The Koran (Al-Qur'an)

Note: This eBook still needs better formatting, especially for
extensive footnotes, so is posted as version 09 rathern than 10.  See
Project Gutenberg's eBooks #3434 and 2800 for other translations of
The Koran.


Thanks to Brett Zamir for work on this eBook.





THE KORAN:

COMMONLY CALLED THE

ALKORAN OF MOHAMMED.

Translated into English from the Original Arabic,

WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES TAKEN FROM THE MOST
APPROVED COMMENTATORS.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

A PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE,

BY GEORGE SALE.


TO THE
RIGHT HON. JOHN LORD CARTERET.

ONE OF THE LORDS OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.



____________


	MY LORD,

NOTWITHSTANDING the great honour and respect generally and deservedly paid to
the memories of those who have founded states, or obliged a people by the
institution of laws which have made them prosperous and considerable in the
world, yet the legislator of the Arabs has been treated in so very different a
manner by all who acknowledge not his claim to a divine mission, and by
Christians especially, that were not your lordship's just discernment
sufficiently known, I should think myself under a necessity of making an
apology for presenting the following translation.

   The remembrance of the calamities brought on so many nations by the
conquests of the Arabians may possibly raise some indignation against him who
formed them to empire; but this being equally applicable to all conquerors,
could not, of itself, occasion all the detestation with which the name of
Mohammed is loaded.  He has given a new system of religion, which has had
still greater success than the arms of his followers, and to establish this
religion made use of an imposture; and on this account it is supposed that he
must of necessity have been a most abandoned villain, and his memory is become
infamous.  But as Mohammed gave his Arabs the best religion he could, as well
as the best laws, preferable. at least, to those of the ancient pagan
lawgivers, I confess I cannot see why he deserves not equal respect-though not
with Moses or Jesus Christ, whose laws came really from Heaven, yet, with
Minos or Numa, notwithstanding the distinction of a learned writer, who seems
to think it a greater crime to make use of an imposture to set up a new
religion, founded on the acknowledgment of one true God, and to destroy
idolatry, than to use the same means to gain reception to rules and
regulations for the more orderly practice of heathenism already established.

   To be acquainted with the various laws and constitutions of civilized
nations, especially of those who flourish in our own time, is, perhaps, the
most useful part of knowledge: wherein though your lordship, who shines with
so much distinction in the noblest assembly in the world, peculiarly excels;
yet as the law of Mohammed, by reason of the odium it lies under, and the
strangeness of the language in which it is written, has been so much
neglected.  I flatter myself some things in the following sheets may be new
even to a person of your lordship's extensive learning; and if what I have
written may be any way entertaining or acceptable to your lordship, I shall
not regret the pains it has cost me.

   I join with the general voice in wishing your lordship all the honour and
happiness your known virtues and merit deserve, and am with perfect respect,

					MY LORD,
				Your lordship's most humble
						And most obedient servant,
								GEORGE SALE.


A SKETCH

OF THE

LIFE OF GEORGE SALE.


_________

OF the life of GEORGE SALE, a man of extensive learning, and considerable
literary talent, very few particulars have been transmitted to us by his
contemporaries.  He is said to have been born in the county of Kent, and the
time of his birth must have been not long previous to the close of the
seventeenth century.  His education he received at the King's School,
Canterbury.  Voltaire, who bestows high praise on the version of the Korân,
asserts him to have spent five-and-twenty years in Arabia, and to have
acquired in that country his profound knowledge of the Arabic language and
customs.  On what authority this is asserted it would now be fruitless to
endeavour to ascertain.  But that the assertion is an erroneous one, there can
be no reason to doubt; it being opposed by the stubborn evidence of dates and
facts.  It is almost certain that Sale was brought up to the law, and that he
practised it for many years, if not till the end of his career.  He is said,
by a co-existing writer, to have quitted his legal pursuits, for the purpose
of applying himself to the study of the eastern and other languages, both
ancient and modern.  His guide through the labyrinth of the oriental dialects
was Mr. Dadichi, the king's interpreter.  If it be true that he ever
relinquished the practice of the law, it would appear that he must have
resumed it before his decease; for, in his address to the reader, prefixed to
the Korân, he pleads, as an apology for the delay which had occurred in
publishing the volume, that the work "was carried on at leisure times only,
and amidst the necessary avocations of a troublesome profession."