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)

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 civilised nations, especially of those who flourish in our own time, is, perhaps, the most useful part of knowledge: wherein tho’ 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 entertaining or acceptable to your Lordship, I shall not regret the pains it has cost me.