(ANSA) A middle school teacher in the northern city of Treviso has exempted two Muslim students from studying Dante on the grounds that it is a religious work that clashes with their Islamic faith, local dailies reported Friday, sparking a major row on integration and an alleged insult to Italian culture.
The Divine Comedy, with its visions of hell, purgatory and heaven, is steeped in medieval Christianity and the Prophet Mohamed is one of the historical figures placed in the inferno.
The teacher asked the families of all the students who are exempted from religious studies on religious grounds if they also wanted to be exempted from studying the greatest Christian poet, or greatest poet of any kind, and two families said yes.
