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George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed. Translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with explanatory notes, taken from the most approved commentators, to which is prefixed a preliminary discourse by George Sale, Bath: Printed by S. Hazard; for J. Johnson, Vernor and Hood, Ogilvy and Speare, J. Sewell, H. Gardner, and C. and G. Kearsley, London, 1795

In 2 Volumes
Volume I: xii, 248 pp., 266 pp., four plates to Volume I, including three genealogical tables (two folding) and a folding plate featuring a view and the plan of the Temple of Mecca.
Volume II: [6], 519 pp, [12]
Contemporary full mottled calf boards with marbled effect, rebacked in period style with contrasting red and black morocco gilt spine labels, compartments ruled and tooled in gilt, and edges speckled. Original boards with sympathetically restored spine (each)
9 x 5.5 in (each)

THE QUR’AN IN ENGLISH: THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF ISLAM’S SACRED SCRIPTURE, 1795

First issued in 1734, George Sale’s translation of the Qur’an was the first to be rendered directly into English from the Arabic. This elegant 1795 edition continues Sale’s scholarly mission to present Islam to English readers in terms of theological depth, historical accuracy, and cross-cultural clarity—framed by his remarkable “Preliminary Discourse,” a near-book-length essay on the Prophet, Islamic law, and Arabian society.

This 1795 Bath edition of The Koran, translated by George Sale, represents one of the most significant intellectual undertakings of the eighteenth century: the first complete English rendering of the Qur’an translated directly from the Arabic and a foundational text in the history of comparative religion in the West. Originally published in 1734, Sale’s version replaced centuries of indirect and often polemical renderings that had filtered through Latin or French sources—most notably the Latin edition by Ludovico Marracci (1698)—with a work of philological rigour and theological respect.

Sale, a solicitor by profession and an orientalist by conviction, undertook his translation with the assistance of Arabic manuscripts sourced from the Bodleian Library and from earlier Orientalist scholarship. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Sale approached the Qur’an not as an object of denunciation but as a text worthy of detailed scholarly engagement. His intent, as stated in his preface, was to enable English readers to understand Islam “as it really is,” rather than through the distortions of Christian polemic or Crusader myth.

What distinguishes this edition—and Sale’s work more broadly—is the comprehensive apparatus that surrounds the translation. The celebrated “Preliminary Discourse,” which alone spans more than 200 pages, is in effect an encyclopaedic treatise on Islam as understood in the early eighteenth century. It covers the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the historical and geographical background of Arabia, Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), civil law, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and sectarian divisions—offering English readers a systematic and sober account of Islamic belief and practice.

Sale’s explanatory notes, placed throughout the translation, draw on some of the most widely accepted Muslim commentaries (tafsir), including al-Baydawi and al-Jalalayn. This willingness to ground the work in Islamic sources, rather than Western interpretations alone, was unprecedented in English Qur’anic scholarship and earned Sale cautious respect from some Muslim scholars and generations of later Orientalists. Edward Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, praised Sale’s version as “a faithful version… adorned with the most judicious notes.”

This 1795 edition preserves all the major features of the first: the translation, the Preliminary Discourse, and the suite of engraved plates. These include three folding genealogical tables tracing the descent of the Prophet from Ishmael and Abraham, and a detailed engraved view and plan of the Kaaba and the sacred precinct at Mecca—among the earliest such depictions available to a European readership. These visual elements reinforced the Enlightenment project of rendering the sacred legible through image, measurement, and annotation.

The present edition was printed in Bath by S. Hazard and distributed through leading London booksellers, indicating the sustained demand for the work over six decades after its first appearance. Though rooted in the frameworks of Enlightenment rationalism and British imperial expansion, Sale’s Koran remained the standard English translation until the mid-nineteenth century and served as the basis for numerous later translations into both English and other European languages.

As both an object of historical transmission and an act of respectful interpretation, this edition of Sale’s Koran occupies a foundational place in the European engagement with Islamic texts. Its influence extends from academic Orientalism and Christian-Muslim discourse to the shaping of public perceptions of Islam in the Anglophone world. Few religious texts have travelled as far, or with such lasting resonance, through the medium of translation.

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