Translation And Misreading Of The Koran

Peter the Venerable, the abbot of Cluny, arrived in Spain in the year1141. Having on his shoulders the responsibility of refuting Islam and its followers, Peter gathered a bunch of Latin scholars who knew Islam and Islamic culture well. Among them the most influential one was Robert of Ketton, the translator of the Latin Qur’an. Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete (Religion of Mohammed the Pseudo-prophet), the Latin Qur’an, was finished from1141to1143, since when it has always been considered the most influential translated version of the Islamic holy book of all Western languages in the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. Any copy of the Qur’an found in the Latin West from the mid12th century to the end of the17th century could almost be certain to be the work of Robert.As my major focal point in this paper, Lex Mahunet pseudoprophete has given us a picture of Islam and its believers reflected in the minds of the Latin scholars, and above all, this paper manages to examine the misunderstanding and deliberate defamation embodied in their translations.Through the translation and misunderstanding in the12th century Latin Qur’an, we can see not only how biased and mistaken the Latin scholars were, but how little the people in the Medieval West and East knew about each other as well, but still, Robert’s work reflected the first extensive intellectual encounter of the two world religions and the historical progress this encounter has entailed. During this process, the cross-cultural interactions between Islam and Christianity, between Muslims and Christians were changing day by day.Generally speaking, Peter and his fellow researchers, and maybe even some of their readers had by then realized the one origin and Unity shared by what we call today the monotheistic religions. Although it imposed limited influence on the violent crusades for centuries to come, this religious consciousness was indeed a step forward compared with the mainstream understanding over Saracens in the Latin West. No doubt, Peter, Robert and other scholars believed that Christianity should positively seek interaction with the Islamic world, and they had tried with the Latin Qur’an of the12th century as a beginning.