Translated directly from Arabic to Hebrew by Tzvi Chaim (Hermann) Reckendorff

(KORAN).

C.W. Vollrath

Leipzig

1857

FIRST HEBREW EDITION. Two titles, German and Hebrew face-`a-face. Introduction in Rashi script, text and footnotes in square Hebrew characters

FIRST PRINTED HEBREW EDITION OF THE KORAN. This Hebrew translation of the Koran precedes Joseph Joel Rivlin's translation (Tel-Aviv, 1936) by three quarters of a century. Although there exist in manuscript Hebrew translations of the Koran from the sixteenth century, these were not done directly from the Arabic original, but rather from Italian or Latin translations. Ours is the first printed translation of the Koran into Hebrew. See EJ, Vol. X, col. 1199. The book contains an extensive Introduction, wherein the author points out specific themes in the Koran that were borrowed from Rabbinic sources. The author also acknowledges that he excerpts from Abraham Geiger's, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (Bonn, 1833). According to the title, the translator, Reckendorf, was a member of the German Orientalist Society in Halle and Leipzig, and of the Schiller Society. From the memorial, we learn that the author's father, Shlomo Reckendorf, was a teacher of Torah in the Moravian community of Trebitsch