Ludovico Marracci’s Alcorani textus universus (1698)

Federico Stella

The Alcorani textus universus by Ludovico Marracci (1612-1700) was published in Padua in 1698. Of all the complete translations of the Qur'ān into Latin that have survived, it is the only one that presents the vocalized Arabic text in addition to the translation. This work can be considered the foremost early modern translation of the Islamic Holy Book carried out in a Western context, and had considerable impact on the subsequent translations and oriental studies in both Catholic and Reformation Europe.

The book is divided into two volumes: the Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani published in Rome by the Propaganda Fide in 1691 and then reprinted in Padua in 1698; and the Refutatio Alcorani published in Padua in 1698 together with the second edition of the Prodromus. In the second volume, Marracci included the Arabic text of the Qur’ān and the Latin translation, as well as annotations and refutations. In order to acquire a more exhaustive knowledge of the Qur’ānic text, Marracci made use of other Islamic sources, such as commentaries by Ibn Abī Zamanīn, al-Maḥāllī, al-Suyūṭī, al-Bayḍāwī, al-Zamaḫšarī, and al-Ṯaʿlabī.

According to scholars, Marracci’s Alcorani textus universus is the most significant work of translation of the Qur’ān produced in the European Early Modern Age. No other translation of the text of the Qur’ān attained such philological accuracy, nor did anyone base their work on such a broad collection of Islamic commentaries. Evidently, the main goal was polemical: Marracci was firmly convinced that he was working on a tool aimed at helping Christian intellectuals in the refutation of the Islamic doctrines. Despite this clear objective, the Alcorani textus universus still represented a milestone for Christian and European Orientalists in the following century. It was widely quoted at least until the mid-nineteenth century.

The Life and Works of Ludovico Marracci

Ludovico Marracci was born in Torcigliano di Camaiore, near Lucca in Tuscany on 6 October 1612. After joining the order of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God (“Chierici Regolari della Madre di Dio”) in 1627, he went to Rome in 1629, where he attended the College of Santa Maria in Campitelli, and studied philosophy, theology and a number of languages (Greek, Syriac, and Hebrew) until 1638. During these years, he also taught himself Arabic. According to his own statement, Marracci accidentally came into contact with Arabic when he found a paper written in that language inside a book he was studying. Perplexed by this unknown script and seeking elucidation, a Maronite priest told Marracci that the unknown language was Arabic. Fascinated by the discovery, Marracci initially began to teach himself Arabic, and was then helped by the Oriental Christians in Rome with the pronunciation.

After a short stay in Lucca where he taught grammar and rhetoric, Marracci returned to Rome in 1645. In Rome he held various positions in the Roman Curia, especially in the Congregation of Indulgences and Relics, the Congregation of the Index, the Congregation of the Holy Office, and the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, De Propaganda Fide, where Pope Innocent X (r. 1644-1655) asked him to manage the commission responsible for the translation of the Bible into Arabic, the Biblia Sacra Arabica published in 1671-1673. From 1656 to 1699 he was a professor of Arabic Language at the University of Rome La Sapienza, and was the confessor to Pope Innocent XI (r. 1676-1689) about whom Marracci also wrote an unpublished biography.

Among his most significant works, we should note his biography of Giovanni Leonardi, the founder of the order of Clerics Regular of the Mother of God, an Arabic edition of the Officium beatissimæ Virginis, and also his work as a member of the Pontifical commission assigned to study the forged Lead Books of Granada and the translation of the verses on an Ottoman flag captured in the siege of Vienna (1683).

Ludovico Marracci died in Rome on 8 February 1700, just two years after the publication of the Alcorani textus universus.

Catholicism and Islam Studies

During the seventeenth century, several Catholics in Rome were involved in the serious study of Islam and Oriental languages (Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Syriac...) One precursor of this trend was Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1536-1614), who – funded by the Medici family – founded in Rome the Typographia Medicea (1584-1614), which was involved in the project of the publication of the polyglot Bible. Pope Paul V (r. 1605-1621) played a key role in the emergence and development of Oriental studies in Rome: in 1610 he made the study of Oriental languages mandatory in all regular religious orders.

The foundation of Propaganda fide by Gregory XV in 1622 was another crucial factor in the development of missionary activity and, with it, the study of those languages necessary for its success. In 1626 the Congegation founded its seminary, the Collegio Urbano, where priests were trained for missionary purposes.

