LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

52 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW XV
which was also printed in both Latin and Greek. 53 In general, these works
attempt, in various ways, to discredit Muhammad as a prophet and expose
the Qur’ân as an erroneous and heretical book.
The final part of The Life, Teachings, and Qur’ân of Muhammad the
Prince of the Saracens is devoted to the history of Islam, particularly the
Ottoman Empire, and testimonies of life under Islamic rule. The Booklet on
the rites and customs of the Turks and Paolo Giovio’s Commentary on the
Affairs of the Turks take up a significant part of the section. Added to it,
however, is a copy of Pope Pius II’s letter to the Turkish sultan Mehmet II
and Mehmet’s response, along with an account of Turkish politics and
another work by Paolo Giovio on the nature of the Turkish military. 54 The
final three works are all regional studies and accounts of what it is like to
live under Turkish rule. 55
By the end of 1543 six editions of the Bibliander’s Life, Teachings,
and Qur’ân of Muhammad the Prince of the Saracens were published (and
another in 1550). It was the sourcebook for information on Islam in the
sixteenth century. From it, later Protestant theologians and pastors were able
to educate and equip the laity for possible confrontations with Islam. 56
(There is even evidence that Catholic Jesuit missionaries used it in their
dialogues with Muslims in India. 57 ) From Bibliander’s edition of the Qur’ân
three vernacular translations were made during the seventeenth century—in
Italian, Dutch, and German (by a Lutheran pastor). 58 Luther’s German
translation of the Refutation of the Qur’ân also proved to remain influential
into the seventeenth century as it was included in two editions of a work
entitled A Short Volume on the Blasphemous Qur’ân and Religion of the
Turk. 59
53 Christianae fidei Exomologesis, sive Confessio, Sarracenis facta, cum primis quidem pia,
& spiritum plane Apostolicum redolens, Graecae & Latine, incerto autore.
54 Ordinatio politiae Turcarum domi & foris, incerto autore and Ordo ac dissiplina
Turcicae militiae, eadem Paulo Iovio autore.
55 First, Ioannis Lodovici Vivis, de conditione vite Christianorum sub Turca, libellus;
second, Quibus itineribus Turci sint aggrediedi, Felicis Petantij Cancellarij Segniae ad
Vladislaum Hungariae & Boëmiae regem liber; and third, Iacobi Sadoleti episcopi
Carpentoractis, de regno Hungarie ab hostibur Turcis opporesso & capto, Homilia.
56 See, for example, Siegfried Raeder, “Die Türkenpredigten des Jakob Andreä”, in
Theologen und Theologie an der Universität Tubingen, ed. Brecht (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr,
1977), 103-6.
57 Bobzin, Der Koran, 274; Stephen Neill, A History of Christianity in India, vol. 1
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 173 n. 33.
58 Bobzin, Der Koran, 275.
59 WA 53:270.