Translating the Muslim for Christian Europe: Re-assessing the Interpretation of aslama in the First Latin Translation of the Qur’an

Abstract

ABSTRACT Around 1141, Peter the Venerable, one of the most prominent Christian leaders in Europe, commissioned Robert of Ketton, an otherwise undistinguished astronomer from Rutland, to translate the Qur’an into Latin for the first time. His objective was to provide an accurate understanding of the Qur’an, so that Christian refutations of Islam and Muslim belief could be more effective. The resulting text would become the most popular version of the Qur’an in Europe for the next six hundred years. However, the verb aslama, from which the words ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ derive, was so thoroughly paraphrased in this translation that historian Norman Daniel would be moved to condemn it in 1960 for attempting ‘to obscure passages which define the religion of Islam and thin the more specifically Islamic content of the Qur’ān’. Since then, despite a renewed appreciation for his methods in general, recent scholarship on Robert of Ketton’s translation has failed to address this damning accusation in particular. This article therefore re-assesses the handling of the verb aslama in the first Latin translation of the Qur’an, by asking to what extent an authentic understanding of Islam and Muslim belief was provided by Robert of Ketton’s paraphrase.