(++) The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1734 Sale), book

The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1734) is a book by George Sale.

Abstract

"Translated into English immediately from the original Arabic : with explanatory notes, taken from the most approved commentators : to which is prefixed a preliminary discourse."

Second English translation of the Quran, after The Alcoran of Mahomet = L'Alcoran de Mahomet (1649 Du Ryer / Ross), book (English ed.). It was the first English translation to be made directly by the Author from the Arabic text, based on the work of Ludovico Marracci and Abraham Hinckelmann.

The Preface of the work offers one of the earliest references to the Gospel of Barnabas:

• The Mohammedans have also a Gospel in Arabic, attributed to St. Barnabas, wherein the history of Jesus Christ is related in a manner very different from what we find in the true Gospels, and correspondent to those traditions which Mohammed has followed in his Koran. Of this Gospel the Moriscoes in Africa have a translation in Spanish; and there is in the library of Prince Eugene of Savoy, a manuscript of some antiquity, containing an Italian translation of the same Gospel, made, it is to be supposed, for the use of renegades. This book appears to be no original forgery of the Mohammedans, though they have no doubt interpolated and altered it since, the better to serve their purpose; and in particular, instead of the Paraclete or Comforter, they have, in this apocryphal gospel, inserted the word Periclyte, that is, the famous or illustrious, by which they pretend their prophet was foretold by name, that being the signification of Mohammed in Arabic; and this they say to justify that passage in the Koran where Jesus Christ is formally asserted to have foretold his coming under his other name Ahmed, which is derived from the same root as Mohammed and of the same import.

Editions

Published in London, England: Wilcox, 1734.

Translations

• Der Koran; oder, Insgemein so genannte Alcoran des Mohammeds = The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1746 Säle / Arnold), book (German ed.)

• Ал Коран Магомедов = The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1792 Säle / Kolmakov), book (Russian ed.)

External links

• [ Google Books]