Document

Church History
and
Religious Culture
CHRC . () www.brill.nl/chrc
Divine Poetry?
Early Modern European Orientalists
on the Beauty of the Koran1
Jan Loop

God has sent down the most beautiful word2

The Koran, :
Abstract
This article discusses Western attitudes to the style of the Koran from the sixteenth to the
late eighteenth century. The subject is of particular interest because the question of the
Korans aesthetic value is ultimately linked with the Islamic belief that the inimitable beauty
of Muhammads revelation is the very proof of its divine origin (i #jaz al-Qur"an). Given
the apologetic function of this doctrine in Islamic theology, many early modern European
orientalists, from Theodor Bibliander to Ludovico Marracci, criticised the style. Some of
the arguments presented were remarkably persistent and can be followed up to the present
day. This article also shows, however, that since the end of the seventeenth century scholars
such as Andreas Acoluthus, George Sale and Claude-Etienne Savary had developed a more
favourable attitude to the Koranic style, while, at the end of the eighteenth century, the
Prophet Muhammad was seen as an inspired genius and the Koran as an example of divine
poetry.
Keywords
i#jaz al-Qur"an, Western perceptions of the Koran, oriental studies, oriental poetry
1)
I would like to thank Professor Alastair Hamilton and Anthony Ossa-Richardson (The
Warburg Institute, London) for their invaluable suggestions and comments both on content
and style.
2)
The felicitous translation of ahsan
. al-hadth
. is proposed by William A. Graham and Navid
Kermani, Recitation and Aesthetic Reception, in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur"an,
ed. Jane Damme McAulie (Cambridge, ), , there .
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/187124109X506213
Jan Loop / CHRC . ()
In and the Austrian orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall

published his Samples of a Metrical and Rhymed translation of the Koran, in
Christoph Martin Wielands Der neue Teutsche Merkur.3 Hammer-Purgstall
was not the rst German-speaking orientalist to try to convey the Korans
peculiar style by using metre. The young theologian Johann Christian Wilhelm
Augusti, convinced that Muhammad would use an iambic metre were he to
write today, had already translated a selection of suras into blank verse in
.4 But Hammer-Purgstall went one step further. In an attempt to render
more adequately the distinctive features of the Korans rhymed and rhythmic
prose (saj#),5 he decided to use rhymes in his translation as well. Because the
Koran did not follow a strict metrical pattern or rhyme-scheme, he frequently
varied the metre and rhyme of his own verses. Hammer-Purgstalls guiding
thought was that, as with the translation of other literature and poetry, a
faithful version of the Koran must convey its Geist as well as its Form.6 It
therefore had to render the books prosodic features as closely as possible:
Faithful imitation of rhythm and sound is an indispensable condition of the
translation of every poem.7 In fact, this applied to the Koran most of all,
since it was not only the book of law of Islam, but a masterpiece of Arabic
poetry. Captured by the magic of its language, its readers and listeners could
3)
Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Proben einer metrischen und gereimten Uebersetzung
des Corans, Der neue Teutsche Merkur (), and Fortsetzung der Proben einer
neuen Uebersetzung des Corans, Der neue Teutsche Merkur (), . For this
and the following see Hartmut Bobzin, Friedrich Rckert und der Koran, in Der Koran
in der bersetzung von Friedrich Rckert, ed. Hartmut Bobzin (Wrzburg, ), vii
xxxiii.
4)
Ich whlte daher das jambische Metrum, ein Metrum, dessen sich, wie ich glaube,
Muhamed bedienen wrde, wenn er jetzt schriebe. Der Jambus ist sowohl fr den didak-
tischen Ton, fr die religisen und moralischen Sentenzen, an welchen der Koran so reich ist,
als auch fr den leichten erzhlenden und beschreibenden Ton. Johann Christian Wilhelm
Augusti, Der kleine Koran oder bersetzung der wichtigsten und lehrreichsten Stcke des
Korans (Weissenfels, ), p. .
5)
On the denition of saj#as rhymed an rhythmic prose see Af Ben Abdesselem, sadj#, in
The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, ed. C.E. Basworth, vols. (Leiden, ),
: ba, there a. See also Devin J. Stewart, Sadj# in the Qur"n. Prosody and
Structure, in The Qur"an. Style and Content, ed. Andrew Rippin, [The Formation of the
Classical Islamic World ] (Aldershot, ), .
6)
Hammer-Purgstall, Proben (see above, n. ), .
7)
Hammer-Purgstall, Proben (see above, n. ), .
only have believed that it was Gods own word.8 Admittedly, the notion of the
Koran as poetry conicts with the Muslims own perception of their revela-
tion, as will be shown below. Nonetheless, Hammer-Purgstalls translation was
accompanied by an exceptional attitude on the doctrine of i #jaz al-Qur"an
the Islamic dogma, that the Korans inimitable beauty is the ultimate proof
of its divine origin.9 Indeed, by invoking the idea of the poets divine genius,
Hammer-Purgstall even managed to express this belief in such a way as to
appeal to contemporary Romantics: Because poetic works reect the divinity
of the Genius, the Koran would transcend the mere productions of human
enthusiasm.10
Together with Friedrich Rckerts unsurpassed poetical translation of the
Koran, which appeared some years later,11 Hammer-Purgstalls approach to
Islamic revelation stands out in the European reception of the Koran. In
fact, the stylistic beauty which Hammer-Purgstall and Rckert detected in
the Koran and which they tried to convey in their translations, was rarely
acknowledged among European authors and orientalists; on the contrary, the
list of nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers who atly denied the Koran
any aesthetic merit is endless.12 Even Thomas Carlyle, who presented in his
Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History a remarkably positive portrait
of Muhammad, didnt sense any beauty in the Koran at all: Mahomet is one
thing, the Koran quite another [] A wearisome, confused jumble, crude,
incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement, a most crude,
8)
Der Coran ist nicht nur des Islams Gesetzbuch, sondern auch Meisterwerk arabischer
Dichtkunst. Nur durch den hchsten Zauber der Sprache gelangs dem Sohne Abdallahs,
sein Wort im Volke gng und gbe zu erhalten, als Gottes Wort. Hammer-Purgstall,
Proben (see above, n. ), .
9)
For a short but instructive account of the doctrine of i #jaz al-Qur"an see Richard C. Mar-
tin, Inimitability, in Encyclopaedia of the Qur"an, ed. Jane Dammen McAulie et. al.,
vols. (Leiden ), : .
10)
In den Werken der Dichtkunst spiegelt sich die Gottheit des Genies. [] Das lebendige
Wort, das die sieben gttlichen an der Caaba aufgehngten Gedichte weit hinter sich
zurcklie, konnte nicht die Frucht menschlicher Begeisterung, es mute im Himmel
gesprochen seyn von Ewigkeit her. Daher ist der Coran Gottes Wort. Hammer-Purgstall,
Proben (see above, n. ), .
11)
On Rckerts translation see Bobzin, Der Koran in der bersetzung von Friedrich Rckert
(see above, n. ).
12)
For the following see Stefan Wild, Die schauerliche de des heiligen Buches. West-
liche Wertungen des koranischen Stils, in Gott ist schn und Er liebt die Schnheit. Festschrift
fr Annemarie Schimmel, ed. Alma Giese and J.C. Brgel (Bern, ), .
incondite;insupportable stupidity, in short!13 This was also the opinion

of one of the most inuential oriental scholars of the nineteenth century.
In his History of the Qorn, Theodor Nldeke judged the works language to
be stretched, matt, prosaic, most of its arguments lacking any sharpness
and clarity while monotonous storytelling rendered the revelation virtually
boring.14 Nldeke summarised this view in his Sketches from Eastern History.15
The relevant passage was later quoted and canonised by the Encyclopaedia
Britannica:
Mohammeds mistake consists in persistent and slavish adherence to the semi-poetic

form which he had at rst adopted in accordance with his own taste and that of his
hearers. For instance, he employs rhyme in dealing with the most prosaic subjects,
and thus produces the disagreeable eect of incongruity between style and matter.
[] Mohammed, in short, is not in any sense a master of style. This opinion will
be endorsed by any European who reads through the book with an impartial spirit and
some knowledge of the language, without taking into account the tiresome eect of its
endless iterations.16
It is the purpose of this article to trace attitudes to the Korans style and poetical
renement through the history of modern Europe, from the sixteenth to the
late eighteenth century. The subject is of particular interest because the ques-
tion of the Korans style was ultimately linked with a central doctrine of Islamic
theology. Thus, from an apologetic Christian point of view, to acknowledge
stylistic beauty in the Koran would ultimately be an unfaithful act, as the
13)
Thomas Carlyle, Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (London, ), p. .
See Wild, Schauerliche de (see above, n. ), .
14)
Die Sprache ist gedehnt, matt und prosaisch, die ewigen Wiederholungen, bei denen
der Prophet sich nicht scheut, fast dieselben Worte zu gebrauchen, die aller Schrfe und
Klarheit entbehrende Beweisfhrung, die Niemanden berzeugt, als den, welcher schon
von vorn herein an das Endresultat glaubt, die wenig Abwechslung bietenden Erzhlungen
machen die Oenbarungen oft geradezu langweilig, und wre nicht die ungemeine Feinheit
und Kraft der arabischen Sprache an sich, die aber weit mehr dem Zeitalter des Verfassers,
als der Individualitt desselben zuzuschreiben ist, so wrde es kaum ertrglich sein, die
spteren Theile des Qorns zum zweiten Male zu lesen. Theodor Nldeke, Geschichte des
Qorns (Gttingen, ), p. . See Wild, Schauerliche de (see above, n. ), .
15)
Theodor Nldeke, Orientalische Skizzen (Berlin, ).
16)
Theodor Nldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, trans. John Sutherland Black and
revised by the author (London, ), p. ; Encyclopaedia Britannica, th. ed., vols.
(Edinburgh, ), : . The reference is again given by Wild, Schauerliche
de (see above, n. ), .
German Biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis claimed in .17 On the

