ABSTRACT
Anyone of the channels mentioned may have served as the means of communication, even to the farthest ends of Europe, for the news of the legends on the after-life that were popular throughout Islam. 602 It has been shown that the legends that sprang up in Ireland, Scandinavia, France, Germany and Italy—the so-called precursors of the Divine Comedy—were most probably based on Islamic models. These may have been introduced into Christian Europe by pilgrims, Crusaders, merchants or missionaries; or, again, by Norman adventurers, slaves, men of learning or simple travellers. Once the possibility of a connecting link has been established, the hypothesis of imitation tends to become that moral certainty that historical demonstration requires and is content to accept.
