«Há uma razão se a ideologia anti-islâmica não tem ninho em Portugal», eis o título do artigo de Robert Fisk no jornal britânico The Independent, dedicado a descrever as pontes entre cultura portuguesa e cultura islâmica. Ao fazê-lo, o autor menciona, entre outras fontes do diálogo luso-islâmico, as pesquisas de Fabrizio Boscaglia sobre o Islão em Fernando Pessoa.

«It comes as no surprise, therefore, to discover that Pessoa not only read and took copious notes on the Rubaiyat all over the title page of his copy of FitzGerald’s work, but became almost obsessed by Arab philosophers, including the 11th-century Arab-Andalusian poet al-Mu’tamid. And he condemned the Middle Ages Arab expulsion from the Iberian peninsula. Thanks to the work of Italian scholar Fabrizio Boscaglia and Brazilian researcher Marcia Feitosa, we find Pessoa espousing “our [Portuguese] great Arab tradition – of tolerance and free civilisation. It is in the manner in which we are the keepers of the Arab spirit in Europe that we will have a distinct individuality… Let us revenge the defeat inflicted by those from the North to our Arab ancestors. Let us redeem the crime we committed when we expelled from the peninsula the Arabs that civilised it.”» – Robert Fisk, The Independent, 22/2/2018

Origem da imagem: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/portugal-war-arabs-european-country-peace-iran-iraq-syria-middle-east-eu-nato-a8222941.html