Juan de Torquemada, Nicholas of Cusa and Pius II on the Islamic Promise of Paradise

Abstract

Western Christianity had a long history of polemics against Islam. That included rejecting Muhammad’s idea of paradise as excessively «carnal». In the mid-15th century, three members of the Roman curia took differing approaches to the Otto-mans as Muslims. Pius II tried to persuade the sultan to give up Islam, offering him a «better» paradise. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa sought evidence of the gospels in the Qur’an, but he rejected the Prophet’s «carnal» view of the afterlife. Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, a Dominican, offered a more thorough and negative view of Islam, denouncing carnality but also treating the Qur’anic description of paradise as impossi-ble, requiring an unending multiplication of locations in the afterlife for devout Muslims. Torquemada also offered a Thomistic view of the risen body as incapable not just of sexual pleasure but a free from worldly suffering.