Iḵẖwanu-ṣ-safā, or Brothers of purity / translated from the Hindūstānī of Ikrām 'Alī, by John Platts; carried through tne press by Edward B. Eastwick.

  • Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Iḵẖwanu-ṣ-safā, or Brothers of purity / translated from the Hindūstānī of Ikrām 'Alī, by John Platts; carried through tne press by Edward B. Eastwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in general, and his knowledge of Arabic in particular, were so meagre as to disqualify him completely for the work he had the hardiness to undertake. And it is on this account that so much nonsense, and so many absurdities appear in his translation. I feel it due to myself to say that I am not judging his work as though it were a literal translation; but as pro¬ fessing “ to give the substance of the original.” Now, so far is he from accomplishing this, that he repeatedly, through his ignorance of Arabic, either turns good sense into nonsense, or alters the meaning of the Arabic into something quite opposed to it, or embellishes it with something quite irrelevant to the matter in hand. And in those parts of the work which touch on Natural History, he has done all in his power to bring into utter contempt the whole mass of scientific knowledge in the possession of the Mohammedan people. These are not mere assertions on my part. Any competent judge can satisfy himself by a com¬ parison of the Urdu work with the original; and the reader will find numerous instances pointed out by me in the notes to my Translation. Regarding the work, however, simply as an Urdu