A 17th century Swede writes on the Qur'an

[Qur'an]. Esberg, Johan [praes.] / Fahlen, Erik [resp.]. [Adghath ahlam al-Qur'an] sive historiola Alcorani et fraudum Muhammedis.

€ 1,800.00

A very early Swedish treatise on the Qur'an (and, careful not to appear too interested, on "Muhammad's deception"). The woodcut tailpiece is a Qur'anic verse (sura 56:79): "Let only the pure touch it" (known as the "nemo tangat nisi mundatus" formula in Latin), derived from Schickard's "Jus regium Hebraeorum" (Leipzig, 1674). "Koranic quotations in the work are in Hebrew characters, owing to the lack of Arabic types, as the author explains in an additionally printed preliminary leaf. On p. 48 the author prints a quotation from the Testamentum published by Nicelius in 1655" (Smitskamp).

The author, among his many pursuits, was a professor of Greek at Uppsala University, and later superintendent of Gotland. Johan Esberg (1665-1734) was theologically curious, and allegedly ran into some trouble with his Protestant university after it came to light that not only did he keep up a correspondence with the Pope, but Esberg had in fact once written to the Pope declaring he needed 300 scudi to pay off book purchases, for which he was willing to publicly convert to Catholicism. Esberg successfully argued to his employers that this had been carried out "in a delirium" and kept his position.

The respondent Erik Fahlen (d. 1710) was, similarly, Professor of Oriental Languages and Greek in Pernau.