Der Koran - El-Koran o, HaMikra. Translated from Arabic into Hebrew by Hermann (Tzvi Chaim) Reckendorff.

(ISLAM).

C.W. Vollrath

Leipzig

1857

FIRST HEBREW EDITION. Additional title-page in German. Introduction in Rashi script, full text and footnotes in square Hebrew characters. Ex libris Y. S. Avidor.

FIRST EDITION OF THE KORAN IN HEBREW. 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 16th-century, none were executed from the Arabic original directly, but rather from Italian or Latin translations. This therefore is the very first printed translation of the Koran into Hebrew. See EJ, Vol. X, col. 1199. The work contains an extensive introduction wherein the author points out specific themes in the Koran that stem from Rabbinic sources. The author also acknowledges his scholarly debt to Abraham Geiger’s “Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen?” (Bonn, 1833).