Towards the end of his life, Raimondi grew closer to the order of the Clerics Regular Minor, also called “Caracciolini”, to which Filippo Guadagnoli (1596-1656) also belonged. Guadagnoli published in 1631 a polemical treatise, Apologia pro christiana religione, written in both Latin and Arabic for missionary purposes. Marracci worked with him on the commission assigned to translate the Bible into Arabic until 1649, when an additional chapter in the new version of Guadagnoli’s book caught the attention of the Holy Office and Propaganda Fide, which eventually prohibited the publication of the work.

Other activities, scholars, and religious orders were also involved in Oriental studies, including the school of the Reformed Franciscans in San Pietro in Montorio, founded in 1622, and the school of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites in Santa Maria della Vittoria, founded in 1626. The year 1626 also saw the foundation of the Propaganda Fide printing works, on the initiative or with the cooperation of some Franciscans like Tommaso Obicini da Novara and Domenico Germano de Silesia.

Equally instrumental in the study of Arabic and Syro-Aramaic as well as missionary activities were a group of Maronites, Arabic speaking Syrian and Lebanese Christians, who had been present in Rome since the foundation of the Maronite College by Gregory XIII in 1580. Among these, Abraham Ecchellensis (Ibrahim al-Haqillani) became one of the most prominent seventeenth century scholars and contributed to the Arabic translation of the Bible. Ecchellensis left Rome in 1645, the same year as Marracci arrived.

Marracci was in contact and worked with some of these linguists and theologians. From 1656 until close to his death in 1699, he was the successor to Guadagnoli, who had replaced Ecchellensis in 1640 as the Chair of Arabic Language at La Sapienza. As a member of the Pontifical Commission assigned to study the forged Lead Books of Granada, which were discovered in the Sacromonte in Granada in 1595 and brought to Rome in 1645, Marracci worked together with the Jesuits Athanasius Kircher and Giambattista Giattini, the Franciscans Bartolomeo da Pettorano and Antonio dall’Aquila, author of a book on Arabic grammar, and Guadagnoli. As a member of the commission for the translation into Arabic of the Bible, he worked with Ecchellensis, Guadagnoli, Kircher, Giattina, the Capuchin Brice de Rennes, the Carmelite Célestin de Sainte-Ludwina (brother of Jacob Golius and translator into Arabic of Cesare Baronio’s Annales Ecclesiastici), dall’Aquila, and Sergio Risi who was a Maronite bishop in Damascus. These relationships bear witness to the existence of a lively network of Catholic linguists, thinkers, and translators in Rome, of which Marracci quickly became a prominent member.

He was also in contact with Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo, Bishop of Padua, who was the promoter and founder of a school of Oriental languages which was run in the seminary of Padua, where the Arabic language was taught starting out from 1680. The Archbishop of Mardin, Timoteo Agnellini, was one of the most eminent scholars working there. He taught Arabic languages and cooperated with the Padua printing works in printing Oriental books.

The Editorial History

Publishing and translating the Qur’ān in the second half of the seventeenth century was not an easy task. In fact, despite the interest of Oriental languages for missionary and polemical purposes, it was forbidden under the pontificate of Alexander VII (1655-1667). This changed under the pontificate of Innocent XI: Emperor Leopold I defeated the Ottomans in the siege of Vienna in 1683, the Pope and Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo supported Marracci’s work.

Despite this, the Alcorani textus universus, and particularly the Refutatio Alcorani, had a long gestation. Documents belonging to Marracci and preserved in the Roman archives of the order of Clerics Regular of the Mother of God allow us to affirm that he begun working on his translation from the 1650s. This means that he dedicated more than forty years working on the Qur’ān and related Islamic literature. The manuscripts stored in Rome also demonstrate how Marracci reworked his writings several times through retranslations and corrections.

Thanks to his correspondence with the Florentine academic and librarian Antonio Magliabechi, we are now better informed about the phases of Marracci’s work and his attempts to publish it. In fact, he was conscious of the difficulties regarding the publication of a refutation and a Latin translation of the Qur’ān, and at the same time he believed that his goal could be achieved if he found appropriate support within the Vatican and managed to maintain good relations with the Curia.

