The Muḥammadans, so far from thinking the Qurʾān profaned by a translation, as some authors have written (Marracci de Alcoran, p. 33), have taken care to have it translated into various languages, although these translations are always interlineary with the original text. Translations exist in Persian, Urdū, Pushto, Turkish, Javan, Malayan, and other languages, which have been made by Muḥammadans themselves.
The first translation attempted by Europeans was a Latin version translated by an Englishman, Robert of Retina, and a German, Hermann of Dalmatia. This translation, which was done at the request of Peter, Abbot of the Monastery of Clugny, A.D. 1143, remained hidden nearly 400 years till it was published at Basle, 1543, by Theodore Bibliander, and was afterwards rendered into Italian, German, and Dutch. The next translation in German was by Schweigger, at Nürnberg, in 1616. This was followed by the above-mentioned work of Maracci, consisting of the Qurʾān, in Arabic, with a Latin version with notes and refutations, A.D. 1698.
The oldest French translation was done by M. Du Ryer (Paris, 1647). A Russian version appeared at St. Petersburg in 1776. M. Savary translated the Qurʾān into French in 1783. There have also been more recent French translations by Kasimirski (Paris, 1st ed. 1840, 2nd ed. 1841, 3rd ed. 1857).
The first English Qurʾān was Alexander Ross’s translation of Du Ryer’s French version (1649–1688). Sale’s well-known work first appeared in 1734, and has since passed through numerous editions. A translation by the Rev. J. M. Rodwell, with the Sūrahs arranged in chronological order, was printed in 1861 (2nd ed. 1876). Professor Palmer, of Cambridge, translated the Qurʾān in 1880 (Oxford Press). A Roman-Urdū edition of the Qurʾān was published at Allahabad in 1844, and a second and revised edition at Ludianah in 1876 (both these being a transliteration of ʿAbdu ʾl-Qādir’s well-known Urdū translation).
The best known translations in German are those by Boysen, published in 1773, with an Introduction and notes, and again revised and corrected from the Arabic by G. Wahl in 1828, and another by Dr. L. Ullmann, which has passed through two editions (1840, 1853).
XII.—The Opinions of European Writers on the Qurʾān.
Mr. Sale, in his Preliminary Discourse, remarks:—
“The style of the Korân is generally beautiful and fluent, especially where it imitates the prophetic manner, and scripture phrases. It is concise, and often obscure, adorned with bold figures after the Eastern taste, enlivened with florid and sententious expressions, and in many places, especially where the majesty and attributes of God are described, sublime and magnificent; of which the reader cannot but observe several instances, though he must not imagine the translation comes up to the original, notwithstanding my endeavours to do it justice.
“Though it be written in prose, yet the sentences generally conclude in a long continued rhyme, for the sake of which the sense is often interrupted, and unnecessary repetitions too frequently made, which appear still more ridiculous in a translation, where the ornament, such as it is, for whose sake they were made, cannot be perceived. However, the Arabians are so mightily delighted with this jingling that they employ it in their most elaborate compositions, which they also embellish with frequent passages of and allusions to the Korân, so that it is next to impossible to understand them without being well versed in this book.
“It is probable the harmony of expression which the Arabians find in the Korân might contribute not a little to make them relish the doctrine therein taught, and give an efficacy to arguments, which, had they been nakedly proposed without this rhetorical dress, might not have so easily prevailed. Very extraordinary effects are related of the power of words well chosen and artfully placed, which are no less powerful either to ravish or amaze than music itself; wherefore as much as has been ascribed by the best orators to this part of rhetoric as to any other. He must have a very bad ear, who is not uncommonly moved with the very cadence of a well-turned sentence; and Mohammed seems not to have been ignorant of the enthusiastic operation of rhetoric on the minds of men; for which reason he has not only employed his utmost skill in these his pretended revelations, to preserve that dignity and sublimity of style, which might seem not unworthy of the majesty of that Being, whom he gave out to be the author of them, and to imitate the prophetic manner of the Old Testament; but he has not neglected even the other arts of oratory; wherein he succeeded so well, and so strangely captivated the minds of his audience, that several of his opponents thought it the effect of witchcraft and enchantment, as he sometimes complains ([Sūrah xv. 21], &c.).”