other hand, pioneering orientalists such as Theodor Bibliander realised by the
mid-sixteenth century that the Koran had had an enormous impact on Arabic
literary traditions, and was thus the key to an adequate understanding not only
of Islamic theology, but also of Islamic literature and culture in general. Euro-
pean orientalists thus faced a critical dilemma: in spite of divergent poetical
norms and of their apologetic endeavours, it could hardly be denied that the
Koran had an overwhelming aesthetical appeal to Arabic-speaking Muslims.
The following pages present an account of the many contributions made by
Christian orientalists in their attempts to solve this dilemma.
In Islamic apologetic tradition the conviction that the Koran is plainly the
best book in every respectthat it cannot be imitated either with regard to
its content or to its literary qualitiesis the central and most powerful proof
of its truth and authenticity as divine revelation.18 A book of unmatchable
beauty, the Koran is Muhammads miracle. As such, the Koran is in line with
all the miracles performed by former prophets. As the great Persian historian
and mufassir Abu Ja#far Muhammad
. at-
. Tabar
. () claims in his Jami #
al-bayan #an ta"wl ay al-Qur"an:
There can be no doubt that the highest and most resplendent degree of eloquence is
that which expresses itself with the greatest clarity, making the intention of the speaker
evident and facilitating the hearers understanding. But when it rises beyond this level
[of eloquence], and transcends what man is capable of, so that none of the servants
[of God] is able to match it, it becomes a proof and a sign for the Messengers of
the One, the All-powerful. It is then the counterpart of the raising of the dead and
the curing of lepers and the blind, themselves proofs and signs for [the Messengers]
because they transcended the realm of the highest attainments of mans medicine and
therapy, beyond the capability of the [creatures] of all the worlds.19
17)
Johann David Michaelis, Orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek, vols. (Frankfurt,
), : . On Michaelis attitude to the Korans style see below and Jan Loop,
Viel leichter wre es, Wols Werke in Verse zu bersetzen. Aufgeklrte Debatten um
eine poetische bersetzung des Korans, in Germanistik im Konikt der Kulturen, ed. Jean-
Marie Valentin, vols. [Akten des XI. Internationalen Germanistenkongresses Paris ]
(Bern, ), : .
18)
Angelika Neuwirth, Das islamische Dogma der Unnachahmlichkeit des Korans in
literaturwissenschaftlicher Sicht, Der Islam (), , there .
19)
The Commentary on the Qur"an by Abu Ja #far Muhammad . B. Jarr a.t-Tabar.
. Being an
abridged translation of Jami # al-bayan #an ta"wl ay al-Qur"an, , ed. W.F. Madelung and
A. Jones, trans. J. Cooper (Oxford, ), p. .
Right from the start, Muslim apologists put forward a number of recurrent
arguments in support of the i #jaz doctrine. Most of these arguments were
later acknowledged and critically discussed by Western orientalists. This was
the case, for instance, with the claim that, although the ancient Arabs were
unsurpassed masters of every kind of poetical and rhetorical art, not one of
them could produce a work comparable in beauty to the Koran. Western
scholars frequently referred to this argument, not only to justify their concern
with pre-Islamic poetry, but also to support the common view that Arabic
culture and poetry decayed with the spread of the Koran.20 Muslim scholars,
however, used the countless legends about Arabic poets of this time, whose
skills had been occluded by the beauty of the Prophets revelation, to underline
the irresistible rhetorical power of the Koran:
Since things are as we have described them, it is obvious that there is no clear discourse
more eloquent, no wisdom more profound, no speech more sublime, no form of
expression more noble, than [this] clear discourse and speech with which a single man
challenged a people at a time when they were acknowledged masters of the art of oratory
and rhetoric, poetry and prose, rhymed prose and soothsaying. [] Then he [i.e. the
Messenger] told them all that they were incapable of bringing anything comparable
to even a part of [what he had brought], and that they lacked the power to do this.
They all confessed their inability, voluntarily acknowledging the truth of what he had
brought, and bore witness of their own insuciency.21
In the eyes of Muslim theologians, the miraculous character of the Koran was
proven still further by Muhammads illiteracythe book cannot have been
authored by the Prophet, but only by God himself. On the one hand it was
revealed in the language of the poets ( #arabya), with the traditional formal
features of Arabic poetry;22 on the other hand, it surpassed all known gen-
res of poetry. The language of the Koran does not correspond to any known
genre of metrical language, yet is extraordinarily, if inexplicably, attractive.23
Indeed, as Navid Kermani has shown in his brilliant study of the subject, by fre-
quently alluding to this tradition and, at the same time, bending and breaking
established rules, the Koran stands in a dialectical relationship to pre-Islamic
20)
This, for instance, is the conclusion Johann David Michaelis draws in his Treatise on
the taste of the Arabs, which is printed as a preface to his Arabische Grammatik, nd ed.
(Gttingen, ), p. xlv.
21)
at-
. Tabar,
. Commentary (see above n. ), pp. .
22)
See Navid Kermani, Gott ist schn. Das sthetische Erleben des Koran (Munich, ),
p. .
23)
Graham, Kermani, Recitation (see above n. ), .
poetry.24 Its anity to Arabic poetry is revealed by the reaction of its oppo-
nents, who tried to discredit the Prophet as a common soothsayer, magician,
madman, and specically, poet. The Koran itself responds in dierent suras to
this accusation, vehemently rejecting the idea that it is a poem.25
However, the Koran has enriched Arabic poetry more than any other liter-
ary genre. Apart from frequent references to its verses or images throughout
Arabic literature, the Koran liberated Arabic poetry from a narrow framework
of existing genres and inspired new approaches to language and imagery.26 The
Koran set a new norm and model of speech and thus not only changed the
religious, social, and political culture of the ancient Arabs but also their lit-
erature and their poetry. As Kermani points out, the books aesthetic value
among Muslims is due chiey to its semantic under-determination, rendering
it open to an indenite number of interpretations.27 Early modern Christian
scholars, however, were less favourably impressed with this feature, attribut-
ing to it an obscurum perplexum et intricatum dicendi genus.28 In Muslim
eyes it is precisely this ambiguityrealised by frequent use of ellipsis, ana-
coluthons, changes of grammatical person, arcane metaphors, insinuations,
abrupt switches in theme and subjectthat characterises divine speech. The
Korans unfathomable semantic depth is seen as the very reason for its beauty,
and is therefore taken as the key evidence of its truth and divinity.
The i #jaz doctrine was disseminated in early modern Europe, at the turn of the
fourteenth century, by Ricoldo da Monte Croces Contra legem Saracenorum.29
Ricoldo, a Dominican missionary, spent almost ten years in the East, chiey
24)
Kermani, Gott ist schn (see above n. ), p. .
25)
See for example sura : and sura : .
26)
Graham, Kermani, Recitation (see above n. ), .
27)
Kermani, Gott ist schn (see above n. ), pp. .
28)
Johann Heinrich Hottinger, Historia Orientalis, nd ed. (Zurich, ), p. .
29)
A still earlier account of i #jaz is oered by Ramon Lull in his Liber de ne (). The
passage is quoted and discussed by Charles Burnett, Learned Knowledge of Arabic Poetry,
Rhymed Prose, and Didactic Verse from Petrus Alfonsi to Petrarch, in Poetry and Philosophy
in the Middle Ages. A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, ed. John Marenbon (Leiden, ), ,
there . On Ricoldos book and its impact see Hartmut Bobzin, Der Koran im Zeitalter der
Reformation (Beirut, ), pp. . On Ricoldos assessment of the Korans style and of
the i #jaz doctrine see ibid., pp. . On p. , n. Bobzin refers to the important
treatise i #jaz al-Qur"an by al-Baqillan, which Ricoldo might have known. On Ricoldo see
also Adam S. Francisco, Martin Luther and Islam. A Study in Sixteenth-Century Polemics and
Apologetics (Leiden, ), pp. .
in Baghdad, where he learned Arabic. During this time, he also gained a

singular insight into Islam and its theology; his treatise betrays a remarkable
acquaintance with the Koran and other Islamic sources. Two centuries later,
the work attracted the attention of Martin Luther who, in , published his
Verlegung des Alcoran Bruder Richardi, a partial German translation of a slightly
corrupt version of Ricoldos apologetic text.30
With regard to the subsequent debate, it is interesting that these two works
both assumed a poetical composition of the Koran. That the entire book was
written in rhyme would become obvious to every reader, Ricoldo claimed
in his Confutatio Alcorani: Quod autem stilo rhythmicum sit, per totum
librum manifestum est legentibus.31 Furthermore, Ricoldo had already given
an adequate description of the i #jaz doctrine, adding to it one of the famous
apologetic arguments we saw above:
The Saracens and the Arabs boast especially that [the Korans] languagewhich they
themselves speakpossesses loftiness of principle and rhythm, and that in this most
of all, the book is shown to have been composed by God, and that it was revealed to
Muhammad in this language. Muhammad, being an uneducated man, was ignorant
of such a meaning and way of speaking.32
However, although he acknowledged the Korans allusions to poetical language,

Ricoldo, like most of his followers, found it impossible to translate the books
style and in particular its rhymes into adequate Latin. For non potest salvari
rhythmus vel versus vere et secundum omnia, cum in latinum transfertur.33
30)
Ricoldos original text of the Contra legem Sarracenorum was translated into Greek in
by Demetrius Cydonius. In it was re-translated into Latin by Bartholomaeus
Picenus de Montearduo for King Fredinand of Aragon and Sicily, now having the title
Confutatio Alcorani seu legis Saracenorum, ex graeco nuper in latinam traducta. Luther read
and partially translated this version, using a manuscript copy of it. For further details see
Francisco, Luther (see above n. ), p. and pp. . The Confutatio Alcorani as well
as Luthers translation are reprinted in D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe,
vols. (Weimar, ), : .
31)
Ricoldo, Confutatio (see above n. ), p. . Luther translated this statement thus: Er
ist durch aus au Reim weise oder Poetisch gestellet, wie man die Lieder zu singen macht.
(Ibid., p. ).
32)
Saraceni autem et Arabes in hoc maxime gloriantur, quod locutio, quae est apud
eos, legis celsitudinem habet et rhythmum, et in maxime hoc ostenditur librum a deo
compositum fuisse et Mahometo secundum locutionem reuelatum esse. Mahometus idiota
existens iguorabat talem sententiam et locutionem. Ricoldo, Confutatio (see above n. ),
p. .
33)
Ricoldo, Confutatio (see above n. ), p. .
It need hardly be said that Ricoldo found no evidence of a miracle in the

Korans style. How could he? Compared to what was, from his perspective,
the only authentic example of Gods speech, the Koran was a fake. If you
compare the Koran to the books of Old Testament, Ricoldo argued, you will
see that God nowhere speaks in rhyme or in verses to his prophets. And none
of the prophets in the Holy Scripture ever claimed that God addressed him
in metrical speech.34 In fact, God revealed himself in sober sermo humilis.
Moreover, Ricoldo argued, the Koran contradicted itself in many instances,
and it was irrational and disordered, which was, again, a sucient disproof of
its divine origin.35
One year after the publication of Luthers Verlegung, Ricoldos Confuta-
tio was republished in Theodor Biblianders famous edition of the Koran.36
In his Apologia pro editione Alcorani Bibliander borrowed many of Ricoldos
arguments against the divine origin of the Koran. He too stressed the dif-
ference between the Bibles natural, simple and coherent language and the
alleged stylistic confusion and perturbation of the Koran: There is hardly any
arrangement of an argument properly executed. There is no beauty or charm of
speech which could captivate the reader, with the sole exception of its rhymes,
on account of which the Saracens, amazingly, praise the Koran.37 In contrast
34)
Cuius contrarium apparet: Videmus enim in divina scriptura deum loquentem cum
Moyse et cum aliis prophetis, et nunquam rhythmus vel versibus his loquentem. [] Et
nullus aliorum prophetarum, qui divinam vocem audierunt, dixit deum metrice locutum
esse, quod et sapientes et philosophi homines dedignantur. Ricoldo, Confutatio (see above
n. ), p. .
35)
Quod Alcoranum non est lex dei; inordinatum enim est. Quae enim a deo sunt,
ordinata sunt, ut dicit Apostolus. Videmus autem hoc in operibus naturae et in sacris
scripturis. Firmissimum enim non solum christianis, sed etiam ipsis saracenis, Moysi legem
et prophetas et evangelium a deo esse. Haec autem omnia ordinata sunt. Moyses enim valde
ordinate incipit a mundi creatione, et deinde totum pentatheucum percurrit secundum
ordinem temporis et historiae []. Ricoldo, Confutatio (see above n. ), p. .
36)
Theodor Bibliander, Machumetis Sarracenorum principis vita ac doctrina omnis, quae et
Ismahelitarum lex et Alcoranum dicitur ([Basel], ). Biblianders edition provides the
Greek version by Demetrius Cydonius, alongside with its Latin translation by Bartholo-
maeus Picenus de Montearduo. It is printed in the second part of the book, which has a sep-
arate titlepage and pagination: Confutationes Legis Machumeticae, quam vocant Alcoranum,
singulari industria ac pietate doctissimis atque optimis viris partim Latin, partim Graec,
ad impiae sectae illius, errorumque eius impugnationem, & nostrae dei Christianae conrma-
tionem olim scriptae, ac magno studio hinc inde conquisitae, inquae lucem editae, pp. .
See Bobzin, Der Koran (see above n. ), p. .
37)
Sacrae literae sequuntur naturam et optimam rationem dicendi, ut omnia sint plana,
simplicia, dei et charitatis rectissimae normae quadrantia: in Alcorano sine ordine res
to this conventional polemic, however, Bibliander emphasises, in his justi-

cation of his new edition, the books key rle as a grammatical and linguistic
norm of Arabic: any attempt to master the language must be grounded in the
Koran. As he puts it:
How are our teachers to teach the Arabic language, but from Arabic books? But no book
is better suited to untrained students than the Koran, on account of its presentation,
since it has the vowel-points and other diacritics which are absent in other books, and
of its grammatical observance. Similarly, there is no book in the Hebrew language more
tting for students than the Bible, since the vowel-points and diacritics are not inserted
in other books.38
Biblianders argument was to have a long future.39 Joseph Justus Scaliger

