Early English translators framed the Qur’an as dangerous imposture.

Evidence

Ross thought it prudent to append a ‘needfull Caveat or Admonition for them who desire to know what use may be made of, or if there be danger in reading the Alcoran’. How far it was traditional may be judged from his opening sentence: ‘Good reader, the great Arabian Impostor now at last after a thousand years is by way of France arrived in England, and his Alcoran or gallimaufry of Errors, (a Brat as deformed as the Parent and as full of heresies, as his scald head was of scurffe) hath learned to speak English.’ — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1582

Categorization

• CANDY: The 1649 English framing of the Qur’an as a ‘gallimaufry of Errors’ arriving from France is a memorable, quotable cultural artifact.
• SEED: Angle: how the very first translations of sacred/canonical texts arrived already weaponized — compare to modern translations of controversial texts needing trigger warnings.