" Refutation" consisted of four parts dealing with (a) an account of the Jews’ and the Christians’ preservation of their sacred scriptures, (b) the life of Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) , (c) the supposed absence of miracles in his life and (d) his claim to prophethood and the "innovations" he introduced. A manuscript of this first translation of the Qur’ân containing the autograph of the translator is preserved in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris. Qualitatively it was not quite a translation but merely a paraphrasing of the passages of the Qur’ân with blatant mistakes and distortions. According to George Sale, a subsequent translator, "it deserves not the name of translation; the unaccountable liberties therein taken, and the numberless faults, both of omission and commission, leaving scarce any resemblance of the original." (1) Nevertheless this first Latin translation remained the sole or main source of information about the Qur’ân available to the Europeans for about five centuries.

(b) Developments during the Renaissance and the Reformation: Role of Martin Luther

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was an intellectual awakening in Europe brought about by the Renaissance which was quickened by the advance of the Ottomans in Europe and the fall of Constantinople in their hands in 1453. This latter event led to the migration of many Greek scholars to Italy which in turn gave a further impetus to the Renaissance. In the context of these developments Christian thinkers once again turned their serious attention to the task of confronting Islam on the intellectual plane. This time the lead was taken by Juan Alfonso de Segobia (d. after 1456), a Professor of the University of Salamanca and a member of the Synod of Basel. Like Peter the Venerable he also undertook a project of combating Islam through a translation of the Qur’ân to be issued with a "refutation" of Islam. For this purpose he acquired the services of a Spanish Muslim who also knew Arabic, and with his help prepared a Latin Translation of the Qur’ân and himself prepared a book in refutation of Islam entitled, De Mittenndo Gladio Spiritus in Sarracenes. Both these works are, however, lost