Note 228 — Chapter X · ISLAM, PAST AND PRESENT

“Neque in hoc me falli opinor cum hodieque non paucos ex nostris, alioquin non indoctos, Mahumeticarum rerum tam rudes videam, ut Mahumetanos Idolatras, Lunæque ac Mahumeti adoratores existiment, aliasque de Agarenica secta ejusque Auctore neptias effutiant.” Alcorani Textus Universus, Tom. I, p. 6 (Patavii, 1698).

Padre Lodovico Marracci, who was a religious of the order of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, was the confessor of Pope Innocent XII. It was in obedience to the command of this Pontiff that he published his great work on the Koran on which he spent forty of the best years in his life. It embraces three folio volumes with the text of the Koran in Arabic, accompanied by a Latin translation and copious notes, and is notable as being the most successful of the earlier attempts to make the Koran and Mohammedanism known to the Christian world.