Introduction: The Qur'an in Europe—the European Qur'an

Abstract

This introductory article follows one of the most widely read and used Qur'an editions in Christian Europe, Theodor Bibliander's Machumetis Saracenorum principis, eiusque successorum vitae, ac doctrina, ipseque Alcoran, printed in Basel in 1543 and in a second edition in 1550. The article analyses some of the interpretations, appropriations, and polemical uses that this Qur'an version was exposed to during an age of confessional rivalry and political fragmentation. By doing so, the article tries to show the deep entanglement of the Qur'an in European religious and political discourses. It argues that with regard to the transformations that the Qur'an underwent in its transition from the Islamic-Arabic world to the various Latin and vernacular versions in Europe, as well as with regard to the ways that the Qur'an is read, used, and adapted in Christian and Jewish European contexts, we are confronted with a text genre sui generis–—the European Qur'an.