Scholars debated whether to render Allah’s epithets as merciful or pitying

Evidence

The seventeenth-century critic who corrected the manuscript wished to reverse this, but Mark is at least arguably right. This critic could make mistakes: he began badly by correcting the first verse of stirah 11 from zn isto libro non est dubitandum to non est erratum (Maracci: non est dubtum in eo); but in the case of the divine epithets he was following the majority opinion of his age. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1927

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why did seventeenth-century translators prefer ‘miserator’ (pitying) over ‘misericors’ (merciful) for ‘rahman’? The theological valence of pity vs mercy in the divine context would be worth unpacking.