George Sale

For A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical,[2] an English translation and enlargement of Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique,[3] Sale supplied "Articles relating to Oriental History".[6] Sale's footnotes provide the literal translation where it differs from the idiom of the body text; he gives alternate variant readings; and supplementary historical and contextual information.[7] Though he did not place Islam at an equal level with Christianity, Sale seemed to view Mohammad as a conqueror who sought to destroy idolatry and a lawgiver who managed to change and supplant many practices in Arabia: The remembrance of the calamities brought on so many nations by the conquests of the Arabians may possibly raise some indignation against him who formed them to empire, but this being equally applicable to all conquerors, could not, of itself, occasion all the detestation with which the name Mohammed is loaded.But as Mohammed gave his Arabs the best religion he could, as well as the best laws, preferable, at least, to those of the ancient pagan lawgivers, I confess I cannot see why he deserves not equal respect, though not with Moses or Jesus Christ, whose laws came really from heaven, yet with Minos or Numa, notwithstanding the distinction of a learned writer, who seems to think it a greater crime to make use of an imposture to set up a new religion, founded on the acknowledgment of one true God, and to destroy idolatry, than to use the same means to gain reception to rules and regulations for the more orderly practice of heathenism already established.Sale prefixed a Preliminary Discourse to his translation covering topics including Arabs "before hijrah"; the State of the Eastern Churches, and Judaism, at time of Mohammed; the Peculiarities of the Quran; positive and negative Doctrines and Instructions of the Quran; and political Islam in the 1730s.In his eighth essay on False Prophecy, Sale notes Muslim Sects both Canonical (Maleci, Hanefites, Hanbali and Shafi‘i) and "heretical" (Shi'ism).
Title page of a first edition of Sale's translation
George Sale (academic)OrientalistsolicitorVoltairePierre BayleDictionnaire historique et critiqueCanterburyKing's School, CanterburyInner TempleSociety for Promoting Christian KnowledgeSurrey StreetThe StrandSt Clement DanesJohn Carteret, 2nd Earl GranvilleO.M.D.Louis Maracci's Arabic edition and Latin translationPreliminary discourseDutch Church, Austin Friarsal-BaydāwīLights of Revelation and the Secrets of InterpretationBodleian LibrarySir Edward Denison Rossidolatryhijrahpolitical IslamMazdakFalse ProphecyMuslim SectsMaleciHanefitesHanbaliShafi‘iShi'ismArabicNew TestamentPersianOttoman TurkishOxfordUniversal Historycosmogonyheretical opinionsClaude Etienne SavaryRadcliffe Library, Oxfordbelles-lettresIbn KhallikānKeith Ellisonwas sworn inLibrary of CongressThomas JeffersonRashida TlaibIlhan Omarpublic domainCousin, John WilliamA Short Biographical Dictionary of English LiteratureWikisourceBayle, PierreBernard, John PeterBirch, ThomasLockman, JohnProject GutenbergInternet ArchiveLibriVox