George Sale

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George Sale (* 1697 in Canterbury , Kent , † November 13, 1736 in London ) was an English orientalist and practicing lawyer . He became known for his English translation of the Koran published in 1734 .

life and work

George Sale was born in Canterbury and attended King's School there . By 1720 he was a law student at the Inner Temple . He became a solicitor , d. H. Lawyer in the Kingdom of Great Britain and was one of the first members of the Missionary Society Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK).

In 1734 he published his translation of the Koran . The work is dedicated to Lord Carteret and contains numerous notes and an extensive foreword under the title "Preliminary Discourse". It was highly valued by Voltaire . Sale paid a certain respect to Mohammed , but did not recognize him as being of the same rank as Moses or Jesus Christ . His translation of the Koran was reprinted many times and in turn translated into German ( Theodor Arnold , 1764) and Russian ( Alexei Kolmakow , 1792). The foreword was translated into Dutch (Amsterdam 1742), French (Geneva 1751) and Swedish (Stockholm 1814). By the end of the 19th century, Sales' translation of the Koran was considered authoritative in Great Britain and was published over 60 times.

With George Psalmanazar , Archibald Bower and others was Sale Staff at the 65-volume Universal History "The Universal History", which he initiate the cosmogony or creation story contributed. He was also the author of the ten-volume The General Dictionary and proofreader of an Arabic translation of the New Testament that was published in 1726 by the SPCK. His collection of valuable original Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts is now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford .

Sale died on November 13, 1736, at his home on the Strand in London, eight days after falling ill with violent attacks of fever . He was buried in St Clement Danes , leaving behind his wife and five children.

Aftermath

In 1815, US President Thomas Jefferson sold around 6,500 books from his holdings, including a London edition of Sales' translation of the Koran from 1764 to the Library of Congress . Keith Ellison , the first Muslim MP in the US Congress , announced in 2006 that he would take his oath of office on this edition of the Koran, which he also did in January 2007. This led to severe criticism in the USA, including by the conservative journalist Dennis Prager .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Online edition
  2. ↑ Thomas Jefferson's Copy of the Koran To Be Used in Congressional Swearing-in Ceremony Library of Congress, January 3, 2007
  3. ↑ America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on Dennis Prager in: Townhall, November 28, 2006
  4. ↑ Jihadists trash Muslim US rep. James Gordon Meek in: New York Daily News, Nov 12, 2006

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sale, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English orientalist, Koran translator
DATE OF BIRTH 1697
PLACE OF BIRTH Canterbury , Kent , England
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1736
Place of death London