(), whose interest in Arabic sources was crucial for the emergence
of the great seventeenth-century Arabist tradition in Leiden, made the same
point. In a letter to Isaac Casaubon, Scaliger claimed that only by read-
ing the Koran could one acquire a thorough understanding of Arabic litera-
ture: The Arabs, wrote Scaliger, cannot say anything that does not allude
to a Koranic verse or sentence.40 A short passage in his Thesaurus tem-
porum not only reveals Scaligers profound acquaintance with the Koran, but
congeruntur, omniaque sparguntur confuse atque perturbate, ut quaedam Labyrintho inex-

plicabiliora sint etiam confessione illorum qui exercitati sunt in doctrina Machumetis. Nulla
prope argumenti explicatio rite confecta inest, nullus lepos aut suavitas orationis, quae lec-
torem detinere possit, unico rhythmo excepto, ob quem Saraceni Alcoranum mirice praed-
icant. Bibliander, Machumetis Alcoranum (see above n. ), sig. rv.
38)
Unde autem linguam Arabicam magistri docere possent, quam ex libris Arabicis?
Nullus autem liber commodior est rudibus tyronibus, quam Alcoran, propter lectionem,
quum vocales aliosque apices literis appositos habeat, qui aliis libris desunt, et propter
observationem grammatices. Quemadmodum in Hebraica lingua nullus est aptior liber
discentibus, quam Bibliorum: quum in aliis notae vocalium et prosodiae non adscribantur.
Bibliander, Machumetis Alcoranum (see above n. ), sig. r.
39)
The argument seems to have had a greater acceptance among Protestant scholars. Those
many Catholic orientalists, who were educated by Arabic speaking Christians rather consid-
ered Christian Arabic as the norm of the language. This interesting observation is made by
Grard Duverdier, Lapport des Libanais ltude des langues arabe et syriaque en Europe,
in Le livre et le Liban jusqu , ed. Camille Aboussouan (Paris, ), , there
.
40)
Si quidem serio Arabismi studiosus es, quem non magis sine Alcorano perfecte discere
potes, quam Hebraismum sine Bibliis. Nihil enim possunt loqui Arabes, quod non ad
aliquod Comma aut sententiam Alcorani alludat. Joseph Justus Scaliger, Epistolae omnes
quae reperiri potuerunt, nunc primum cellectae ac editae, ed. D. Heinsius (Leiden, ),
p. .
also oers a striking example of his meticulousness. His account of the Korans
rhyming and rhythmic prose is the earliest and most accurate until at least the
nineteenth century:
Arab critics who demarcate cola and commas in the Koran terminate them only
where a word occurs with a similar ending to that of the preceding one. This is the
reason why the cola and commas of the Koran are so very unequal. And therefore the
Muhammadans, when they recite or read them, run hurriedly through them until they
reach the end. Then they pronounce the last word dierently, that is, in the same way
as the nal word of the previous one, in order to show that this versicle or comma
is complete. For the Koran does not, as is commonly believed, consist of any kind
of metre, any more than the letters of Cicero; but the cola nish wherever there is a
similar ending, even if there is a very great inequality between the members, which, as
you know, are terminated where orets are seen limned in gold or minium [vermilion]:
these are nothing other than signs of similar endings. Finallyto return to the point
from which we have digressedthe poetic styles of Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic can in
no way be reduced to the rules of Greek or Latin metre, any more than the sky can mix
with the sea.41
Scaligers description of the Korans style covers almost all relevant aspects
of modern denitions of Koranic saj#.42 Furthermore, his insistence on the
incommensurability of oriental and occidental poetics once again reveals
41)
[C]ritici Arabici, qui cola & caesa in Alcorano designarunt, ij nunquam eas terminant,
nisi ubi occurrit verbum similiter desinens, ut nis antecedentis. Unde factum, ut cola sive
commata Alcorani sint adomodum inaequalia. Quocirca Muhammedani, quum recitant,
aut legunt ea, raptim percurrunt, donec ad nem peruenerint. Tunc verbum ultimum alio
pronunciant, nempe eodem, quo ultimum antecedentis, ut eo signicent versiculum, siue
comma, absolutum esse. Non enim, quod vulgo persuasum video, Alcoranum constat ullo
genere metrorum, non magis quam Epistolae Ciceronis: sed ibi cola niuntur, ubi similis
desinentia est, etiam si sit maxima membrorum inaequalitas; quae scias ibi terminari, ubi
osculi auro aut minio picti videntur: qui nihil aliud sunt quam signa similium desinen-
tiarum. Denique, ut eo, unde digressi sumus, redeamus, Hebraismus, Syriasmus, & Arabis-
mus nullo modo ad metrorum Graecorum aut Latinorum regulam revocari possunt, etiam
si caelum mari misceatur. Joseph Justus Scaliger, Animadversiones in Chronologia Eusebii,
in Joseph Justus Scaliger, Thesaurus Temporum (Leiden, ), (separate pagination).
42)
As for instance the one given by Af Ben Abdesselem in the Encyclopaedia of Islam:
Since pre-Islamic times, the word sadj# in the sense of to recite or speak with assonances,
using cadenced and elaborate language, has denoted a type of more or less rhythmical prose
of which the principal characteristic is the use of rhythmic units which are generally quite
short [], terminated by a clausula. These units are grouped sequentially on a common
rhyme. The rhymed or assonanced clausula at the end of each rhythmic unit constitutes the
essential element of sadj#, which is appropriately translated as rhymed and rhythmic prose.
Af Ben Abdesselem, sadj# (see above n. ), a.
his careful, unbiased approach to cultural dierence. But it was not so much
Scaligers cultural relativism that attracted the attention of his seventeenth-
century followers. As we shall see below, for Christian polemicists such as
Ludovico Marracci and August Pfeier, his claim that the Koran follows no
strict metrical pattern was of far greater interest.
Nonetheless, this passage demonstrates that at the dawn of the seventeenth
century European orientalists already had a sophisticated understanding not
only of the Korans saj#but also of its central role as a model for Arabic language
and literature. It was this insight into its cultural relevance that made the study,
translation and publication of the Koran a pressing concern for almost every
orientalist at the time. This can be illustrated by reference to one of the greatest
of Arabic poets, Abu Muhammad
. al-Qasim al-Harr
. () from Basra.
Many critics consider al-Harr
. to be a brilliant stylist and the pre-eminent
master of post-Koranic saj#.43 This respect made him an attractive target for
European endeavours to confute the alleged singularity of the Koran: far from
being inimitable, the Koran could actually be surpassed by later poets. As early
as , Johannes Fabricius (Dantiscanus), a former student of Jacobus Golius,
published al-Harrs
. rst maqama, together with a poem by Abu l-#Ala" al-
Ma#arr (), a qasida by Ibn al-Farid (), and two essays on
the style and metrics of Arabic poetry.44 In one of these essays, the Coronis
de Poesi aut metrica ratione in genere, et Arabicae linguae propria, drawing
chiey on Goliuss lectures, Fabricius presents the rst substantial account of
the ve circles of classical Arabic metrics ( #arud) . as it had been established
45
by al-Khall ibn Ahmad
. (gest. / ). The other essay, the Judicium de
soluto dicendi genere Arabum proprio, is an apology for the gurative style of
Arabic poetry.46 Fabricius cites a number of ancient rhetoricians praising the
dictionem Asiaticorum in support of his own conviction that those nally,
43)
Ben Abdesselem, sadj# (see above n. ), a.
44)
Johannes Fabricius Dantiscanus, Specimen Arabicum quo exhibentur aliquot scripta Ara-
bica partim in prosa, partim ligata oratione composita (Rostock, ).
45)
Fabricius, Specimen Arabicum (see above n. ), pp. . On al-Hall ibn Ahmads
.

system see Wolfhart Heinrichs, Poetik, Rhetorik, Literaturkritik, Metrik und Reimlehre, in
Grundri der arabischen Philologie, II: Literaturwissenschaft, ed. H. Gtje (Wiesbaden, ),
, in particular . On the history of #arud. see Dimitry Frolov, Classical Arabic
Verse. History and Theory of #Arud. (Leiden, ). Frolovs claim that Filippo Guadagnoli in
presented the rst European account of #arud. is not correct. The European knowledge
of Arabic poetry in the Middle Ages is discussed by Burnett, Learned Knowledge of Arabic
Poetry (see above n. ).
46)
Fabricius, Specimen Arabicum (see above n. ), pp. .
who use the metaphorical and poetical mode of speaking, by which Arabic
writers are so very delighted, are good orators.47
To put al-Harrs
. poem in its historical context, Fabricius oers a discussion
of the Korans stylistic impact on classical Arabic literature: The Arabs, he
claims, took the highest pleasure in rhymed poetry, and therefore competed
constantly to imitate the Koran: Hardly can I describe how fervently their
poets try to express the characteristic style and genius of the rhymed prose
they nd in the Koran: The more frequently rhyme occurs in its periods and
commas, the more sublime and perfect a style of speaking is.48 Fabricius
continues:
This is therefore the reason why the periods of our author Al-Hariri all end in rhymes.
Because our author snatches the palm from almost every other writerand even the
Koran itselfI wanted to publish this elegant dissertation, so that the students of this
language have a most accurate standard, straight as a rule, following which they can
very elegantly compose their own orations, sermons, dissertations, stories and so on,
and when they come across other writers, they can easily judge their style and diction.49
Interestingly, Fabriciuss subtle method of undermining the principle of i #jaz,

by judging al-Harrs
. maqamat superior even to the Koran, is echoed by
modern European critics, some of whom regard al-Harrs
. poem as the nest
50
moment of sadj# the Arabs possess. But more than this, by describing al-
Harrs
. rhymed prose, Fabricius could acquaint his students with this key
literary tradition without printing a single Koranic sura. In the mid-century,
editing the Koran, even partially, was still a dangerous undertaking. Samuel
Bochart, in a letter to Jacobus Cappellus, complains bitterly about his
continual struggles to have access to Koranic manuscripts and the ongoing
resistance to attempts to edit the text. He rejects as a chimera Cappelluss
47)
Ex quibus videre licet, et illos demum bonos Oratores esse, qui et tropico et Poetico
dicendi genere utuntur, quo mirum in modum delectantur Scriptores Arabes []. Ibid.,
p. .
48)
Ibid., pp. .
49)
Haec igitur causa est, quare nostri quoque Autoris El-Herir periodi omnes in rythmum
desinant: Qu in parte cum Autor noster caeteris Scriptoribus ferme omnibus, imo ipsi
Alcorano palmam praeripiat, idcirco volui hanc elegantem Dissertationem publici juris
facere, ut haberent Studiosi Linguarum exactissimam quasi amussim & normam, secundum
quam & Orationes suas, Sermones, Dissertationes, Historias & c. elegantissim conscribere,
& ubi in alios Scriptores inciderint, de illorum stylo & dictione facile judicare poterunt.
Ibid.
50)
Ben Abdesselem, sadj# (see above n. ), a.
plan to arrange a critical Arabic edition, referring to similar failed projects in