However, the course along the road towards the publication of his masterpiece was dotted with obstacles. In 1674, he claimed that his work was going to be published since he was sure that the Holy Office would approve the publication, but even in 1677 he was still asking Propaganda Fide to print his work against Islamic doctrinal errors in order to defend the Christian religion. Regarding this request, a peculiar misunderstanding befell Marracci. In the document in which he was asking for the approval to publish his work, the phrase “contro gli errori dei Mahomettani” (“against the errors of the Muslims”) became “contro gli errori dei Mainotti”, who were a group of Greek Catholics living in the Italian peninsula. Propaganda Fide approved the document on 7 July 1677, but due to this strange misinterpretation, Marracci was granted the permission to publish a work against the Mainotti Catholics. Whether this was the voluntary error of a malicious censor or a genuine misunderstanding, the publication of his work was suspended nonetheless.

Further mistakes were committed by the Vatican, Propaganda Fide and censorship, and new objections were raised against Marracci in 1679, 1682, and 1684. He described these as “silly objections” (“frivolissime opposizioni”) but they still had the result of affecting Pope Innocent XI’s opinion negatively. Bureaucratic delays and opposition within the Curia slowed down and delayed the publication for years. Even the support of various cardinals did not avoid Marracci from being denied the approval and permission to print his work. In an Inquisitorial Resolution dated 1684, Marracci’s enterprise is portrayed as an attempt to refute the entire Qur’ān by including the Arabic text divided into parts, with each part followed by the interpretations of Muslim scholars “which are more ridiculous than the Qur’ān itself”. According to this Inquisitorial resolution, Marracci followed the example of Augustine of Hippo and other Fathers of the Church, who quoted passages from the writing of the heretics in order to refute their doctrines. For this reason, the author of the resolution asked for Marracci’s work to be approved. However, despite the words of approval and the comparisons with Augustine and the Fathers of the Church, the Holy Office was not persuaded and on 30 August 1684 refused to sanction the publication of the refutation and the translation. However, on 3 October 1684, the ruling was overturned and Marracci obtained the repeal of the judgment. In spite of this decision, obstacles and delays remained frequent.

In 1688, Marracci told Magliabechi that he had decided to publish only the Prodromus without the Latin translation of the Qur’ān: however, the Propaganda Fide printing works which owned the Arabic characters refused to print it in October 1688. Some eight months later, in June 1689, it approved the printing of Marracci’s work. In the end, the Prodromus was printed at the end of 1691, meaning that it was published before his Latin translation of the Qur’ān, on which he had started to work earlier.

The publication of the Prodromus did not prevent Marracci from being hampered by further impediments. One anonymous reviewer, for instance, opined that the Latin translation would neither help nor advance the conversion of Muslims, but would, on the contrary, simply encourage the reading of a forbidden book. Obviously, Marracci disagreed with this belief. He was convinced that a Latin translation of the Qur’ān would serve as an essential textual tool among the Catholic intellectuals eager to refute the Islamic doctrines. He was aware of the failure of attempts at converting Muslims and Reformed Christians, and believed therefore in the call for a more exhaustive knowledge of Islamic sources.

Marracci’s correspondence with Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo, who played a crucial role in the publication of the Refutatio, inform us that the printing of Marracci’s translation of the Qur’ān begun in the spring of 1692, before later being approved by two members of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God in 1695. After many attempts and much struggle, the work finally saw the light in Padua in 1698.

The Course of the Printed Edition of the Refutatio Alcorani

The Arabic text, Latin translation, critical notes and refutation are contained in the second volume of the Alcorani textus universus with the title of Refutatio Alcorani.

As regards the numbering of the verses, the division of the Arabic text employed in the printed edition has no attestation in any other Islamic tradition. Thanks to Roberto Tottoli’s discovery of Marracci’s manuscripts kept in the Archives of the Order of Clerics Regular of the Mother of God, we are now able to follow Marracci’s numbering process, translation and critical study step by step. In fact, the manuscripts show us that he altered the numbering of the verses several times in the course of his Latin translation up until the final printed edition. Starting from a sense and rhyme-based division of the verses, he gradually attained a division even closer to that of exegetical Islamic literature.

