Title:

Suratae unius atque alterius textum ejusque explicationem ex commentario quodam arabe dogmata Alcorani, verba maxima, minimaque explicante literatae genti ad felicius refutandum atque solidius dijudicandum, de versione tam Alcorani, quam commentatoris Muhammedanae religionis ; speciminis ergo ponebat Johannes Zechendorff scholae cygneae rector

Short title

Suratae unius atque alterius textus

Title variations

Title in English

The text of one and the other Surah and their explication, taken from a certain Arab commentary explaining the dogmas of the Qur’an, its most significant and lesser words, submitted to the learned public by Johann Zechendorff, headmaster of the Zwickau Latin for a to better refutation [of the Qur’an] and a more solid judgment of the translation and well as of the commentator of the Mohammedan religion

Section

Language

Latin

Creation date

1647

Genre

Translation of the Qur’an

Content

Translation

Content table

Formal Expression

Prose

Qur'an quotations

Yes

Original

Source

Use (macro-category)

Academic / Scientific

Use (micro-category)

Bibliographical references

Asaph Ben-Tov, “Johann Zechendorff (1580-1662) and Arabic Studies at Zwickau’s Latin School”, in: Jan Loop, Alastair Hamilton, and Charles Burnett (eds.), The Teaching and Learning of Arabic in Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2017), pp. 57-92., Ben-Tov, "Johann Zechendirff", in Christian Muslim Relations. vol. 9 Western and Southern Europa (1600-1700), ed. David Thomas and John Chesworth (Leiden, 2017), pp. 850-5.)

Descriptive card

This is Zechendorff's second qur'anic "specimen". Like the earlier publication, it contains the Arabic text of two short surahs 101 (The Disaster) and 103 (The Declining Day). Unlike the earlier Specimen Suratarum, Zechendorff here si not concerned with the truth value of these surahs (from a Lutheran pint of view) but rather with the explication with the aid a Muslim commentary -- in this case the tafsir by Baydawi, a copy of which he had received as a gift from some former pupils and was studying intensively. In his later years Zechendorff sold his copy of Baydawi to the city of Zurich. Though the task of reading the Qur’an via Baydawi turned out to be too difficult for the Zwickau autodidact, it is nonetheless a pioneering feat. This is one of the first published attempts by a European scholar to understand the Qur’an with the aid of a Muslim commentary.

Entry author

Asaph Ben Tov