Leiden and England, suppressed by homines morosifor what reasons I
do not know. It was probably in fear of such people that Bochart declined to
ask permission to examine the Koran manuscripts in the Royal Swedish library
during his stay at Queen Christinas court in . Regretfully he informs the
young Cappellus that this timidity often came back to haunt him. For Bochart,
during his subsequent studies, had come to realise that a familiarity with the
Koran and its stylistic devices was the key to understanding Arabic literature:
All the outstanding books of the Arabic world perpetually allude to the Koran,
which is as pure in style as it is lthy and absurd in its teaching.51
In Bocharts letter was printed in his Geographia Sacra. Most of his con-
temporaries and followers rejected his opinion of the Korans stylistic purity, as
we will see. Meanwhile, Bocharts hope for an Arabic edition of the Koran was
eventually fullled. At the end of the century, the Hamburg pastor Abraham
Hinckelmann published his Al-Coranus sive Lex Islamitica Muhammedis, Filii
Abdallae Pseudoprophetae.52 Hinckelmann justied this endeavour by repeating
the traditional argument that only by a thorough knowledge of Islams religious
sources could this heresy be fought eectively.53 This, Hinckelmann was con-
vinced, would be a very easy task. For, he argued, if there was ever among
51)
Dum Alcoranum eleganti etiam charactere cum versione et notis excusum petis, Chi-
maeram postulas. Ejus aggredi impressionem cum Leydae, tum in Anglia, nonnulli ali-
quando voluerant; quidam e Nostris morosi homines opus interverterunt, quibus rationibus
permoti, nescio. Neminem enim seducere valeat liber iste; quandoquidem nihil eo stolidius.
Jam Latina Gallica et Italica lingua prostat editus, quidni poterat etiam Arabica, quam cal-
lent pauci, iique plebe seductu diciliores, excudi. Pauca illa, quae Arabico idiomate con-
scripta legi, si exceperis duas Suratas ab Erpenio in lucem editas; continentur Manuscripto
ad Praetorem Urbis hujus primarium pertinente, nec non aliis tredecim, quae Sueciae Regina
in sua habebat Bibliotheca; quorum ne unum quidem ab ea expetere unquam sum ausus,
hujusce vero meae timiditatis me postea saepius poenituit. Nam omnes in universum excel-
lentiores Arabum libri perpetuo ad Alcoranum alludunt, qui in stylo est tanto tersior, quanto
in doctrina impurior ac absurdior. Letter from Bochart to Jacobus Cappellus, January
, printed in Samuel Bochart, Geographia Sacra, seu Phaleg et Canaan, cui accedunt variae
dissertationes philologicae, geographicae, theologicae &c, th ed. (Leiden, ), pp. .
52)
Abraham Hinckelmann, Al-Coranus S. Lex Islamitica Muhammedis, Filii Abdallae Pseu-
doprophetae (Hamburg, ).
53)
Hinckelmanns preface is discussed by Helmut Braun, Der Hamburger Koran von
, in Libris et Litteris. Festschrift fr Hermann Tiemann, ed. C. Voigt and E. Zim-
mermann (Hamburg, ), and by Jean Aucagne La prface dAbraham Hin-
ckelmann, ou la naissance dun nouveau monde, in Le livre et le Liban (see above n. ),
.
the heretics a book which plainly showed the characters of its own falsity, as
if with its entire face, to anyone reading it, it is the Koran.54 But much more
interesting than his conventional denunciation of the books contradictions,
fables and repetitions are the considerations of the usefulness of the study of
Arabic, which Hinckelmann later added to his preface. Not only did he follow
Christian Raviuss controversial linguistic theory, when he argued that Ara-
bic had more resemblance to the original language than Hebrew55he also
painted an enthusiastic picture of the scholarly, scientic and literary achieve-
ments of the Arabs, rhapsodizing in particular on their mastery of poetry and
rhetoric. Both these arts, Hinckelmann asserts, had their origin and perfec-
tion in the East56thus was born the Romantic notion of the Eastern Urpoe-
sie.
In his eulogy of oriental poetry and rhetoric, Hinckelmann not only under-
lined the urgent need for further studies in this eldUtinam aliquando inte-
grum HARIRI opus nobis aliquis doctorum ederet!he also repeated the
necessity of a deeper examination of the Koran, for this text is the norm
of todays entire language and the Arabs are so familiar with it, that you
will not easily nd any Arabic text in which no sentences or stories of the
Koran are cited or at least alluded to. [] It is evident, that whoever does
not turn to the reading of the Koran, in vain expects much from his Arabic
studies.57
Johann Fabriciuss decision to put the i #jaz doctrine into perspective not by
applying his own aesthetic values, but by comparing it to other examples of
Arabic poetry reveals an interesting feature of Christian polemical reasoning in
the seventeenth century. Indeed, this was the strategy most orientalists chose
to undermine the doctrine. Johann Heinrich Hottinger, for instance, was well
54)
Si ullus fuit inter haereticos liber, qui suae falsitatis characteres in fronte quasi et toto
vulto cuivis legenti ostendit, Coranus est. Hinckelmann, Al-Coranus (see above n. ),
sig. ev.
55)
Hinckelmann, Al-Coranus (see above n. ), sig. g []v.
56)
Hinckelmann, Al-Coranus (see above n. ), sig. lrl []v.
57)
Habet enim et alia, quae se necessitate quadam commendant. Inter quae illud primar-
ium est, quod Coranus totius Linguae hodie norma sit, et suis inde tam familiaris ut non
facile scriptum ullum Arabicum invenias, in quo non Corani sententiae et historiae partim
citentur, partim ad easdem alludatur. [] Ex quo luculenter satis patet, frustra sibi magna
in Arabismo promittere, qui non ad lectionem Corani accedunt. Hinckelmann, Al-Coranus
(see above n. ), sig. gv.
informed about inner-Islamic critics of i #jaz. In his Archaeologia Orientalis

he mentions Albasharia, who is said to have taught that there was nothing
miraculous in the Koran.58 Hottinger also had information about Notami-
nus, i.e. Ibrahm ibn Sazzar an-Naz. z. am (d. between u. ) who had
propagated a doctrine called .sarfa:59 an-Naz. z. am claimed that the style of the
Koran is not absolutely inimitable, and that Muhammads pagan adversaries
were not permanently incapable of rivalling the Koran. God, however, had
temporarily averted them from using their rhetorical and poetical skills.60 It
was Edward Pococke who, in his notes to Abu "l-Farajs History of the Dynas-
ties, made these Islamic critics of i #jaz known to European scholars.61 Pococke
mentioned another critic, Abu Musa #Isa B. Subay
. h. al-Murdar (d. /
), who reportedly acknowledged in the Koran no miracle with regard to
58)
Johann Heinrich Hottinger, Orientalis (Heidelberg, ), p. . The
identity of Albasharia is not entirely clear to me. Given the fact that Edward Pococke
(Specimen Historiae Arabum (Oxford, ), p. ) introduces Bashari in his description
of Mu#tazila, we may presume that he refers to Bishr b. al-Mu#tamir (d. between )
who was one of the founding gures of this group. See on him the article by Albert Nader,
Bishr b. al-Mu#tamir, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, ed. H.A.R. Gibb et al.,
vols. (Leiden, ), : aa. Another candidate is the Basra-born poet
Bashshar b. Burd, (nd / th century) who reportedly questioned the inimitability of the
Koran. About him Ignaz Goldziher recounts the following story: From the same time it
is reported that at Basra a group of free thinkers, Muslim and non-Muslim heretics used
to congregate and that Bashar b. Burd did not forego characterizing the poems submitted
to this assembly in these words: Your poem is better than this or the other verse of the
Koran, this line again is better than some other verse of the Koran, etc. Bashar did in fact
praise one of his own poetic products when he heard it recited by a singing girl in Baghdad as
being better than the Surat al-Hashr.
. Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies [Muhammedanische
Studien], ed. S.M. Stern, trans. C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern, vols. (London ),
: . See also Kermani, Gott ist schn (see above n. ) pp. and and R. Blachre,
Bashshar b. Burd, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, ed. H.A.R. Gibb et al.,
vols. (Leiden, ), : aa.
59)
In Muhammede plerique, praeter elegantiam Alkorani, nihil habebant, cui vel miraculi
speciem praetexerent; mox tamen, nihil in eo occurrere, quod miraculi haberet colorem,
docuit Albasharia. Notaminus, quo Notamii qui & postea Hagetani, asserunt, nihil con-
tinere Alkoranum, quod communem sortem superet. Hottinger, Orien-
talis (see above n. ), p. .
60)
On an-Naz. z. ams doctrine see Martin, Inimitability (see above n. ), Jan van Ess, an-
Naz. z. am, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, ed. C.E. Basworth et al., vols.
(Leiden, ), : ab and Kermani, Gott ist schn (see above n. )
pp. .
61)
Pococke, Specimen (see above n. ), p. .
eloquence and elegance.62 Pococke was also the rst to print a detailed Islamic
account of the doctrine of i #jaz, by the great philosopher and jurist al-Gazal

().63
August Pfeier (), was a Lutheran professor of theology and
Oriental languages in Leipzig.64 In his polemical treatise Theologiae sive potius
Judaicae atque Mohammedicae seu Turcico-Persicae principia sub-
lesta et fructus pestilentes, published in , Pfeier too referred to the Islamic
critics quoted by Pococke and Hottinger.65 These were of great use in his
attempt to prove his conviction that there are some sermonis osculos inter-
spersed in the Koran, which display some sort of elegance: But they are rare
swimmers in a vast abyss.66 Pfeiers conclusion is anything but new. It is his
reasoning rather which deserves our attention, for to make his opinion appear
well-founded and objective, Pfeier grounded his argument on classical Arabic
poetics, which were already well known in Europe. As we mentioned before,
Johann Fabricius had provided, in his Specimen Arabicum, an account of al-
Khall ibn Ahmads
. ve circles of Arabic metrics. A few years later, Filippo
Guadagnoli, in his Arabic grammar (), wrote a chapter De
Arte Metrica.67 Pierre Vattier later based his essay De la Prosodie Arabique on
Guadagnolis outline of Arabic metrics.68 These attempts, however, were all
superseded by Samuel Clarkes ! Scientia metrica et rhythmica,
seu tractatus de prosodia Arabica, published together with Pocockes Carmen
Tograi.69 At the beginning of this treatise, Clarke lists a number of Arabic def-
initions of central terms of poetics. Among others, he also adds the deni-
tion of a verse given by al-Khall: Versus sic denunt: "# $!% &'(!) "* +,-
62)
Ibid.
63)
Ibid., pp. .
64)
On August Pfeier see Christian Gottlieb Jcher, Allgemeines Gelehrtenlexicon, vols.
(Leipzig, ), : and Johannes Wallmann, Pfeier, August, in Religion
in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Hans Dieter Betz, vols. (Tbingen, ), : .
65)
August Pfeier, Theologiae sive potius Judaicae atque Mohammedicae seu
Turcico-Persicae principia sublesta et fructus pestilentes (Leipzig, ), p. .
66)
Nec negamus Alcorano hinc inde interspersos esse sermonis osculos, aliquam elegantiae
speciem prae se ferentes: Sunt autem rari nantes in gurgite vasto. Pfeier, Theologiae (see
above n. ), p. , quoting Vergil, Aeneid ,.
67)
Filippo Guadagnoli, Breves Arabicae Linguae Institutiones (Rome, ), pp. .
68)
Pierre Vattier, Lelegie du Tograi, avec quelques sentences tires des Potes Arabes, lhymne
dAvicenne, et les Proverbes du Chalife Gali (Paris, ), pp. .
69)
Edward Pococke, . &'%/ Lamiatol Ajam, Carmen Tograi [] Accessit tractatus de
prosodia Arabica (Oxford, ). On Samuel Clarke see Toomer, Eastern Wisedome and
Learning. The Study of Arabic in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, ), pp. .
Sermo habens metrum et rhythmum, ex intentione perfecta.70 A linguistic utter-