One clue that might help us determine which Qur’ānic text Marracci read is found in a request he made on July 20 1671, when he asked to borrow from the Vatican Library a copy of a sixteenth-century Ottoman Qur’ān featuring the same division of verses seen in certain parts of his translation. However, divergences in many passages do not allow us to state with certainty that he actually relied on this copy.

The issue of the sources Marracci utilized becomes even more perplexing in light of the fact that Theodore Bibliander’s printed edition of Robert of Ketton’s translation (1543/1550), the Italian translation published by Andrea Arrivabene (1547), and André du Ryer’s French translation (1647) were of no use for numbering the verses. Nor could Marracci have been aware of Adolf Hinckelmann’s Arabic text of the Qur’ān published in 1694, since he began to work on the Alcorani textus universus many years before that. Furthermore, the printer in Padua may also have revised and changed the division of the verses: Marracci stated that the Arabic printed text was not the one he used to translate the Qur’ān into Latin, but that it was one incorporated by the typographer. In the posthumous publication L’ebreo preso per le buone (1701), Marracci stated that the typographer in Padua made mistakes in printing his work. He believed that the printer had ruined it.

With respect to Marracci’s Latin style, the manuscripts preserved in Rome help us to understand the revisions that he made while his translation was in progress. From the early handwritten documents, we know that for both his first translation and the glosses he relied predominantly on al-Maḥāllī and al-Suyūṭī’s Tafsīr al- Jalālayn, even though he included the Latin translation in the margins of a copy of Ibn Abī Zamanīn’s commentary, which was the first exegetical work in Arabic he possessed. It could be that, hampered by difficulties of access to manuscripts kept in the Vatican Library, Marracci relied initially on Ibn Abī Zamanīn’s commentary before turning to Tafsīr al-Jalālayn as a more useful source. Regardless of the order in which they were consulted, we can safely assume that Islamic exegetical literature was Marracci’s main route of access to the Qur’ānic text. More research is needed to shed light on the role played by the Maronites in circulating this literature in Rome but we now know that Marracci had access to some of the manuscripts which belonged to the Catholic Scottish traveler George Strachan. He read and copied the Strachan’s copy of Tafsīr al-Jalālayn that had belonged to Strachan, who gave it to the Discalced Carmelites in 1621. The Carmelites brought this manuscript to their monastery in Rome, where Marracci read and copied it, no later than 1 July 1651.

Some passages in the manuscripts concerning the sura 18 illustrate how Marracci developed his work as a translator. As his handwritten documents attest, he initially follows Tafsīr al-Jalālayn exclusively by translating the problematical word al-Raqīm (Q. 18:9) as the tablet on which the names of the Seven Sleepers were recorded. Then, in the subsequent stages of his work, he quotes al-Bayḍāwī, al-Zamakhsharī, and al-Tha‘labī to interpret al-Raqīm as being the name of the Sleepers’ dog.

Evidence demonstrates that Marracci went beyond using the short tafsīrs, by Ibn Abī Zamanīn and Jalālayn. For instance, in a long note dedicated to the identification of al-Khiḍr (Q.18:65) included in the documents which belonged to the second stage of the first layer of his translation, he quotes al-Bukhārī’s ḥadith taken from Jalālayn together with additional exegetical comments of unclear origin.

The final version of the manuscript and the printed edition show that Marracci retranslated the Qur’ān. The last two versions (the last manuscript and the printed edition) also demonstrate that he improved his Latin style and acquired a more in-depth knowledge of Islamic exegetical literature. He thus adopted a more concise and synthetic approach to writing both the text and glosses, and reached the goal of a deeper and less literal understanding.

It bears pointing out that Marracci’s revisions were also motivated by linguistic and stylistic concerns. Whereas the first handwritten versions of his translation follow the standard of early modern scholarly knowledge of Latin, he used a more ‘Arabicized’ Latin as he proceeded towards his printed edition, yielding a translation focused not only on the meaning of the source text, but also aimed at giving the reader a linguistic perception of the Arabic language through Latin words. Marracci called this translation technique “Arabismus latine personatus” (“Arabic disguised in Latin”). Reinhold Glei and Roberto Tottoli studied the sura 18 al-Kahf as an example of this way of Arabicizing the Latin language. According to these two scholars, by following the development of Marracci’s work from the manuscripts to the printed edition, we can see how he imitated Arabic constructions with unusual Latin versions. Thus we find the elative “a‘lamu”, in Q.18.19, translated in the printed edition with the idiosyncratic Arabicized rendering of “scientissimus est”, while the manuscripts have the more fluid and elegant “optime scit” and “optime novit”. Similarly, in Q. 18.21 the expression “al-sā ‘ata lā rayba fī-hā” is first translated as “non esse dubitandum de hora” (“there is no doubt about the hour”), then as “et quod Hora non est dubium de ea” (“and that the hour there is no doubt about it”) in the print version. In other words, as it gets closer to the Arabic language, Marracci’s translation becomes less comprehensible in Latin.

