lead us to further evidence. ⁷⁵ In Table n.2 Baldassarre’s order has been compared with the prophets’ order included in a wider range of versions:

According to Table n.2, a clear substantiation of the relationship of Baldassarre’s narrative with the ḥadīṯ is the order in which Gabriel and Muhammad met the Prophets, the same found in Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa’s report and the Sīra - the “standard order”, according to Colby ⁸⁶ - while in Liber Scalae Machometi Adam is the last prophet and John the Baptist is mentioned before Jesus, even though in this text they are in the first heaven. There follows a second negative indication: Baldassarre does not make any references to Hell’s punishment, just as the early ḥadīṯ accounts did not: for example, al-Buḫārī’s accounts of the miʿrāǧ attributed to Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa and Anas ibn Mālik. ⁸⁷ Finally, as a third confirmation we have to look at the content: in some passages Baldassarre appears to translate the ḥadiṯ attributed to Anas ibn Mālik quite literally from Arabic into Latin. Let us consider the passages when Gabriel and Muḥammad are going to enter the first and then proceed to the second heaven:

Thanks to this comparison, we can clearly see how some passages of the Latin version undertaken by Baldassarre seem to be a translation of a text related to the ḥadīṯ attributed to Anas ibn Mālik. Passages and sentences, such as the questions put to Gabriel, the already mentioned ahl al-samāʾ/habitatores caelestes, Adam as the father, the titles that Adam, Jesus and John gave to Muḥammad (the former called him son while the others refer to him as brother and prophet and Baldassarre simply adds the adjective Sancte to the second title) are practically the same in both Anas ibn Mālik and Baldassarre. At the same time, Baldassarre seems to carry out a de-islamization of the narrative. He only refers to Muḥammad as a prophet once, omitting the question the heavenly citizens ask Gabriel about Muḥammad: “Has he been called?” (buʿṯa waqad). ⁸⁹

After the meeting with the prophets, Muḥammad arrived near the rivers of Paradise. The Qurʾānic description of Paradise portrayed as a place crossed by four rivers made of honey, milk, wine, and water (melle, lacte, vino, et aqua) ⁹⁰ is a setting that can also be found in al-Buḫārī’s reports. On the one hand, Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa and Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, Version 2 simply state that the four rivers have their sources in Sidrat al-Muntahà (the Lotus tree in Paradise): two of them are hidden and located in Paradise, while the other two are visible and are the Nile and Euphrates. ⁹¹ On the other, Anas ibn Mālik refers to three rivers situated between the first and the second heavens; the third of these is called al-Kawṯar (Abundance). ⁹²

Once he arrived near the rivers of Paradise, according to Baldassarre’s narrative, Muḥammad chose the river of milk as a symbol of himself and of the pure faith of his followers; this passage could be either an echo or a misunderstanding of what Colby calls the “cup test”. According to Colby:

The “cup test” is outlined in many miʿrāǧ narratives, like Liber Scalae Machometi , Historia Arabum , Crónica General, Bakrī’s Ḥadīṯ al-miʿrāǧ, Ibn Isḥāq’s account as it is reported in Ibn Bukayr’s fragment, ⁹⁴ Ibn Hišām version of Ibn Isḥāq and others, albeit in different ways: according to the Liber Scalae Machometi , Muḥammad took this “cup test” near the very end of his journey through Paradise. There are four cups, and he chooses to drink from three of them (milk, honey, and water), but not from the one containing wine. Bakrī’s version, both versions of the Sīra - Ibn Hišām refers to three vessels containing milk, wine and water ⁹⁵ - Historia Arabum , Crónica General, and further narratives state that the event takes place in Jerusalem and Muḥammad only drinks from the cup of milk. ⁹⁶ Despite the similarity between Bakrī, the Sīra, the two Medieval Iberian versions, and Baldassarre, the significance of the choice is quite different. Bakrī professes that in making his choice Muḥammad was guided by a voice, and that the cup of milk is related to punishment in Hell. In fact, according to Bakrī, Muḥammad did not drink all the milk, and thus a part of his community will be destined to Hell. On the contrary, according to Ibn Hišām’s account of the Sīra, Historia Arabum , and Crónica General the cup of milk is a sign of the right path Muḥammad and his followers will keep. This last interpretation is also followed by Baldassarre himself, according to whom, Muḥammad intentionally chooses the river of milk as a symbol of the purity of his community.

