George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)

in the Mohammedan learning. The notes he has added are indeed of great use; but his refutations, which swell the work to a large volume, are of little or none at all, being often unsatisfactory, and sometimes impertinent. The work, however, with all its faults, is very valuable, and I should be guilty of ingratitude, did I not acknowledge myself much obliged thereto; but still, being in Latin, it can be of no use to those who understand not that tongue.

Having therefore undertaken a New Translation, I have endeavoured to do the Original impartial justice; not having, to the best of my knowledge, represented it, in any one instance, either better or worse than it really is. I have thought myself obliged, indeed, in a piece which pretends to be the Word of God, to keep somewhat scrupulously close to the text; by which means the language may, in some places, seem to express the Arabic a little too literally to be elegant English: but this, I hope, has not happened often; and I flatter myself that the stile I have made use of will not only give a more genuine idea of the original than if I had taken more liberty (which would have been much more for my ease) but will soon become familiar: for we must not expect to read a version of so extraordinary a book with the same case and pleasure as a modern composition.

In the Notes my view has been briefly to explain the Text, and especially the difficult and obscure passages, from the most approved commentators, and that generally in their own words, for whose opinions or expressions, where liable to censure, I am not answerable; my province being only fairly to represent their expositions, and the little I have added of my own, or from Europæan writers, being easily discernable. Where I met with any circumstance which I imagined might be curious or entertaining, I have not failed to produce it.

The Preliminary Discourse will acquaint the reader with the most material particulars proper to be known previously to the entring on the Korân itself, and which could not so conveniently have been thrown into the Notes. And I have taken care, both in the Preliminary Discourse and the Notes, constantly to quote my authorities and the writers to whom I have been beholden; but to none have I been more so, than to the learned Dr. Pocock, whose Specimen Hiftoriæ Arabum is the most useful and accurate work that has been hitherto published concerning the antiquities of that nation, and ought to be read by every curious enquirer into them.

As I have had no opportunity of consulting public libraries, the manuscripts of which I have made use throughout the whole work have been