Koran in English: A Biography

Bruce B. Lawrence

Paperback

9780691209210

This work revisits the life of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. and the origins of the Qur'an before recounting the first translation of the book into Latin by a non-Muslim: Robert of Ketton's twelfth-century version paved the way for later ones in German and French, but it was not until the eighteenth century that George Sale's influential English version appeared. Lawrence explains how many of these early translations, while part of a Christian agenda to 'know the enemy,' often revealed grudging respect for their Abrahamic rival. British expansion in the modern era produced an anomaly: fresh English translations—from the original Arabic—not by Arabs or non-Muslims but by South Asian Muslim scholars.

The first book to explore the complexities of this translation saga, The 'Koran' in English also looks at cyber Korans, versions by feminist translators, and now a graphic Koran, the American Qur'an.