Baldassarre’s “river test” sounds similar to Malik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, Version 2, ⁹⁷ which is Buḫārī’s only long report narrating the “cup test”: like in the Oratio, according to Malik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, Version 2, Muḥammad chooses the milk (the cup) making his choice without any sign or external voice to lead him or help him decide, near the end of the journey. This choice represents the nature (fiṭra) of the community (umma) he is going to establish: fa-qāla hiya l-fiṭra anta ʿalayhā ummatuka. The outcome of this choice appears to be similar to that in Baldassarre’s narrative, where Muḥammad establishes his law, right after having chosen the river of milk. However, despite some shared aspects with other narratives, to our knowledge, the origin of the change from cups to rivers - from a “cup test” to a “river test” - is unknown, but despite this is most interesting.

Finally, having established his law, Baldassarre ends his account of the miʿrāǧ with Muḥammad’s negotiation regarding the number of daily ritual prayers which - thanks to Moses advice - decrease from fifty to five, in a similar way as how they do in both al-Buḫārī’s long accounts and Ibn Hišām’s recension of the Sīra.

Despite the strange transformation of the “cup test” into a “river test”, we are definitely convinced that all of these verifications and common elements lead us to state that, on the one hand, Baldassarre used an Arabic text as a source for his Latin version of the miʿrāǧ and, on the other, that the text he used was closely related to the reports attributed to Anas ibn Mālik and Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa or to ḥadīṯ-oriented literature, which is nonetheless closely related to what Colby calls the extended narrative of the miʿrāǧ in al-Buḫārī and Muslim’s ḥadīṯ collections. In fact, despite a brief mention of the night journey in Anas ibn Mālik’s report, both him and Mālik ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa focused their extended accounts more on the ascension of Muḥammad through the heavens rather than on the part related to the journey from Mecca to Jerusalem; ⁹⁸ the contents they have developed can then be found - as we have already shown - in Baldassarre’s narrative use of similar words and order. ⁹⁹

Furthermore, al-Buḫārī’s collection of ḥadīṯ was already circulating around Europe, the Mediterranean area and among Catholic circles in the seventeenth century as evidenced by the use Ludovico Marracci made of it in his work of translation and refutation of the Qurʾān, started circa 1650. ¹⁰⁰

Baldassarre has obviously added several polemical sentences amid his narrative of the miʿrāǧ. These sentences are mainly directed at Muḥammad and the falsehood of his doctrine. These claims are nothing more than classic Medieval charges against Islam. What is more interesting to note is that these claims are not very plentiful nor particularly vehement (we are obviously referring to the account of the miʿrāǧ, and not to the whole Oratio). Why did Baldassarre choose to narrate the ascension only making use of a few sarcastic comments? Undeniably, he could have been more critical or aggressive. On the one hand, perhaps, he believed that due to its excessively extraordinary, absurd, and implausible elements this legend did not require many further negative comments. Beyond Baldassarre’s polemical purpose, we are inclined to see an additional approach in his own way of dealing with Islam, which appears to mirror the Jesuits ambivalent attitude towards Muslims.

According to Colombo, on the one hand the Jesuits demonstrated familiarity with the classic Christian polemic arguments against Islam, and they often dealt with Islam with the “rhetoric of war” understood as a “defensive war” from the aggressive Islamic attitude. At the same time, they used to say to fight Islam “with pen and ink” ¹⁰¹ demonstrating “the falsity of the Qurʾān using the Qurʾān itself”. ¹⁰² Absurd and ridiculous stories - like the miʿrāǧ Baldassarre has narrated in his Oratio - are proof of the falsehood of Islam. ¹⁰³ On the other hand, they had a true interest regarding the Islamic religiosity; in fact, the Jesuits were a part of a pioneering early modern European movement involved in studying Oriental languages and Islam starting from the sixteenth century. ¹⁰⁴ This dual attitude can be found in both Baldassarre’s spiritual director Domenico Brunacci S.J. and in Baldassarre himself: he often directed harsh words against Islam (especially in his Oratio) and perpetrated disrespectful acts against the Qurʾān, but, at the same time, he does seem to have true compassion and concern for the fate of Muslim’s souls. ¹⁰⁵

