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)

believe to be the peculiar marks of the Korân, and to conceal several profound mysteries, the certain understanding of which, the more intelligent confess has not been communicated to any mortal, their prophet only excepted. Notwithstanding which some will take the liberty of guessing at their meaning by that species of Cabbala called by the Jews Notarikon ¹, and suppose the letters to stand for as many words expressing the names and attributes of God, his works, ordinances, and decrees; and therefore these mysterious letters, as well as the verses themselves, seem in the Korân to be called signs. Others explain the intent of these letters from their nature or organ, or else from their value in numbers, according to another species of the Jewish Cabbala called Gematria ²; the uncertainty of which conjectures sufficiently appears from their disagreement. Thus for example, five chapters, one of which is the second, begin with these letters, A. L. M. which some imagine to stand for Allah latîf magîd; God is gracious and to be glorified; or, Ana li minni, to me and from me, viz. belongs all perfection, and proceeds all good: or else for Ana Allah âlam, I am the most wise God, taking the first letter to mark the beginning of the first word, the second the middle of the second word, and the third the last of the third word: or for Allah, Gabriel, Mohammed, the author, revealer, and preacher of the Korân. Others say, that as the letter A belongs to the lower part of the throat, the first of the organs of speech; L to the palat, the middle organ; and M to the lips, which are the last organ; so these letters signify that God is the beginning, middle, and end, or ought to be praised in the beginning, middle, and end, of all our words and actions: or, as the total value of those three letters in numbers, is seventy one, they signify that in the space of so many years, the religion preached in the Korân should be fully established. The conjecture of a learned Chrislian ³ is at least as certain as any of the former, who supposes those letters were set there by the amanuensis, for Amar li Mohammed, i.e. At the command of Mohammed, as the five letters prefixed to the nineteenth chapter seem to be there written by a Jewish scribe, for Coh yaas, i.e. Thus he commanded.

Style.
The Korân is universally allowed to be written with the utmost elegance and purity of language, in the dialect of the tribe of Koreish, the most noble and polite of all the Arabians, but with some mixture, tho’ very rarely, of other dialects. It is confessedly the standard of the Arabic tongue, and as the more orthodox believe, and are taught by