ance must therefore possess rhyme and metre to be considered verse. It was this
standard Arabic denition with which Pfeier assessed the Koran: Two things
are required from an Arabic poem: rhyme and metre. Pfeier then plays his
trump card: one indeed nds rhymes in the Koran, but they are halting and
imperfect, like those in the vernacular songs of aspiring poets. There are, admit-
tedly, two Suras in the Koran with some sort of a metrePfeier here alludes
to Filipo Guadagnolis De arte metrica, which had quoted two Koranic passages
to illustrate his account of classical Arabic metrics.71 But Pfeier had also read
Scaligers discussion of the Korans style, and he knew that the Koran did not
follow a consistent metre in one of the ve classical metrical circles. It is there-
fore contrary to classical Arabic poetry, in which short and long syllables always
alternated regularly, with a strict pattern of repetition: the Koran combines
long and short verses without any order, from which it seems that Muhammad
poured out verses just as they fell into his mouth.72 This was indeed a striking
point, for Pfeier could thus argue that the Koran did not even comply with
the basic rules of Arabic poetry. The same conclusion was drawn some years
later by Ludovico Marracci, Pope Innocent XIs confessor who, in , pub-
lished his great Latin translation of the Koran, made directly from the Arabic
and accompanied by a long Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani.73 Marracci,
like his predecessor, was careful not to impose his own poetical rules on the
70)
Samuel Clarke, ! Scientia metrica et rhythmica, seu tractatus de prosodia
Arabica (Oxford, ), p. .
71)
See Guadagnoli, Breves Institutiones (see above n. ), pp. and .
72)
Stylus porro totus rythmicus est; licet rythmus supra modum aectatus et plerumque
claudus sit. Metricus tamen an sit, non inepte quaeritur. Neget id Josephus Scaliger [].
Sed si rem recte aestimemus, animadvertimus Minerval solvisse. Ad carmina Arabica duo
requiruntur: Rhythmus et Metrum. Is in Alcorano datur, sed claudus valde et imperfectus,
qualem in quorundam Potastrorum nostrorum vernaculis carminibus deprehendimus.
Metrum itidem in eo observatur, sed mixtum et valde licentiosum, quod aegre patitur se
cogi ad quinque circulos seu genera carminum Arabicorum et caret certa [gr........] metric,
adeoque carmina ut plurimum parit , quae Italis versi Sciolti appellantur, et saepe
t, ut versus curti cum aliis duo jugera longis nullo ordine combinentur, unde apparet
Muhammedem carmina fudisse, prout in buccam cadebant. Aliquando tamen metri Arabici
rationem exacte observatam deprehendimus, et hinc omnino negandum non putamus
stylum Alcoranicum ex parte esse metricum. Pfeier, Theologiae (see above n. ), pp.
.
73)
Ludovico Marracci, Alcorani Textus Universus ex correctioribus Arabum exemplaribus
summa de, atque pulcherrimis characteribus descriptus (Padua, ). The Prodromus had
already been published separately in four volumes in .
Koran, and to measure it instead against Arabic poetics. The Muhammadans,

claimed Marracci in the second part of his Prodromus, consider the Koran the
greatest of all miracles. This is why they call every sentence in it ayat, which
meant verse, but also miraclefrom which it follows that there are as many
miracles in the Koran as there are verses.74 Marracci himself, however, had read
and re-read the Koran many times and had to confess that Not in one sura, not
in ten, not in any of them could I nd one little miracle, not even the shadow
of a miracle.75 Nothing in the Koran was worthy of any admiration. Indeed,
one could nd a certain cadence, as well as rhymes after the manner of Etr-
uscan songs or Leonine verses. But since it was all written sine ulla tamen certa
regula metri, the Koran would be surpassed not only by European authors,
but also by Arab poets themselves, who always follow a strict metre in their
poems.76
In challenging the beauty of the Koran on the terms of Arabic poetics,
Marracci and Pfeier sought support for their claim that, even from an Arab
perspective, the loose and prosaic style of the Koran had little aesthetic value.
But the apologetic and ideological aim of their study of Islam and of the
Koran prevented them from taking the Muslims own perspective into serious
consideration. For if they had done, they would have realised that, in the
eyes of Muslims, the Korans inimitable beauty was due precisely to the fact
of its dierence from, and transcendence of, all other poetic forms. And so,
rather than acknowledging the Muslim ecstatic appreciation of the Koran,
Pfeier insisted on the precedence of his own perception: Ultimately, we
are not moved by its limping rhymes, nor by its irrational cadences, still
74)
Mahumeti miraculorum maximum esse Alcoranum, communis est Doctorum Mosle-
morum sententia. Imo caetera ejus miracula prae hoc parvi, vel nihil faciunt. Omnes Alco-
rani periodos vocant 01 , signa, vel miracula: quasi tot miracula contineat, quot periodos:
quamvis, ut superius vidimus, multo plura miracula, quam periodos in Alcorano contineri
quidam arment. Ludovico Marracci, Prodromi ad refutationem Alcorani pars secunda,
in Marracci, Alcorani Textus Universus (see above n. ), .
75)
Ego sane a capite ad calcem totum legi, ac multoties relegi: atque, ut melius intel-
ligerem, adhibui praecipuorum Doctorum Moslemorum glossas, et commentaria: et neque
in unica sura, neque in decem, neque in omnibus miraculum ullum, vel umbram miraculi,
potui reperire: imo plures ineptias, nugas, fabulas, errores, mendacia inveni. Ibid., .
76)
Quicumque Arabicae linguae sunt peritiores, rident, ac derident insanam hanc Alcoran-
icae elegantiae jactantiam. Mihi sane nihil in illo apparet, quod venustatem aliquam possint
cordati homines existimare; nisi uxus quidam in ne sententiae desinentis in rhythmum,
more carminum Etruscorum, seu versuum, quos Leoninos appellant, sine ulla tamen certa
regula metri. In quo non solum a nostris Poetis, prasertim Etruscis, verum etiam ab ipsis
Arabibus, qui metro deinde scripserunt, longe superatur. Ibid., .
less by its licentious metres, which any idler with a little natural gift could
produce.77
Coincidentally, it was a former student of August Pfeier in Leipzig, Andre-
as Acoluthus, who tackled this methodological incongruity, in his Tetrapla Alco-
ranica, sive specimen Alcorani quadrilinguis ().78 In a critical examination
of Florimond de Raemonds () anti-Protestant pamphlet Historia de
ortu, progressu, et ruina haereseon huius saeculi (), in which the traditional
arguments against the Korans stylistic beauty are repeated, Acoluthus oered
the rst Christian attempt to challenge the view that in toto Alcorano nihil est
verbis elegans:79
With this assertion, Raemundus publicly exposes his rotten ignorance about what kind
of book the Koran is and presents an open testimony that he never read it. Everyone
who can read the Koran in its original language recognises the exquisite elegance in its
words: This is the enticing Siren, who soothes the souls of the Muhammadans with her
pleasant speech and persuades them of the divine origin of the book itself. If this decep-
tive make-up were wiped o the Korans ugly cheeks, nobody would dare kiss them.80
77)
Nec denique nos movent claudi ejus rythmi [] et aequaliter cadentes sine mente
soni, imo nec licentiosa metra, qualia quilibet scurra naturae favore paululum sublevatus
eundere posset. Pfeier, Theologiae (see above n. ), p. .
78)
For Acoluthus see Alastair Hamilton, A Lutheran Translator for the Quran. A Late
Seventeenth-Century Quest, in The Republic of Letters and the Levant, ed. Alastair Hamilton
et al. (Leiden, ), , there .
79)
Licet si verum dicere velimus, in toto Alcorano nihil sit vel verbis elegans, vel sententiis
lectum atque argutum, quod lectoris animum detinere possit; sed taetra quaedam inni-
torum errorum, deliriorum, mendaciorum & blasphemiarum raphsodia [sic] et colluvies:
ut merito dici possit, in nullis qu umquam usquam prodierunt scriptis, Deum veritatem
iudiciorum suorum contra eos qui ad coeleste lumen oculos cladunt, clarius manifestasse,
quam in Alcorano. Florimond de Raemond, Historia de ortu, progressu, et ruina haereseon
huius saeculi (Cologne, ), p. .
80)
Judicium tamen Raemundi de Stilo Alcorani cap. praeced. latum, intactum relinquere
non possum. (Florimundus Raemundus: de ortu, progressu ac ruinis haeresium Seculi XVII
.) Dicit: In toto Alcorano nihil est verbis elegans. At vero hoc ipso asserto mire se prostituit
Raemundus, putidae ignorantiae suae, quis qualisve liber sit Alcoranus, et quod sibi nun-
quam sit lectus, publicum testimonium aerens. Omnes, qui Alcoranum in lingua originali
norunt legere, exquisitam in verbis elegantiam deprehendunt. Haec illa illecebrosa Siren,
Muhammedanorum animos suaviloquio suo demulcens, et Divinam libri originem ipsis
persuadens. Hic ille fucus, qui si ab Alcorani deformibus buccis abstergeretur, nemo foret,
qui daret basium. Cum igitur Raemundus ne quidem externam Alcorani formam noverit,
multo minus internam habebit perspectam. Utriusque ignarus, non sine ingentis temeri-
tatis et malitiae nota, nostram Evangelicorum doctrinam Alcorano conformem proclamat.
Imo neque nostrae doctrinae tantam ipsum notitiam habuisse, quanta ad instituendam ejus-
Acoluthus, of course, had no sympathy at all for Islam.81 But he wondered,

like many of his fellow Christian scholars, how this abominable superstition
could have attracted and bewitched so many people in such a short time. Since
the beginning of Christian encounters with Islam, it had been a commonly
accepted opinion that Muhammad and his followers had spread their faith by
force and terror. But the complete failure of all Christian missionary attempts
in Muslim countries soon made it obvious that this reasoning fell short. Appar-
ently, Muhammads false religion was most appealing to millions of people,
who freely and fervently submitted to it. It was by reason of his missionary
zeal,82 above all, that Acoluthus became the rst European scholar to take seri-
ously the Muslims veneration of the Korans beauty. Against Biblianders state-
ment, that nullus Alcorano inest lepos aut suavitas Orationis, quae lectorem
detinere possit,83 Acoluthus held that:
I myself have seen the Muhammadans so deranged by the elegance and grace of rhymed
prose, that, when it came to be expressed in the recitation or rather the chanting of the
Koran, they raised their contorted eyes to the sky, in the passion of their devotion and
their astonishment at the exquisite words, and they showed other signs of veneration for
the Koran (of such kind are the kisses respectfully given to the book, and the application
of hands composed in the form of a cross to the chest). But besides the rhyme, the
phraseology of the Koran too is ornate with much charm, which only the reader of
the [Arabic] Koran can observe, and which cannot be expressed in Latin or any other
language.84
To understand the attraction and appeal of the Koran, Acoluthus focused on

his own observation, and on the experience of Arabic-speaking Muslims when
listening to its recitations. Taking the Muslims experience as decisive, there
dem cum ali quvis comparationem requiritur, credo rmissime. Facessat igitur cum suo
judicio, quod nec sana ratio dictitat, nec pietas. Andreas Acoluthus, Tetrapla Alcorani, sive
specimen Alcorani quadrilinguis [] (Berlin, ), pp. .
81)
See Hamilton, A Lutheran Translator (see above n. ), .
82)
Ibid., .
83)
See above n. .
84)
Scilicet Rhythmi quidem eleganti et concinnitate Muhammedanos ego ipsemet vidi
ade dementatos, ut, quando in recitatione vel cantillatione potius Alcorani idem exprimen-
dus venit, contortos in capite oculos coelum verss, prae devotionis ardore, et exquisitorum
verborum admiratione, elevrint, aliave signa venerationis Alcorani, (qualia sunt Osculum
libro reverenter datum, vel manuum in crucis formam compositarum ad pectus applicatio
&c.) ediderint: Praeter rhythmum tamen ipsa quoque Alcorani phraseologia lepore mul-
tiplici ornata est, quem non nisi lector Alcorani observare potest, in Latino autem aliove
idiomate exprimere, nemo valet. Acoluthus, Tetrapla Alcorani (see above n. ), p. , n. .
could be no doubt about the extraordinary beauty of the Koranregardless

