Alexander Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet, translated out of Arabick into French, by the Sieur Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and resident for the French king, at Alexandria. And newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desire to look into the Turkish vanities. (1649)

he belyeth the Gospel, in saying it is corrupted by Christians; he belyeth Christians, when he saith they Worship many gods, and that they give to God a companion, when they acknowledg the Divinity of Christ; he belyeth the Jews in saying that Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob believed his Alcoran, being so many thousand years before he was born, or his Alcoran had any existence; he belyes also the Apostles, in making them his Schollers, who lived neer fix hundred years before the was born; by all which we may see who was the compiler of this Alcoran, not the God of Truth, but the Father of Lyes; not Christ and his Apostles, whose Weapons in propagating the Gospel, were powerfull preaching, miracles, and patience in suffering; not the sword, the chief means that Mahomet useth to force his Alcoran, an instrument forbid by Christ, but used by him who hath been a murtherer from the beginning; but I will not take upon me the task of refuting the Alcoran, being already refuted by Cantacuzenus, Richardus the Mon, Cusa the Cardinal, Woodmanstadius, Savanorola and others. I only thought good, upon intreaty of some learned and religious men, to prefix this brief Caveat, that the Reader might be the better armed to encounter with any rub or difficulty he shall meet with in the reading thereof. But before I end give me leave to clear my self again in this point; that it is not my meaning all should have the liberty to read the Alcoran promiscuously. I know with the Apostle, that though all things be lawful, yet all things are not expedient, there are children as well as men in understanding; the Nurse may use that knife which the childe may not, and that sword which may without danger be handled by a sober man, cannot without danger be touched by a mad man; there are as well queasy as strong stomachs, and what is meat to the one may be venom to the other; though Mithridates could without hurt eat poyson, others may not presume to escape so; it is lawfull for any to look upon a monstsr, but it is not expedient for conceiving women; that iron which an Ostrich can digest, may destroy the stomach of other creatures; how many have been deceived