The same dual attitude could also be found in his account of the miʿrāǧ in which - besides not actually including many sarcastic comments - he also develops a more or less conscious Christianization of the legend. This attitude corresponds with his own style in his deliberations with the Muslim jurist slave in Livorno Muḥammad Bulġayṯ al-Darawī, which consists in a discovery of the Christian truths within the Qurʾān. Likewise, this theological strategy was not discovered by Baldassarre himself, but it had a long tradition that can be traced all the way back to the long-forgotten Dominican William of Tripoli (1220-unknown but definitely after 1273) ¹⁰⁶ and then to the well-known De Pace Fidei (1453) by Nicholas of Cusa. This strategy was then also widely employed by the Jesuit General Tirso González de Santalla S. J. (1624-1705) in his Manuductio ad conversionem Mahumetanorum; ¹⁰⁷ according to Colombo, the second question of the handbook written by Tirso González was focused on finding the truth of Christian doctrines in the Qurʾān, while the first dealt with the errors and the falsehood of Muslim doctrines and the third with the truth of Christian faith shown through its miracles, beauty and greatness. ¹⁰⁸ More than twenty years before Tirso González, Baldassarre was already seeking out Christian elements in Islamic doctrines by demonstrating how the Qurʾān contained the Christian dogma (in the letter he sent to Muḥammad Bulġayṯ al-Darawī, he used the strategy of the inventio, that means addressing to the Qurʾān some Christian doctrines which were actually not present within it) and by giving a Christian-oriented reading of the miʿrāǧ. ¹⁰⁹

Furthermore, one should not forget that as a Jesuit, Baldassarre shared the Ignatian spirituality: this means that one of his main goals was to lead Muslims to the divine light of Jesus Christ, and thus saving them from darkness. In the entirety of the Oratio, Baldassarre seems to be moved by true mercy and compassion (he said he cried a lot for them), which was probably due to both his former status as an “infidel” - even though he was strongly judgmental of Muḥammad and his doctrines - and his Ignatian spirituality, which he tried to apply for enlightening the souls of the Muslims. In fact, bringing the light of Christianity “even among Turks” was one of Ignatius’ primary dreams, as the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus state. ¹¹⁰ At the same time, Baldassarre is employing Jesuit rhetoric, which, according to O’Malley is “the orator’s ability to be in touch with the feelings and needs of his audience and to adapt himself and his speech accordingly”. ¹¹¹

Having said this, an initial clue that reveals the way Baldassarre has “translated” some Islamic themes in a Christian-oriented way can be found in the sentence regarding the purification of Muḥammad’s heart. On the one hand, Baldassarre’s report makes no mention of the body-cutting incident, while, on the other, the angel purified the heart of Muḥammad with a golden tray full of God’s grace (Dei gratia plenum), rather than a golden tray full of wisdom (ḥikma) and faith (imān). The sentence Baldassarre chose for his translation sounds like the Annunciation of the angel to Mary (Ave gratia plena) in Luke 1:28. ¹¹²

In order to ascertain how Baldassarre has included some Christian themes in his report of the miʿrāǧ, we have to draw a comparison between the sequence and the appellations he gave to the prophets, with the one completed by the other converted Muslim Juan Andrés, who has been discussed above, and who also carried out a Christianization of the order. As one can easily observe in Table n.2, Juan Andrés chronologically Christianized the encounters Muḥammad had with the Biblical characters in the heavens: he encountered them starting from the first who was Adam, to the last who was Jesus Christ, no longer referred to as the son of Mary in following with how Islamic tradition used to refer to him from the Qurʾān onwards. Baldassare did not classify the encounters chronologically, but he did more than Juan Andrés to Christianize the legend.

Baldasarre calls Adam father like the Liber Scalae Machometi , Ibn Hisham’s version of the Sira and Anas ibn Malik’s report. Then, regarding Jesus and John - often known as Jesus son of Mary and John son of Zechariah as we can observe in several accounts - Baldassarre carries out a Christianization of the narrative.

