To compare with the original, Robert of Ketton has omitted 'in the name of' ( bismillah) from the opening line, and renders al-raheem ('the compassionate') as 'pious' (pius). Suffragium, semitaeque donum et dogma, quos nos ad se beneuolos, nequaquam hostes et erroneos adduxit, iugiter sentiamus. Misericorde pioque Deo, uniuersitatis creatori, iudicium cuius postrema diesĮxpectat, uoto supplici nos humiliemus, adorantes ipsum : suaeque manus The translation- dubbed Lex Mahumet Pseudoprophetes - is most notable for its tendency to paraphrase rather than stick strictly to the wording of the original Arabic. There is no evidence that Hermannus played a significant role in the translation of the Qur'an. Robert of Ketton, who, like his colleague Hermannus Dalmata (originally from modern-day Slovenia), had an interest in astrology and astronomy, divided up the Qur'an into 124 chapters, rather than the standard 114 suras. I have especially marked out all these things for you, so that I might both make clear our studies to such a great friend, and incite that very great magnificence of yours of doctrine- which God has brought together individually for you in our days- to write against such pernicious error." I wanted to do this concerning this particular error of errors, concerning this torch of all heresies (I should say) of all the diabolical sects, which have arisen from the very advent of our Saviour and have continued to remain…You yourselves will recognize on reading, and thus I think you will weep (as is proper), how such a great part of the human race has been deceived by such wicked and despicable filth, and has been turned away so trivially by their founder through the nefarious sect of a most wretched man even after the grace of the Redeemer. "But the whole impious sect, and the life of the wicked man, and the law, which he called the Qur'an and persuaded the most wretched of men that it had been delivered to him by the angel Gabriel from Heaven, I have nonetheless rendered from Arabic into Latin, of course with the help of interpreters skilled in both languages: Robert Retenensis from England, who is now the archdeacon of the church of Pamplona, along with Hermannus Dalmata, a scholar of most acute and literate character…There was in this project my intention, that I should follow that custom of the fathers, by which they have not passed over any of even the most trivial heresies (as I should thus call them) of their times in silence, without resisting them with all the strength of their faith, and showing by writings and disputations that they are to be detested and condemned. The translation had been organized in Christian Spain as part of a wider Arabic-Latin translation project by Peter the Venerable (of the Cluny Abbey in eastern France), who wrote in a letter in Latin to Bernard of Clairvaux Abbey (also in France) regarding the endeavor vis-à-vis Islamic texts: The Western experience of translating the Qur'an dates back nearly 900 years, beginning with one Robert of Ketton in the 12 th century CE.
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