of an independent work by him on the subject entitled al-Muhadhdhab fî mâ waqa‘a fî al-Qur‘ân min al-Mu‘arrab (A revised presentation of what occurs in the Qur’ân of Arabicized words). On the basis of this information Sprenger penned an article entitled "Foreign words occurring in the Qur’ân" which was published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1852. (1) The treatment was sketchy but Sprenger dwelt on the theme of the Prophet’s supposed authorship of the Qur’ân and remarked that he used to make a parade of these foreign terms and a number of other peculiar expressions. This article of Sprenger’s appears to be the first treatment of a particular Qur’ânic topic published in a specialized journal. It also paved the way for the treatment of the subject in a more elaborate way by subsequent scholars.

Sprenger was in fact engaged at that time in preparing a work on the life of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) in which he dealt elaborately with the Qur’ân. He and another official of the English East India Company, William Muir, had strong evangelical sympathies and both were in close touch with the well-known Protestant Christian Missionary Carl Gottaleb Pfander who was then engaged in missionary activities in Bengal and northern India. Pfander’s activities ushered in a new era of Muslim-Christian debates which culminated in the famous Agra debate of 1854 between him and Rahmat Allah Kairânawî. (2) Both Sprenger and Muir were inspired and encouraged by Pfander to write about the life of the Prophet and the Qur’ân. Muir specifically acknowledges in the preface to the first edition of his work, Life of Mahomet etc., that he wrote it "at the instance" of Pfander. It was published in four volumes between 1858 and 1861. Sprenger’s work, Life of Mohammed from Original Sources, was published in Allahabad in 1851. His larger and more elaborate work on the same subject in three volumes written in German entitled Das Leben und die Lehre des