'To Rescue the Honour of the Germans': Qur'an Translations by Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth- Century German Protestants

Abstract

If we take 1750 as a vantage point and look back at the achievements of German Protestants in the field of Arabic studies over the previous 150 years, certain features emerge. In contrast to the Catholics, who seem to have attached less importance to the study of Arabic at the time,1 the Protestants of Germany produced some good Arabists in the seventeenth century and one of the very greatest of the eighteenth century. Arabic was studied more widely in the Protes tant areas of Germany than in any other European country. There was a constant flow of Oriental manuscripts into German libraries, and there were numerous Muslim prisoners of war in German territory. Not only did more Germans than citizens of any other nation publish translations of suras from the Qur5an made directly from the Arabic, but more editions of the entire QurJan and more univer sity dissertations on aspects of it were published in Germany than anywhere else in the West.