Structure and Content of the Prodromus

The structure of the Prodromus consists of a preface and four indexed books. The preface contains accounts of Muḥammad’s life based on Islamic sources and a history of the origin of the Qur’ān. The first book is dedicated to the refutation of the Islamic doctrine regarding the Biblical prediction of the future coming of Muḥammad and Islam. As proof of the falsity of Islam and like many Christian polemicists, the second book states that no miracles confirm Islam as a true religion: no miracles or prophetic charism can be assigned to Muḥammad. The third book is devoted to a comparative approach between Christian and Islamic doctrines: according to Marracci, by means of this comparison one should be able to distinguish both the divine origin of Christianity and the unholy origin of Islamic revelation. In the fourth book, he attempts to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity, especially in the field of morality, by refuting numerous themes of Islamic religious Law, such as those regarding marriage: in this book, Marracci also undertakes a refutation of the Islamic Five Pillars.

In addition to Christian polemics and Theodore Bibliander’s printed edition of Robert of Ketton’s translation of the Qur’ān, Marracci’s preface also refers to Catholic writers of his time, including Filippo Guadagnoli, Bonaventura Malvasia, Giuseppe Martellino, and Tirso González de Santalla. The latter was the thirteenth Superior General of the Society of Jesus and author of the Manuductio ad conversionem Mahumetanorum (1687), a work which had a great impact on the early modern Catholic controversy against Islam.

Marracci typically starts the debate on Islamic doctrine by claiming that Muslims have much in common with Christians. After this concordistic opening, however, he returns to his primary objective: a harsh to refutation of Islamic beliefs. From this point of view, his work is situated squarely in the tradition of medieval anti-Muslim polemics and missionary approaches. At the same time, he should be regarded as an early modern Catholic, painfully aware of the political and military threat posed by the Ottoman Empire and the comparisons between Catholicism to Islam made by Martin Luther and the Reformed Church as in order to show both religions in a bad light.

Structure and Content of the Refutatio Alcorani

The Refutatio Alcorani consists of 26 pages of introduction, 838 of text and 9 of index. On the title page of the Refutatio, Marracci includes a dedication to Emperor Leopold I (1658-1705), who fought against the Ottomans in Vienna. The Latin words are the following: Sacræ Cæsareæ majestati Leopoldi I Magni Romanorum Imperatoris dicata (“dedicated to His Sacred Cesarean Majesty Leopold I, Great Emperor of the Romans”). The dedication to Leopold I was a request Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo made to Marracci.

The Refutatio begins with a section containing the acknowledgements and an introduction in which Marracci discusses some of the sources, medieval and contemporary, on which his refutation relies. This is followed by the Arabic text and the Latin translation of the Qur’ān. Each sura is introduced by way of the place of origin of the revelation (Mecca or Medina) and the number of verses it is composed of. While for the shorter suras the whole Arabic text is followed by the full Latin translation and then by critical notes and refutations, the longest ones are divided into shorter, more readable groups containing the four elements of the work (text, translation, notes and refutations). In the critical notes which follow the Latin translation, Marracci quotes numerous Islamic sources in Arabic as a basis for an accurate philological reading of the text. The notes also contain references to Jewish and Pagan sources, and the Refutatio mentions two Jesuit polemists not cited in the preface to the Prodromus: Giovanni Lorenzo Lucchesini and Emmanuel Sanz.

Despite its strong polemical outlook, Marracci’s work presents a faithful Arabic transcript of the whole Qur’ān and an Arabicized Latin translation. Furthermore, it portrays Islamic doctrines depicted from a wide range of Islamic exegetical literature and with unprecedented philological accuracy.