As regards Jesus, he gives him the appellation of Christ. ¹¹³ The intellectual process which led Baldassarre to call Jesus Christ in this fragment, is far from being clear. In the Qurʾān Jesus is often called “son of Mary”, which could be - according to several scholars - a polemical title. ¹¹⁴ Along with this and other titles, ¹¹⁵ the Qurʾān attributes the name of al-Masīḥ to Jesus several times in Medinan suras, but without stressing the Davidic genealogy in his Messianic role. Despite this vague link between Jesus the Messiah and the Davidic genealogy, the Qurʾān claims that Jesus was sent as a Messenger for the Israelites (Q. 3:49).

Now, since the Arabic word Masīḥ comes from the Hebrew Māshīaḥ and the Greek Christos is its translation, ¹¹⁶ a question must be asked: was Baldassarre aware that the Latin Christus could have been a translation for al-Masīḥ or did he use that title to give a Christian reading of Jesus? We are inclined to believe that Baldassarre’s main concern - without questioning his linguistic skills, since he had masterly knowledge of Arabic, Latin and Italian - was theological, and thus the way he used the word Christus was mainly focused on his more or less conscious attempt to Christianize the Islamic legend.

Furthermore, according to a Christian viewpoint, connecting Jesus the Christ to Adam the father could be read as a direct reference to both the genealogies of Jesus stated in Luke 3:23-38 and Matthew 1:1-17: to Luke, on the one hand, due to the connection between Adam and Jesus (Jesus as a son of Adam), to Matthew, on the other hand, due to the title of Christ this Gospel gives to Jesus in its very beginning. ¹¹⁷

As a consequence of this theological concern, Baldassarre refers to John as the Baptist. ¹¹⁸ The title of Baptist that Baldassarre gives to John is a clear act of de-Islamization of the legend, due to the fact that, despite later Islamic tradition reports that John baptized Jesus, John as the Baptist was unknown to the Qurʾān. ¹¹⁹ Called noble (sayd), caste (ḥaṣūr), and prophet (nabī), the Qurʾān also states that John confirms a word coming from God (anna Allah yubašširuka bi-yaḥya muṣaddiqan bi-kalima min Allāh, Q. 3:39) that means Jesus. However, despite this verse, the Qurʾān principally regards John as a prophet and a sign from God, just as Jesus will be later. Whereas now, in giving him the appellation of Baptist, Baldassarre elevates John to being a central character in his account, and thus developing a close connection - in accordance with Christian doctrine - between the father Adam, Jesus Christ and John the Baptist.

Furthermore, the title of castus that Baldassare gives to Joseph merits attention as well. As is well known, Q. 12 contains the longest story devoted to a single prophet in the Qurʾān, highlighted as the best of the stories (aḥsan al-qaṣaṣ, Q. 12:3). In both the Biblical (Genesis 39:1-20) and Qurʾānic tradition, the wife of the Egyptian officer Potiphar (not called by his name in the Qurʾān) who bought him, tried unsuccessfully to seduce him. Known for his beauty, according to the Qurʾān and Rabbinic literature, Joseph would have given into temptation, if he had not witnessed a sign from God (Q. 12:24), while, according to Genesis he withstood the woman’s passion without any sign. ¹²⁰ However, despite the accordance between Genesis and Qurʾān, the Islamic holy book does not mention the adjective ḥaṣūr (caste) that it has already applied, already applied to John. This means that here Baldassarre adds a well-known title that the entire Christian tradition has attributed to the Patriarch Joseph.

