L'Alcoran de Mahomet. Traduit de l'arabe, par Andre du Ryer, sieur de la Garde Malezair, avec la traduction des Observations historiques & critiques sur le mahometisme, mises à la tete de la version angloise de M. George Sale

8vo, LII + 472 pp + 476 pp. Folding map of Arabie plus engraved fronts and 3 folding plates (Table généalogique des tribus arabes naturels" + "Table généalogique des tribus des arabes naturalistes qui sont les défendans d Ismae + Plan du temple de la mecque), Bound in original full brown calf, spine with 5 raised band richly gilt. The first ed. was print by Antoine de Sommaville, 1647 Paris. André du Ryer (c. 1580 1660) studied Arabic and Turkish in Egypt in the early 1620s when he served as vice-consul for French traders in the eastern Levant. In 1631, he accompanied the French ambassador to Istanbul where they began collecting Oriental manuscripts and antiquities for their "cabinets of wonder," but such pursuits on the part of Europeans were not independent of political goals. As the Thirty Years War raged, European countries turned to the Islamic world for possible alliances against mutual adversaries. The French in Istanbul discussed cooperation with the Turks, as Holland did with Morocco; there were discussions in 1627 of a Franco-Persian alliance against the Ottomans. Europeans also turned to the large Eastern Christian populations in the Ottoman empire for supportand it was in this period that European powers began a process of co-opting these minorities, the disastrous results of which continue to resonate even today.…