Il Corano di Marracci (1698) pregi e limiti di un’opera controversa

MARRACCI’S QUR’AN (1698)

MERITS AND LIMITS OF A CONTROVERSIAL WORK

— Ludovico Marracci

FULL TEXT OF THE QUR’AN

Transcribed with the utmost fidelity and in the most beautiful script,
from the most correct Arabic copies,
and translated with equal fidelity and diligence from the Arabic language into Latin;
with notes and refutations added to each chapter.

To all this is prefixed a PROLOGUE,
which occupies the entire first volume,
the contents of which are indicated on the following page.

[translation] Edited by Ludovico Marracci
of the Congregation of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God,
formerly Confessor to Innocent XI, of most glorious memory.

PADUA, 1698
From the Press of the Seminary
With the permission of the Superiors

REFUTATION OF THE QUR’AN

in which the axe is laid to the root
of the Muhammadan superstition;

and Muhammad is struck down with his own sword;

Dedicated to the Caesarean Majesty
of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, the Great Emperor of the Romans,

by the author Ludovico Marracci of Lucca
of the Congregation of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God,
formerly Confessor to Innocent XI, of most glorious memory.

PADUA, 1698
From the Press of the Seminary
With the permission of the Superiors

Sūrah I: Aperiens

“In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate; praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds; the Most Merciful, the Compassionate; Master of the Day of Judgment; You we worship, and You we ask for help; guide us on the straight path; the path of those upon whom You have bestowed favour, not of those who incur wrath, nor of those who go astray.”

Sūrah I: The Opening – 1

In the name of God, the Clement, the Compassionate.
Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds,
the Clement, the Compassionate,
the Master of the Day of Judgment.
You we adore, You we call upon for help.
Guide us to the straight path,
the path of those upon whom You have bestowed grace,
not those who provoke Your wrath, nor those who go astray.

(Translation from Arabic by Ida Zilio-Grandi, Il Corano, Mondadori 2010, p. 3.)

AN EXAMPLE OF REFUTATION

Sūrah CXII: Unificatio

“Say: There is one God; the eternal God; He neither begets nor is begotten; and there is none equal to Him.”

Sūrah 112: The Pure Worship

In the name of God, the Clement, the Compassionate.
Say: “He is God, One;
God, the Eternal;
He neither begets nor is begotten;
and there is none equal to Him.”

(Translation from Arabic by Ida Zilio-Grandi, Il Corano, Mondadori 2010, p. 418)

Refutation (Refutatio)

“If ‘to beget’ and ‘to be begotten’ are understood in the sense intended by Muhammad, then it is certainly true that God neither begets nor is begotten. For he, being rather crude in his thinking, believes that God cannot have a son except through union with a woman. Thus he says in Sūrah 6, entitled: ‘Creator of the heavens and the earth: how could He have a son if He has no wife?’

But if ‘being begotten’ is understood in God in the sense taught by the Christian faith, even the Muhammadans cannot deny it, as we have shown extensively against them in the second part of the Prologue.

To think that generation can only occur through bodily union of male and female is the view of a very foolish and almost bestial man, since many animals are generated without the union of male and female.”

(Translation from Latin)