George Sale

Statut : orientalist

1696-1736

Notes : George Sale studied at the Inner Temple in London and was a solicitor by profession, but his practice never flourished due to his scholarly activities as an orientalist. He was an active member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). Under its auspices, he participated in a project to translate into Arabic the New Testament for the benefit of the Arab Greek Orthodox community of Syria and Palestine. He is best known for his translation of the Koran, which was published in London in 1734 together with a long ‘preliminary discourse’, a compendium of all that was known about the religion of Islam. His work was much in favour among the scholars and philosophers of the British and continental Enlightenment; Gibbon made use of it in his History of the Decline and Fall..' (ch. 50), and Voltaire expressed his appreciation of the translation as ‘une traduction fidelle de l'Alcoran’ and ‘une préface la plus instructive’ (Questions sur l'Encyclopédie par des amateurs, ‘Arot et Marot’ (2.172–84). Sale's careful and unemotional approach in both his preliminary discourse and translation ensured that his work remained valuable well into the twentieth century. In his own day, however, it was perceived as propaganda for the Muslim faith, and this may have been the reason for his gradual distancing from the SPCK. Sale also published numerous works in the fields of ancient and oriental history and biography. 11-2010 VC.

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