of whether some European scholars, who could not even read it in its original
language, claimed otherwise.
Andreas Acoluthuss assessment is indicative of a new approach to the Koran.
It is structurally and methodically in line with other works on Islam, with
which the discovery of Islamic culture entered a new phase. Both Richard
Simon in his Histoire critique de la Crance & des Cotumes des Nations85 and
Adrian Reland in his De Religione Muhammedica,86 for instance, based their
descriptions exclusively on authentic Islamic sources. An account from within,
they argued, which draws on interpretations that Muslims themselves give of
their creed, is not prone to prejudice and misrepresentation, and should thus
enable Christian readers quiils se defassent de quantit de prjugs quils ont
contre cette Religion.87 Acoluthuss account of the Koranic style follows this
very methodology: with regard to the Muslims ecstatic responses to recitations
of the Koran, there could be no doubt that this text had a marvellous eect on
Arabic speakers.
Like Andreas Acoluthus, Henri Comte de Boulainvilliers wanted to give a

rational and credible account of the causes of the rapid spread of Islam. The
principle explanation he oers in his Vie de Mahomed () is Muhammads
political prudence. In Boulainvilliers eyes, Muhammad had conceived a reli-
gious and political system perfectly adapted not only to the manners, customs
and opinions of his compatriots, but to the opinions and ideas of men in
general. Muhammads revelation was tellement proportionn aux ides com-
munes du Genre humain [] quiil a entrain plus de la moiti des Hommes
dans ses opinions, en moins de XL. annes.88 There was, in other words a
general truth in Muhammads teachings. Tout ce quil a dit est Vrai, par
raport aux dogmes essentiels la Religion.89 And even though he adds that
85)
Richard Simon, Histoire critique de la Creance et des cotumes des nations du Levant.
Publie par Le Sr. De Moni (Frankfurt, ).
86)
Adrian Reland, De Religione Muhammedica, libri duo (Utrecht, ).
87)
Simon, Histoire critique (see above n. ), p. .
88)
On pourra juger par l des fondements sur lesquels Mahomed a tabli un sistme
de Religion, non seulement propre aux lumires des ses Compatriotes, convenable leurs
sentiments et aux moeurs dominantes du Pas; mais encore tellement proportionn aux
ides communes du Genre humain, quil a entrain plus de la moiti des Hommes dans
ses opinions, en moins de XL. annes []. Henri de Boulainvilliers, La Vie de Mahomed
(London, ), pp. .
89)
Boulainvilliers, Vie de Mahomed (see above n. ), p. .
Muhammad, unlike Christ, did not oer the whole truth, it becomes evident,
that Boulainvillierss Mahomed was the prophet and statesman of the Deists,
who had established his religion on the pillars of natural religion and natural
law.
But the success of Islam rested on more than political prudence and an
extraordinary knowledge of human nature. And it did not depend on mili-
tary coercion. Instead, it derived in a large part from rhetorical persuasion:
how extraordinary must a mans rhetorical power be, when, without the aid of
miracles, he can persuade the greatest and wisest men to accept a mysterious
and inexplicable speech to be of divine origin?90 He adds, with open admi-
ration: Javoue quil est dicile de penser sans tonnement un tel pouvoir
de lloquence humaine, se prsentant dailleurs sans adoucissment et mme
avec une hauteur si oensante, quil doit les hommes & les Anges de rien
composer dgal ce quil donnoit au Public.91
For dierent reasons, Boulainvillierss rhetorical argument proved highly
inuential. On the one hand, it obviously related to the popular view of
Muhammad as the cunning impostor, who seduced and deceived the Arabs
with the help of trickery and grandiloquence. On the other hand, it also
reected the long seventeenth-century preoccupation with the rhetorical power
of enthusiasts. Furthermore, it bore the seed of a new poetical, or rather anthro-
pological, concept: the Genius. The English solicitor George Sale, who four
years later presented his groundbreaking English translation of the Koran,
developed Boulainvillierss argument in these two directions: Very extraor-
dinary eects are related to the power of words well chosen and artfully
placed, which are no less powerful either to ravish or amaze than music it-
90)
Il est aussi ncessaire de faire attention aux choix des moyens employez par ce nouveau
Lgislateur pour enyvrer les hommes du mme entousiasme qui agissoit en lui. Moyens,
qui paroissent se rapporter une parfaite connoissance du caractre de ceux sur lesquels il
sest repos, pour excuter un si grand ouvrage sous sa conduite, ou pour le perptuer aprs
sa mort: mais qui regardent plus particulirement le don de persuasion qui toit en lui;
par lequel il est venu -bout, non pas damener des hommes grossiers une doctrine mis-
terieuse, inexplicable, et nanmoins propre toucher limagination; mais les plus sublimes
Hros de leur sicle, en valeur, en gnerosit, en moderation, en sagesse; (Hros desprit &
dintelligence aussi-bien que de sentimens:) et de les convaincre de la maniere du monde
la plus sche, & la plus contraire lamour propre; en leur imposant la ncessit de croire
tout ce quil lui plaisoit de leur annoncer, sans tre dailleurs second par aucun miracle,
ni prestige, ni don mis au rang des surnaturels. Bolainvilliers, Vie de Mahomed (see above
n. ), pp. .
91)
Ibid., p. .
self.92 In Sales preface, the idea of rhetorical power ruled out all other expla-
nations for Muhammads success. For Sale it was evident that the harmony of
expression which the Arabians nd in the Korn, might contribute not a little
to make them relish the doctrine therein taught, and give an ecacy to argu-
ments which had they been nakedly proposed without this rhetorical dress,
might not have so easily prevailed.93
The rhetorical power of false prophets and religious enthusiasts was a recur-
ring theme in seventeenth-century literature.94 Sale refers to a treatise by Meric
Casaubon, who claimed from a medical and pathological perspective that all
manifestations of enthusiasm could be explained naturally.95 In the chapter on
Rhetoricall Enthusiasm in his Treatise concerning Enthusiasm () Casaubon
gave a detailed account of the demagogical power of enthusiastick operation
upon others, which was acted out by false prophets who claimed divine inspi-
ration.96 In his view, enthusiastic speech, often reported by ecstatic persons,
was a product of natural diseases such as melancholy and epilepsy, rather than
of divine or demonic inspiration. This was also the case with Mohammeds
rhapsodic visions: [A] naturall disease was his rst inducement. Some call it a
Palsie; but more, and I believe more truly, [] an epilepsie, or epilepticall dis-
temper: of which he made that advantage, as to beget himself Divine author-
ity.97 This pathological explanation, however, was rejected by George Sale.
Instead he stressed the rhetorical ingenuity of Muhammads revelation. In his
eyes the enthusiastic and passionate diction of the Koran was the product not
so much of a hot brained religionist, as of a brilliant orators rhetorical strat-
egy. The Arab prophet displayed an outstanding talent in the choice and use
of the rhetorical devices best suited to captivating his audience: Mohammed
seems not to have been ignorant of the enthusiastic operation of rhetoric on
the minds of men [] wherein he succeeded so well, and so strangely capti-
92)
George Sale, The Koran, Commonly called The Alcoran of Mohammed []. To which is
prexed a Preliminary Discourse (London, ), p. .
93)
Ibid.
94)
See Ronald A. Knox, Enthusiasm. A Chapter in the History of Religion, with Special
Reference to the XVII and XVIII Centuries (Oxford, ).
95)
A thorough account of Casaubons and Henry Mores medical critique of enthusiasm
is given be Michael Heyd, Be Sober and Reasonable. The Critique of Enthusiasm in the
Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries (Leiden, ), pp. .
96)
Meric Casaubon, A Treatise Concerning Enthusiasme as it is an Eect of Nature, but
is Mistaken by Many for either Divine Inspiration, or Diabolic Possession (London, ),
pp. .
97)
Ibid., p. .
vated the minds of his audience, that several of his opponents thought it the
eect of witchcraft and enchantment, as he sometimes complains.98
What is striking, from a historical perspective, about Sales and Boulain-
villiers rhetorical approach, is the fact that it oered an excellent way of acco-
modating the Korans style to its original historical and cultural context, and
thus of accounting for its stylistic characteristics, which were entirely opposed
to European taste. For in order to captivate and persuade, Muhammad had to
rely on expressions and forms of speech that were adapted to the expectations
and tastes of its Arab audience. Hence, the unnecessary repetitions of rhymes,
which in Sales opinion were made too frequently and which appeared to him
ridiculous, are well justied by the applause they received from the Arabs:
The Arabians are so mightily delighted with this jingling, that they employ
it in their most elaborate compositions, wrote Sale in his description of the
Koranic style.99
Moreover, as with Boulainvilliers, Sales assessment of the Korans style was
accompanied by a positive appraisal of its theological content. More overtly
even than Boulainvillierss biography, Sales preface displays the inuence of
anti-Trinitarian views of Mohammed as a reformer of original religious
truth.100 His description of the great Doctrine of the Koran is accompa-
nied by an equally laudatory account of its sublime and magnicent style:
The style of the Korn is generally beautiful and uent, especially where it
imitates the prophetic manner, and scripture phrases. It is concise, and often
obscure, adorned with bold gures after the eastern taste, enlivened with orid
98)
Sale, The Koran (see above n. ), p. .
99)
Tho it be written in prose, yet the sentences generally conclude in a long continued
rime, for the sake of which the sense is often interrupted, and unnecessary repetitions too
frequently made, which appear still more ridiculours in a translation, where the ornament,
such as it is, for whose sake they were made, cannot be perceived. However the Arabians
are so mightily delighted with this jingling, that they employ it in their most elaborate
compositions, which they also imbellish with frequent passages of and allusions to the Korn,
so that it is next to impossible to understand them without being well versed in this book.
Sale, The Koran (see above n. ), pp. .
100)
For instance in the following passage: After he began by this advantageous match to live
at his ease, it was that he formed the scheme of establishing a new religion, or, as he expressed
it, of replanting the only true and ancient one, professed by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, and all the prophets, by destroying the gross idolatry into which the generality of his
countryman had fallen, and weeding out the corruptions and superstitions which the latter
Jews and Christians had, as he thought, introduced into their religion, and reducing it to its
original purity, which consisted chiey in the worship of one only God. Sale, The Koran
(see above n. ), pp. .
sententious expressions, and in many places, especially where the majesty and
attributes of GOD are described, sublime and magnicent.101
This sentiment was unheard-of among western scholars. Sales prophet was
a rhetorical genius and the captivating sublimity of his revelation clearly antic-
ipated the Romantic concept of Muhammad as a Dichterprophet and a
Genius. Der Styl des Korans, Johann Wolfgang Goethe later echoed Sales
praise of the beauty of the Koran ist seinem Inhalt und Zweck gem: streng,
gro, furchtbar, stellenweis wahrhaft erhaben; so treibt ein Keil den andern und
darf sich ber die groe Wirksamkeit des Buches niemand verwundern.102
It was precisely this persuasive power of a Genius over his fellow men, that
Goethe wanted to show on stage when, in Autumn , he began writing his
play Mahomet: Alles, was das Genie durch Charakter und Geist ber die Men-
schen vermag, sollte dargestellt werden, und wie es dabei gewinnt und verliert,
Goethe tells us later in his autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit.103 He started
work on this oriental dramaeventually left unnishedjust after the publi-
cation of the rst German Koran by David Friedrich Megerlin. The reactions to
this translation in the German literary journals were unanimously critical. The
piece was attacked not only for its hostile view of Muhammad, but also because
Megerlin had completely failed to convey the spirit of Muhammad, his power-
ful and aective speech, as Johann Bernhard Koehler pointed out in the Allge-
meine deutsche Bibliothek.104 Goethe, for the same reasons, called it a miserable
production, far below his expectations. He longed for a translator, who would
become an oriental himself, read the Koran in a tent under oriental skies
and who would at the same time develop real Dichter- und Prophetengfhl
in order to deliver an authentic German version of the Koran.105 For Goethe,
101)
Ibid., p. .
102)
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Noten und Abhandlungen zu besserem Verstndnis des
weststlichen Divans, in Goethes Werke, ed. Erich Truuz, vols. [Hamburger Ausgabe]
(Hamburg, ), : .
103)
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit, in Goethes
Werke, ed. Liselotte Blumenthal et al., vols. [Hamburger Ausgabe] (Hamburg, ),
: .
104)
Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek (), , there . On eighteenth-century
German translations of the Koran see Marc-Oliver Rehrmann, Ehrenthron oder Teufelsbrut?
Das Bild des Islams in der deutschen Aufklrung (Zrich, ).
105)
Megerlins Koran. Diese elende Produktion wird krzer abgefertigt. Wir wnschten,
da einmal eine andere unter morgenlndischem Himmel von einem Deutschen verfertiget
wrde, der mit allem Dichter- und Prophetengefhl in seinem Zelte den Koran lse,
und Ahndungsgeist genug htte, das Ganze zu umfassen. Frankfurter gelehrte Anzeigen
December , p. . By far the best analysis of Goethes orientalism is given by
the Koran was the work of a Dichterprophet, which only a translator of con-
genial imagination could grasp. The failure was unfortunately repeated by
the next German translator, Friedrich Eberhard Boysen () who, in
, presented Der Koran oder das Gesetz fr die Muselmnner, made directly
from the Arabic. Koehler, again, saw no poetical sentiment in this version,
since Boysen had similarly failed to convey the text of the original.106
But although Boysen did not meet his audiences expectations, the story of
his endeavour to translate the Koran will give us a good idea of the interest of
mid-century German orientalists in the Koran. Twenty years after George Sales
English translation, the revelation of Islam had become a model of ingenious
religious poetry, which demanded a translator of congenial spirit.
As early as , some years after he had nished his studies under Christian
Benedikt Michaelis in Halle, writing his dissertation on Koranic descriptions
of Jewish and Christian rituals,107 Boysen was already thinking about translat-
ing the Koran into German.108 From the beginning, however, he seems to have
been hesitant. Not only was he unsure whether he would be able to master
its linguistic diculties109he also worried about adequately translating the
splendour of Muhammadan muse, the audaciousness of its rhythm, the abun-
dance and variety of its images.110 In fact, it needed a poet to render this work
of passionate oriental poetry into German: I should need your spirit, Boy-
sen wrote in a letter to the inuential German poet Johann Wilhelm Ludwig
Andrea Polaschegg, Der andere Orientalismus. Regeln deutsch-morgenlndischer Imagination

