Marracci edition
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The Marracci edition[1] is an Arabic edition and Latin translation of the Quran from 1698. It was published in two volumes under the title Alcorani Textus Universus Arabicè et Latinè in Padua, Italy by Ludovico Marracci, an Italian Oriental scholar and professor of Arabic in the College of Wisdom at Rome. His version of the Qurʻan included a life of Muhammad, with notes, and refutations of Muslim doctrines.[2][3] The introduction to the work was published several years earlier in 1691, in Latin, titled the Prodromus Ad Refutationem Alcoran.[4] Marracci published his Quran edition only four years after the publication of the Hinckelmann edition.
Marracci believed that for Christians to effectively rebut Islamic doctrine, they had to know it, which contributed to his desire to produce an Arabic edition and translation of the Quran. As such, it was not necessarily meant to be read by Muslims. However, Marracci's initial learning of Arabic came for another reason entirely, as he learned the language under the influence of a local community of Maronites. Before producing his Arabic edition of the Quran, he had produced an Arabic translation of the Bible, having been commissioned to do so with other collaborators by the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. Though the translation was completed in 1649, it was only finally published in 1671 under the title Biblia Sacra Arabica. Marracci would acquire ecclesiastical approval to begin his Quran project in 1691, though he had been petitioning for it years earlier, and in that year he published prefatory material called the Prodromus ("Introduction") for the forthcoming work. He encountered a technical issue in Arabic printing with the Propaganda Fide, but was able to overcome the issue as Padua had recently acquired the necessary technology for this printing as well.
Marracci employed a range of Quran commentaries to inform his work, including those of Ibn Abī Zamanīn, Thaʿlabī, Zamakhsharī, Bayḍāwī, and Suyūtī, as well as texts of the hadith literature, especially Sahih al-Bukhari.[5]