Unknown to Christian tradition, and usually placed in the fourth heaven (following the “standard order”), Idrīs appears to be translated as Elias in the set of characters Muḥammad and Gabriel met during their ascension, in the same way as the Liber Scalae Machometi previously had but together with Enoch, who in the Islamic interpretation is identified with Idrīs (Q. 19:56-57), or sometimes with Elias as well. However, Elias was also recognized in the Islamic tradition: he appears as Iliyās in Q. 6:85 and Q. 37:123-132. Tradition also identifies Elias as the wise man who leads Moses in Q. 18. ¹²¹

Once Muḥammad arrived in Paradise, we can observe a further example of how Baldassarre interpolates the Islamic legend with biblical themes. Depicting the landscape in Paradise as made up of the Qurʾānic rivers of honey, milk, wine, and water, Baldassarre adds the following sentence: intravit in quandam terram fluentem lacte, et melle. This sentence is taken almost literally from Exodus 33:3 (et intres in terram fluentem lacte et melle) when God reminded Moses and the People of Israel of the Promised Land he announced to Moses during the episode of the Burning Bush with similar sentences in Exodus 3:8 and 17 (in terram quae fluit lacte et melle, and ad terram fluentem lacte et melle). Therefore, it can be said that the landscape of Paradise portrayed by Baldassarre is both Biblical and Quʾrānic: according to the Exodus, it is a land where milk and honey flow and as indicated by the Qurʾān, a land in which rivers of honey, milk, wine, and water flow. Briefly, it is an Islamo-Christian Paradise.

As a final remark, we should remember that as a Christian, Baldassarre had two further examples of ascensions in mind. On the one hand, the ascension of Jesus as it is narrated and referred to in several books of the New Testament (Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:3-11), on the other, Paul’s journey to the third heaven (raptus Pauli) described in 2Corinthians 12:2-4 ¹²² and mentioned by several Christian authors such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, some of whose sentences Baldassarre quotes in his response to Muḥammad Bulġayṯ al-Darawī. This indicates that Baldassarre had several references for the mystical experience of the vision of heaven, both from his former religion and then after his conversion, from Christianity.

Baldassarre’s report of the miʿrāǧ is a remarkable source for several reasons. Firstly, owing to the reason that he was a Muslim now converted to Christianity who was recounting a well-known Islamic tradition as a means to bring about religious controversy. The second reason was due to his ambiguous standpoint between polemic, cultural and religious appropriation. It is true that Juan Andrés was in the same position as Baldassarre, however the manner in which he incorporated that Islamic story into his new religious identity was slightly naive. On the contrary, the way Baldassarre interpolated the miʿrāǧ seems to be more complex, not least in its interpretation. We never know exactly to what extent Baldassarre’s attempt at Christianizing the miʿrāǧ was more or less consciously motivated. However, following Wolfgang Reinhard’s suggestions we can assert that Baldassarre definitely proves to have an active identity; he did not passively suffer his new religious identity, but he developed it creatively by picturing, for instance, new landscapes in Paradise. According to Reinhard, it can be finally said that Baldassarre got an identity as a process. ¹²³

A question now arises: can Baldassarre’s interpretation of the miʿrāǧ be read as a case of cultural transfer - or rather, as an interreligious transfer - with the aim of reinterpreting and resemantizing a cultural theme, ¹²⁴ as Martin Mulsow has suggested referring to the relationship between Socinianism and Islam? ¹²⁵ Could the concept of cultural transfer be applied to the way Baldassarre dealt with his former religious tradition? Perhaps here we are dealing with an interreligious transfer, due to the reason that Baldassarre seems to have and possess knowledge of the miʿrāǧ tradition from the Islamic standpoint rather than from the Western diffusion of the narrative. This signifies that Baldassarre’s knowledge of this tradition comes from his former religious affiliation and is then transferred by means of translation to his new religious identity with a polemical goal, but also with the aim of Christianizing it. In other words, Baldassarre dealt with Islamic tradition through of a twofold movement: translating the Arabic text into a Western language and inserting Christian themes within the translated Islamic text, as if they were Islamic doctrines too.

In conclusion, Baldassarre’s attitude towards the miʿrāǧ and Islam reflects a common inclination which developed among Christians and Jesuits in the Early Modern Age, but that also had its antecedents in authors such as William of Tripoli and Nicholas of Cusa. This attitude is precariously in equilibrium between a “heresiological framework” ¹²⁶ - this approach begun to wane from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onwards, but was still alive in a Catholic context until at least the nineteenth century - and an attempt to understand Islam by means of a Christian reading of the Islamic doctrines without the use of warlike words or the lexicon of heresy.