im . Jahrhundert (Berlin, ), pp. .
106)
[W]ir knnen nicht behaupten, da der Hr. Oberhofprediger sein Original eiig
studirt, mit poetischer Empndung bersetzt, und den Text des Originals in der Ueber-
setzung zu treen gewust habe. Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek Anh. , vol. (),
, there . Other critics were of the same opinion, as for example Benedict von
Schirach in his Magazin der deutschen Critik, vols. (Halle, ), : .
107)
Friedrich Eberhard Boysen, Dissertatio philologica, ritualia quaedam Codicis Sacri Ex
Alcorano illustrans (Halle, ).
108)
See his letter to Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, April in Briefe vom Herrn
Boysen an Herrn Gleim (Frankfurt, ), pp. .
109)
In his Gedanken, wie man der arabischen Literatur aufhelfen knne, und solle, Johann
Jacob Reiske was to give a disillusioning description of these challenges. See Geschichte der
kniglichen Akademie der schnen Wissenschaften zu Paris (), .
110)
Von der Pracht der muhammedischen Muse, von der Khnheit in ihrem Schwunge,
und von dem Reichthume und der Mannigfaltigkeit ihrer Bilder, habe ich, wie Sie selbst
wissen, nicht urtheilen knnen. Boysen to Gleim, September , in Briefe vom Herrn
Boysen an Herrn Gleim (Frankfurt, ), p. .
Gleim in , if I would translate the Koran; such re and majesty is in this

poem!111 When his translation nally appeared in , Boysen expressed the
hope that his work could at least give a reliable account of the true concepts of
Muhammads system of religion, and rectify the many misleading prejudices
about Muhammads philosophic religion.112 But Boysen also openly admit-
ted that he had failed to imitate the singular style of the Koran: I was not able
to express the melody which the original text has to such a great extent and
which very often renders it obscure. I admit I have not been able to express
the vivid spirit of the poet, and not the sublime and fervid swing he creates.
But I doubt that this impetus of the oriental spirit can ever be translated into
our language.113
Although Boysen presented just another prosaic translation of the Koran,
his commentaries on the Korans poetic qualities show how much the atti-
tude to the Koran had changed by this time. Appreciation for what many
eighteenth-century oriental scholars regarded as philosophic, reasonable and
simple theological teachings was accompanied by an enthusiastic interest in
the Korans rhetorical and stylistic qualities.
The single most important factor in this development, however, is found
in the discovery of an energetic language of passion, which early Romantic
writers began to see as characteristic of original oriental poetry. The language
of Reason is cool, temperate, rather humble than elevated, Robert Lowth said
111)
Ihren Geist mste ich haben, wenn ich den Koran bersetzen wollte; so viel Feuer und
Hoheit ist in diesem Gedichte! Boysen to Gleim, April in Briefe vom Herrn Boysen
(see above n. ), pp. , there p. .
112)
Wenigstens ho ich durch meine Uebersetzung zu wahren Begrien von Muhammeds
Religionssystem befrderlich zu seyn, und meine Leser auf die grossen Vorzge aufmerk-
sam zu machen, durch welche unsere christliche Religion sich von jenem unterscheidet.
Prideaux hat in dem Leben Muhammeds die grbesten Unwahrheiten niedergeschrieben,
und sowol den Charakter des Religionsstifters verunglimpft, als auch sein Lehrgebude
verkehrt vorgestellt. Muhammed wollte eine philosophische Religion einfhren, und es war
ihm mehr darum zu thun, seine Parthey durch kurze sinnreiche Aussprche, und durch
khne Vergleichungen zu belustigen, als ihren Verstand durch Schlsse und Beweise zu
berzeugen. Friedrich Eberhard Boysen, Der Koran oder das Gesetz fr die Muslemnner
durch Muhammed den Sohn Abdall (Halle, ), p. .
113)
Nur des Melodische, welches die Urschrift im vorzglichsten Grade hat, und wodurch
sie nicht selten dunkel wird, hab ich nicht ausdrcken knnen. [] Ich gesteh aufrichtig,
dass mirs nicht mglich gewesen ist, das lebhafte Gefhl des Dichters, und den hiedurch
erweckten erhabenen und feurigen Schwung in meine Sprache zu bringen, ich zweie auch,
dass sich diese Antriebe das orientalischen Geistes in unsre Sprache bertragen lassen.
Boysen, Der Koran (see above n. ), p. .
in his lectures On the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews: The language of Passion
is totally dierent: the conceptions burst out in a turpid stream, expressive
in a manner of the internal conict; [] In a word, Reason speaks literally,
the Passions poetically.114 In this groundbreaking account of Hebrew poetry,
Lowth declared poetry to be an art derived from nature alone, which was,
originally, not conformed to rule and method, but had to be attributed to
the more violent aections of the heart, the nature of which is to express
themselves in an animated and lofty tone, with a vehemence of expression
far remote from vulgar use.115 What, however, is particularly striking about
his work is the fact that Lowth oered, as it were, a Christian version of the
i #jaz doctrine. By referring to its allegedly unsurpassed antiquity, sublimity, and
energy, the Bishop of Oxford declared the poetry of the Old Testament to go
beyond any ospring of human genius. Instead, it was an emanation from
heaven, Lowth claimed, not gradually increasing by small accessions, but
from its birth possessing a certain maturity both of beauty and strength.116
Lowths conclusion provoked a highly interesting debate among eighteenth-
century German Biblical scholars. Both the German editor of the Praelectiones,
Johann David Michaelis, and his follower, the young Johann Gottfried Herder,
immediately noticed and criticised the anity between Lowths argument and
the Islamic doctrine of i #jaz. I am not one of those, who, because of the
elegance of the words and the poetic divinity of the diction dare to assert the
proper and true divinity of sacred texts, as the Muhammadans used to do of
their Koran because of the inimitable beauty of its poetry, wrote Michaelis in
the Notae et epimetra to Lowths lectures.117 For no human being would
ever be able to distinguish between what in a poem was truly divine and thus
went beyond human capabilities from what was merely a product of human
faculties.118 Instead of emphasising the divinity and uniqueness of Hebrew
114)
Robert Lowth, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, vols. (London, ), :
.
115)
Ibid., : .
116)
Ibid., : .
117)
Non is sum, qui ex verborum elegantia, poeticaque divinitate dictionis propriam et
veram divinitatem literis sacris, ut Corano olim suo ex inimitabili poematis pulcritudine
Muhammedes, asserere audeam. Johann David Michaelis, In Roberti Lowth praelectiones de
Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum notae et epimetra (Oxford, ), p. vii.
118)
Quis enim mortalium ita metiri aliorum ingenia mortalium, (quorum hucusque men-
sura nulla mathesisque reperta est) possit, ut, quid vere divinum in poesi sit, vimque
humanam superet, ab humana facultate discernat? Quis neget, suum cuique scriptori a
Spiritu Sancto ingenium relictum, ut cum nihil habeat Jobi poema simile, secundus ab illo
poetry, Michaelis, in his commentaries and various reviews of the Praelectiones,

