Did a banned treatise claim Leonardo da Vinci converted to Islam?

Question

I found this to be strange, if not absurd:

Morteza Khalaj Amirhosseini, the author of the book "Leonardo Da Vinci's Drawings", went on to say that the book presents a complete biography of Da Vinci in which he has proved based on first-hand sources that the Renaissance artist had become a Muslim. However, the west prefers to keep silent on the subject, he added.
He added: "A French writer in the 19th century has evaluated the issue of Da Vinci's conversion to Islam in a treatise, but the west has banned the publication of this treatise."

Source.

I'm skeptical of the claim for many reasons.

Is there such a treatise? Is any verifiable evidence contained therein? Are there first-hand sources that claim that Leonardo converted to Islam, or other documents on the matter?

"but the west has banned the publication of this treatise" - I wanna be the ruler of "the west" so I can ban Kardashians and Octomom with this clearly awesome power. — user5341, Dec 07 '12 at 21:25
I'm fascinated to see that there is an islamic genre of dubious deathbed conversions to match the christian fundamentalist habit of asserting that famous atheists had late conversions. — matt_black, Dec 07 '12 at 21:34
[Questions about religious beliefs are off topic](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/621/politics-beliefs-and-motivations-questions-should-not-be-allowed-here). — Sklivvz, Dec 07 '12 at 21:38
As a matter of observation, I note that the link @Sklivvz cited when closing this question does not in essence preclude questions of the nature of the one here. The link suggests that theological questions are improper as by their nature they can be neither proven nor disproven, and they reduce to diatribe. However the question of whether Leonardo converted to Islam and in particular a French writer evaluated this claim in a 19th century banned publication, is quite factual, potentially verifiable, and not especially inciteful. For these reasons I vote to reopen. — Brian M. Hunt, Dec 08 '12 at 01:17
@BrianM.Hunt the question should then be clarified as to ask for the historical angle specifically, i.e. the second paragraph of the claim and not the first, which is unprovable. — Sklivvz, Dec 08 '12 at 01:20
The [author's own website](http://khalajart.com/Biography.php) says the book is called "Biography And Works Of Leonardo Davinci". Amazon and Google Books have no entries by that author. Email to the author's account is bouncing (mailbox quota exceeded). — Oddthinking, Dec 11 '12 at 01:08
"A French writer in the 19th century" also has a distinct smell of vagueness and therefore unverifiability. He can't name the author, place or a more specific year? How then did he learn of its banning? — John Lyon, Dec 11 '12 at 06:14

score 15 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

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This claim appears to come from Morteza Khalaj Amirhosseini himself without actually giving the source. He does not even give the name of the supposed French writer who the treatise was written to.

Every site that references this claim uses the quote from Morteza Khalaj Amirhosseini.

"A French writer in the 19th century has evaluated the issue of Da Vinci's conversion to Islam in a treatise, but the west has banned the publication of this treatise."

According to these articles though, there is a high chance that Leonardo Da Vinci was of arab descent. This is based on a finger print found on one of his paintings. From the Telegraph article.

The print, taken from the artist's left index finger, was discovered after an exhaustive three-year trawl through his works by researchers at the University of Chieti.

Professor Luigi Capasso, an anthropologist who led the team, said the central whorl of the fingerprint was a common pattern in the Middle East.

"Around 60 per cent of the Middle Eastern population have the same structure," he said.

This clearly doesn't mean that he is a Muslim, but it is one of the supporting pieces of evidence that Morteza Khalaj Amirhosseini is using.

From what I can tell the only person who is making the claim that Leonardo was a Muslim is Morteza Khalaj Amirhosseini and his evidence seems very flimsy. And the fact that no one else is even making this claim also seems to lead me to conclude that this is a false claim.

edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

Community

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answered Dec 11 '12 at 20:10

Cruril

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"Around 60 per cent of the Middle Eastern population have the same structure," interesting claim, but insufficient data. How many non-Arabs in Italy also had it? 60%? – Oddthinking Dec 11 '12 at 22:25
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I did not really think it was relevant. The point I was making with that was that it was one of the pieces of evidence that some of those articles were using. Which as I started that being from Arab descent does not mean Muslim. From a better article in [Discovery.](http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/10/28/leonardoprint_his_02.html?category=history&guid=20061028101330)"The fingerprint features patterns such as the central whorl that are dominant in the Middle East. About 60 percent of the Middle Eastern population display the same dermatoglyphic structure found in the fingerprint." – Cruril Dec 11 '12 at 22:50
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors#Moors_of_Sicily – Sklivvz Dec 11 '12 at 22:51
Took me a second, but I see your point with that article. Since there were Arabs in Europe, Europeans could have some similar traits with them, which I would agree with. But even if that trait came from the Moors, it would still make him of Arab descent. If he was or was not from Arab descent really does not matter though since the question here is if he was a Muslim or not. My point in stating that he might have been Arab was that a few of the articles that I linked had used that as supporting evidence. Being from Arab descent, if he was, does not mean he was a Muslim. – Cruril Dec 11 '12 at 23:16
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I'm not criticising you, @Chris. I am criticising Amihosseini and/or the reporters. With the limited evidence given, we could draw a parallel argument: da Vinci was right-handed, and 80% of the Middle Eastern population are right-handed, therefore da Vinci was likely Middle Eastern. It's a horrible abuse of the Bayes Theory. – Oddthinking Dec 12 '12 at 08:09
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Oh, I didn't think you were criticizing me. I was more agreeing with you. It seems to be a case of affirming the consequent. Who knows how many other types of people have the same structure. Also, I do believe that Da Vinci is commonly believed to have been left handed. :) – Cruril Dec 12 '12 at 17:29
A 60% confidence of something is just a bit better than simply chance. – T. Sar Oct 27 '16 at 17:01
There isn't a 60% confidence of anything with this. Da Vinci had the same structure of finger print that ~60% of Middle Eastern people have. Even if it was 100% of Middle Eastern people have this type of print, that doesn't mean for sure that Da Vinci was Middle Eastern let alone Muslim which was the question being asked. – Cruril Oct 31 '16 at 18:34

Did a banned treatise claim Leonardo da Vinci converted to Islam?

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