The Reception of Marracci’s work

The Alcorani textus universus was a turning point: there is a pre- and a post-Marracci in the Western understanding of the Qur’ān and Islam. In the following century Western and Christian scholars could no longer deal with Islamic matters without taking it into consideration. For instance, the influential English translation of the Qur’ān carried out by George Sale with the title The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1734) made use of Marracci and his refers to Marracci’s Islamic commentaries as its main sources.

Until the early nineteenth century Marracci’s work had a great impact on both Northern European scholarship and among Reformed Christians. German scholars like Andreas Acoluthus and David Nerreter were influenced by the Italian priest. The former published the Tetrapla Alcoranica in 1701, a quadrilingual Qur’ān which showed respect for Marracci’s translation but criticized his theological attitude towards Islam for being excessively lenient. The latter carried out a translation of the Qur’ān from Marracci’s Latin version into German under the name of Mahometanische Moschea (1703). The impact of Marracci’s work is evident in the Elementa linguæ arabicæ of Johann Gottfried Lakemacher (1718) as well as in Christian Reineccius, who published a re-writing of Marracci’s Latin translation with the title of Alcorani textus universusMohammedis filii Abdallae Pseudo-Prophetae Fides Islamitica, i.e. Al-Coranus (1721). Furthermore, two eminent scholars from the Low Countries referred substantially to Marracci’s work: Adrian Reeland included many quotations from the Prodromus and the Refutatio in his second edition of De religione mohammedica (1717), while Emo Lucius Vriemoet cited the Islamic exegetical literature used by the Catholic priest in his Arabic Grammar (1733).

Marracci’s work was not spared criticism in Germany after the publication of Sale’s translation, however. Friederich Eberhard Boysen disliked Marracci’s excessive literalism and disapproved of the tendency to change some Arabic words into Latin. When Johann David Michaelis compared Marracci’s and Sale’s translations he noted the similarities between them but claimed that he preferred the latter version due to its stylistic beauty. In fact, he disliked Marracci’s crude Latin translation and the inclusion of passages from the Qur’ānic commentaries in the text. He published a new translation of sūrah 2 in his student Olaus Domay’s thesis (1754) in which he carried out an elegant translation free from the interpolated commentaries.

Lastly, David Friedrich Megerlin carried out a complete translation of the Qur’ān from the Arabic into German with the title of Die türkische Bibel, oder des Korans allererste teutsche Uebersetzung aus der Arabischen Urschrift selbst verfertiget (1772) which followed and adhered to both Marracci and Sale; then a year later Friedrich Eberhard Boysen published his translation called Der Koran, oder Das Gesetz für die Muselmänner, durch Mohammed den Sohn Abdall which was based on Marracci’s use of the qur’anic commentaries in his Refutatio.

The Alcorani textus universus continued to spread and circulate throughout Europe. Claude-Étienne Savary’s French translation of the Qur’ān (1783) owed so much to Marracci to the extent that the nineteenth century French translator and diplomat Albert Kazimirski accused his compatriot of plagiarism. Then, Der Kleine Koran (1798), a German translation in iambic meter by Johann Christian Wilhelm Augusti, was influenced by the work of the Catholic priest. Furthermore, the outcome and results of Marracci’s endeavors in translation can also be witnessed in the nineteenth century translation of the Qur’ān carried out by Ludwig Ullman (1840), especially in the use of Islamic exegetical literature.

Future research could help to shed more light on the Catholic reception of Marracci. Although this reception has been studied less thoroughly, there are indications that Catholic scholars relied on Marracci at least until the second half of the nineteenth century, and possibly even up until the beginning of the twentieth.

For more information

The research leading to these results has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement no. 810141, project EuQu: “The European Qurʾān. Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1115-1850”.


The present text was initially entered by Word Pro (Latin text) and Mahfoud Kecili (Arabic text). It was then checked by Mouhamadoul Khaly Wele (Arabic) and Tristan Vigliano (Latin). It was parallelized, i.e. entirely renumbered, by Tristan Vigliano: the numbers in square brackets and in orange correspond to the modern numbering, the numbers without brackets and in black to that of the original edition. The XML-TEI encoding was done by Mouhamadoul Khaly Wélé. For initial bibliographical reference, please see:


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