underlined the proximity of the sacred verses of the Old Testament to Arabic
poetry. He initiated a comparative approach to the Bible, which was to become
the main concern of late eighteenth-century German scholars.
On exactly the same grounds Herder, in his early Essay on a History of Lyrical
Poetry (), questioned Lowths slippery conclusion, according to which
a work must be divine in its poetry because there is so much vividness in its
imagery, so much re in its evocation of sentiment, so much poetic nature and
vigor in its expression of thought and so much poetic harmony. Herder too
emphasised the anity of Lowths argument with the Muslims belief that its
beauty is the greatest proof of the Koran. However, from his secular view
of the history of mankind, he found it impossible to determine up to this
point human genius was able to raise poetic art, but this is beyond its power
and calls for a higher origin. For in order to answer this question, writes
Herder, one would need a perfect insight into the capacities of the human
soul and an exact knowledge about how far natural capabilities can advance
the animation of thought, aective expression, the harmony and phrasing of
poetic images.119
Michaeliss and Herders critique was directly aimed at Robert Lowths apo-
logetic conclusion. But at the same time, it was also a critical assessment of i #jaz
on the grounds of enlightened assumptions on the history of mankind. Herder,
in his Essay on a History of Lyrical Poetry, oered a historical and anthropolog-
ical explanation of such forms of deication. For him, the hypothesis, that
Moses sit, tertius, sed longo intervallo, David; non tamen desint, qui nollo dicitionis cultu
aut sublimitate commendentur. Objici etiam, non dicam, toti argumentationis generi, sed
tamen his, qui ita argumentantur, potest: varios esse sensus hominum, non eadem omnibus
pulcra aut sublimia videri. Ibid., p. viii.
119)
Man hat eben die poetische [!] Schnheiten dieser Gedichte oft unter die Beweise der
Gttlichkeit gezhlet, so wie dies bei den Arabern der greste Beweis fr ihren Koran
ist: allein wie schwer ist die genaue Bestimmung der Frage: so weit hat menschliches
Genie die Schnheit der Dichtkunst heben knnen; allein dies geht ber seine Krfte, und
fodert einen hhern Ursprung! [] Wie viel Kenntni der Seele wrde zu diesem Grunde
erfordert, die wir jetzt noch nicht haben. Wie weit kann man aus natrlichen Fhigkeiten die
Lebhaftigkeit der Gedanken, den Ausdruck des Aekts, den Wohlklang und die Anordnung
der poetischen Bilder treiben. Wie weit haben ihn die Morgenlnder bei den Vortheilen
ihrer Denk- und Lebensart, ihres Zeitalters, ihrer Gegend und Sprache treiben knnen!
Und was ja natrlich entstehen kann, bei dem kann ja dies Natrliche nicht ein Beweis des
Uebernatrlichen seyn. Johann Gottfried Herder, Versuch einer Geschichte der lyrischen
Dichtkunst, in Herders smmtliche Werke, ed. Bernhard Suphan, vols. (Berlin,
), : , there .
poetry is of divine origine, was a false conclusion, resulting from lack of histor-
ical insight in early phases of human development.120 The divine [Die Gt-
tlichkeit], he claims, was nothing other than a consequence of ignorance, fear,
and devotion, a title of honor invented by the mob. Like Michaelis before
him, Herder too was much more interested in a historical and comparative
analysis of the poetry of the Old Testament, an analysis, he says, which would
regard the sacred poetry, as far as it is poetry, in human terms and analogi-
cally with that of other peoples.121 On the other hand, this critical attitude
did not prevent him from sharing Lowths enthusiastic appraisal of Hebrew
poetry as the oldest document of the human spirit. In his comparative histor-
ical approach, Arabic poetry, the Koran and documents of pagan Urpoesie and
mythology were presented alongside the Songs of Solomon and the Book of
Job. It is in the context of Boysens work that we nd yet another most remark-
able testimony to this comparison between the Bible, the Koran and pagan
poetry.
Just one year after Boysens translation, Gleim published a poetic adaptation
of the Koran: Halladat or the Red Book. Written in iambic pentameters and
divided into suras the text propagates enlightened ideas of philanthropy,
tolerance, and natural religion, and tries to recreat an oriental mood using
numerous repetitions, parallelisms, metaphors and allegories.122 In a letter to
Lessing, February , Gleim described his intentions: I always wanted to
write a Bible. This idea recurred again and again, and was enlivened by the well-
known dispute over inspiration, about which I had many occasions to converse
with our scholars. I heard Michaelis in Gttingen and Boysen in Quedlinburg,
speak of the divine Muhammad, in the same terms as my dear Lessing speaks
of the divine Homer. And Boysen told me last summer about his translation
of the Koran. I argued that verse should be translated into verse, and I only
wanted to give him a sample of the verse form. But soon there were two, three
and more samples, and in a few weeks, in few hours I would dare to say, the Red
120)
Und wozu ntzt diese Hypothese: die Poesie hat einen gttlichen Ursprung; sie erklrt
nichts: sie fodert selbst noch Erklrung. Sie erklrt nichts, denn sie sagt eigentlich blos: ich
sehe Wirkungen, die ich nicht aus natrlichen Ursachen herleiten kann: folglich kommen
sie von Gott: ein Schlu der Barmherzigkeit, der alle weitere Untersuchung aufhebt []
Ibid., : .
121)
Es bleibt also selbst bei der Theopneustie, die sich ber Worte ausbreitet, noch immer
erlaubt, die heilige Poesie, so fern sie Poesie ist, menschlich und analogisch mit andern
Vlkern zu betrachten. Ibid., : .
122)
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Halladat oder Das rothe Buch (Hamburg, ).
Book was written. And if the Genius that inspired three chapters in me every
morning could have only visited me more often, I think I could have written
more than one Koran.123
Gleims letter is a striking testimony to the relationship between the secular
Romantic idea of an inspired original genius, and the theological concept of the
divine inspiration of Sacred Scripture. For Gleim and his circle the boundaries
between Bible, Koran, Greek mythology and ingenious poetry have completely
dissolved. Inspired by the visits of a Genius, Gleim could not only dream of
writing a new Bible, but in doing so even compete with the Biblical prophets
themselves. In his view, the Old Testament prophets were interchangeable with
the divine Muhammad and divine Homer, and his initial project to write a
new Bible could therefore easily be changed into a project for a new Koran.
But still, there remained a considerable resistance to such a view of the
Koran, even among enlightened German orientalists and Bible scholars. In a
long review of Boysens translation, of which I have elsewhere given a detailed
analysis,124 Michaelis strongly advised against any attempt to transform the
Koran into a pleasing masterpiece of taste [gefallendes Meisterwerk des Ge-
schmacks]. Because of the traditional apologetic concerns, Michaelis stuck to
the view that there was no aesthetic value to be found in the Koran. It would
be much easier, he argued, to render the works of Christian Wol into verse
than to give a poetical translation of the Koran.125
Some years ago Stefan Wild provided an excellent analysis of the nagging resis-
tance to such a translation among Western scholars, even to this day. The domi-
nant Western orientalist attitude has been indeed a remarkably a-historic and
123)
Das ganze Geheimniss aber ist dieses: ich wollte schon in meiner ersten Jugend immer
eine Bibel schreiben. Dieser Gedanke kehrte bei manchem Anla und bei dem bekannten
Streit ber die Inspiration, von dem ich mit unsern Gelehrten zu sprechen mehrmals
Gelegenheit hatte, fast tglich immer lebhafter zurck. Ich hrte den Hofrath Michaelis zu
Gttingen und den Consistorialrath Boysen zu Quedlinburg von dem gttlichen Mahomet
sprechen wie meinen Lessing vom gttlichen HomerBoysen aber sagte den vorigen
Sommer mir von seiner Uebersetzung des Korans. Ich behauptete, dass Verse mssten in
Verse gedolmetschet werden, und wollt ihm eine Probe nur der Versarten geben. Es wurden
der Proben zweie, dreie etc., und so entstand in wenigen Wochen, in wenigen Stunden,
knnt ich mit Recht sagen, das rothe Buch; und htt ich dem Genius, der mich in mancher
Morgenstunde zu dreien Capiteln begeisterte, lngere Besuche verstatten knnen, so wrde,
glaub ich, noch mehr als ein Koran entstanden sein. Gleim to Lessing, February ,
in Briefe von und an Lessing (), ed. H. Kiesel (Frankfurt, ), p. .
124)
Loop, Aufgeklrte Debatten (see above n. ).
125)
Michaelis, Orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek (see above n. ), : .
subjective depreciation of the Koranic style, which, from a normative per-

spective, blatantly questions the aesthetic experience and judgment of Mus-
lims themselves.126 Nevertheless, certain Western Arabists still have a dier-
ent attitude. Scholars such as Johann Jacob Reiske, perhaps the greatest of
the eighteenth-century Arabists, passionately argued that any translation of
the Koran should allow for the Muslims own interpretation of their revela-
tion: All that counts is the meaning, which Muslims themselves nd in the
Koran. What would we say to a Muslim, who would translate the New Tes-
tament and would pour his philosophical broth out over it without a thor-
ough knowledge of Christian Theology?127 Such also was the conviction of
Claude-Etienne Savary, who, in produced what Alastair Hamilton calls
the apotheosis of eighteenth-century translations of the Koran.128 The trans-
lation was made during Savarys stay in Egypt under the eyes of the Arabs,
and claimed to be the rst European translation to capture the rhetorical
and poetical renements of the Koran. For nobody, said Savary, who read
one of the existing translations could ever imagine que le Coran est le chef-
doeuvre de la langue Arabe fconde en grands Ecrivains.129 In Savarys pref-
ace, we nd all the arguments that had been made in the course of the eigh-
teenth century for a poetic translation. He acknowledges the Korans outstand-
ing inuence on the subsequent literary tradition of the Arabs, its rhetorical
power, and the persuasive genius of Muhammads sublime and enthusiastic
speech, which had meanwhile become an object of anthropological and his-
torical interest to the philosophes: [L]e Philosophe y verra les moyens quun
homme appuy sur son seul gnie, a employ pour triompher de lattachement
des Arabes lidoltrie, & pour leur donner un culte, & des loix; il y verra
parmi beaucoup de fables, & de rpetitions, des traits sublimes, & un ent-
housiasme propre subjuguer des peuples dun naturel ardent.130 More than
anything else, Savarys French translation aimed to preserve the Korans magic
126)
Wild, Schauerlich de (see above n. ), .
127)
Es kmmt nicht darauf an, was fr einen Sinn manche Stellen haben knnen, der sich
auch gar wohl schickete, sondern was fr einen Sinn die Muhammedaner darinn nden.
Was wrden wir zu einem Muhammedaner sagen, der, ohne unsere Theologie in ihrem
weitesten Umfange zu kennen, eine Uebersetzung vom neuen Testamente machete, und
seine philosophische Brhe darber hingsse? Reiske, Gedanken (see above n. ),
.
128)
Alastair Hamilton, The Forbidden Fruit: the Koran in Early Modern Europe (London,
), p. .
129)
Claude-Etienne Savary, Le Coran, vols. (Paris, ), : viiiix.
130)
Ibid. : vii.
of style, its energy and sublimity, but also its prophetic and mysterious obscu-
rity: Jai respect cette obscurit, aimant mieux laisser la pense obscure, que
de laoiblir en lclaircissant.131
Savarys translation is just another proof of the fact that, at the end of the
eighteenth century, the Koran was widely perceived as a work of sublime ori-
ental poetry and captivating rhetoric. However, it might be objected that by
reducing the Koran to a masterpiece of poetry, Western orientalists again failed
to grasp the actual meaning of i #jaz and imposed just another subjective inter-
pretation on the Koran. On the other hand, it is evident that the Islamic rev-
elation shared the fate of the Hebrew Old Testament, which had undergone a
very similar process of poetical secularisation. And it is against the background
of this poetical secularisation and equalisation of Koran and Bible that Joseph
von Hammer-Purgstall could state at the beginning of the nineteenth century:
Poetic works reect the divinity of the Genius. [] That is why the Koran is
Gods word.132
Dr. Jan Loop

The Warburg Institute
University of London
Woburn Square, London WCH OAB
loopjan@gmail.com
131)
Persuad que le mrite dun Traducteur consiste rendre loriginal avec vrit, je me
suis eorc de faire passer dans notre langue les penses de lAuteur, avec le coloris, la
nuance qui les caractrisent; jai imit autant quil a dpendu de moi la concision, lnergie,
llvation de son style; & pour que limage soit ressemblante au modle, jai traduit verset
pour verset. Le ton prophtique que prend Mahomet fait quil senveloppe souvent dombres
qui lui donnent un air mystrieux; jai respect cette obscurit, aimant mieux laisser la pense
obscure, que de laoiblir en lclaircissant. Ibid., : xixii.
132)
In den Werken der Dichtkunst spiegelt sich die Gottheit des Genies. [] Daher ist
der Coran Gottes Wort. Hammer-Purgstall, Proben (see above n. ), .
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Church History

God has sent down the most beautiful word2

In and the Austrian orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall

incondite;insupportable stupidity, in short!13 This was also the opinion

Mohammeds mistake consists in persistent and slavish adherence to the semi-poetic

German Biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis claimed in .17 On the

in Baghdad, where he learned Arabic. During this time, he also gained a

However, although he acknowledged the Korans allusions to poetical language,

It need hardly be said that Ricoldo found no evidence of a miracle in the

to this conventional polemic, however, Bibliander emphasises, in his justi-

Biblianders argument was to have a long future.39 Joseph Justus Scaliger

congeruntur, omniaque sparguntur confuse atque perturbate, ut quaedam Labyrintho inex-

Interestingly, Fabriciuss subtle method of undermining the principle of i #jaz,

plan to arrange a critical Arabic edition, referring to similar failed projects in

informed about inner-Islamic critics of i #jaz. In his Archaeologia Orientalis

Sermo habens metrum et rhythmum, ex intentione perfecta.70 A linguistic utter-

Koran, and to measure it instead against Arabic poetics. The Muhammadans,

Acoluthus, of course, had no sympathy at all for Islam.81 But he wondered,

To understand the attraction and appeal of the Koran, Acoluthus focused on

could be no doubt about the extraordinary beauty of the Koranregardless

Like Andreas Acoluthus, Henri Comte de Boulainvilliers wanted to give a

Andrea Polaschegg, Der andere Orientalismus. Regeln deutsch-morgenlndischer Imagination

Gleim in , if I would translate the Koran; such re and majesty is in this

poetry, Michaelis, in his commentaries and various reviews of the Praelectiones,

subjective depreciation of the Koranic style, which, from a normative per-

Dr. Jan Loop

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