"OF ACUTE AND WIDESPREAD IMPACT": DE BOULAINVILLIERS ON MUHAMMAD, 1752

BOULAINVILLIERS, Henri, comte de. The Life of Mahomet. London: T. Longman, and C. Hitch & L. Hawes, and J. & J. Rivington, 1752. 12mo, contemporary full speckled calf gilt, raised bands, red morocco spine label. $2200.

Early edition of one of the earliest positive European accounts of the prophet Muhammed and the Islamic empire, in a handsome contemporary speckled calf binding.

Influential French intellectual Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658-1722) wrote on a wide range of topics including history, politics, philosophy, chemistry and—controversially at the time—the life and accomplishments of the founder of Islam. "The thinkers of [the Enlightenment] often evaluated the outstanding wisdom and virtue of ancient lawgivers and founders of religions, and stressed the reasonableness of alien faiths, praising them at the expense of Christianity. De Boulainvilliers had written a Life of Mohammad with the avowed purpose of demonstrating the superiority of Islam to Christianity. He portrayed Mohammad as a wise and enlightened lawgiver, who sought to establish a reasonable religion in place of the dubious dogmas of Judaism and Christianity" (Naqvi, Islamic Studies 20:2, 139). "Boulainvilliers was not the ?rst to present Mahomet as a legislator, but earlier authors such as Stubbe and Toland addressed an Anglophone audience and were thus limited in their reach, whereas Boulainvilliers's work, published almost simultaneously in French (1730) and English (1731), was of acute and widespread impact" (Van der Lugt, Journal of the History of Ideas 78:1, 28). Third edition, following printings in 1731 and 1743. ESTC T110647. Small ink shelving notation on front pastedown.

Text extremely clean with monor effsetting to endpapers; expert restoration to joints, spine and extremities of contemporary calf binding. Near-fine.