Translator
He took the time to apply himself in the study of the eastern and other languages, both ancient and modern. Carolus Dadichi, the king's interpreter, helped Sale in his studies of oriental dialects. Sale reputedly spent 25 years in Arabia, thus acquiring his knowledge of the Arabic language and customs; this was the basis of Voltaire's statements in the Dictionnaire Philosophique (articles ‘Alcoran,’ ‘Arot and Marot’). On the other hand Harold Lyon Thomson, writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, stated that he never left his native country.
In 1734, Sale published the translation of the Qur'an, dedicated to John Lord Carteret. Sale provided numerous notes and a "Preliminary Discourse" which was manifest with in-depth knowledge of Eastern habits, manners, traditions, and laws. Voltaire bestowed high praise on Sale's version of the Koran. Sale did not, however, place Islam at an equal level with Christianity. He stated,
As Mohammed gave his Arabs the best religion he could, preferable, at least, to those of the ancient pagan lawgivers, I confess I cannot see why he deserves not equal respect, though not with Moses or Jesus Christ, whose laws came really from heaven, yet with Minos or Numa, notwithstanding the distinction of a learned writer, who seems to think it a greater crime to make use of an imposture to set up a new religion, founded on the acknowledgment of one true God, and to destroy idolatry, than to use the same means to gain reception to rules and regulations for the more orderly practice of heathenism already established.
Sale's translation of the Qu'ran has been reprinted into modern times. In January 2007, Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, was sworn in on an old edition of Sale's Koran, donated to the Library of Congress in the early 19th century by Thomas Jefferson.
Sale was also a corrector of the Arabic New Testament (1726) issued by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He acquired a library with valuable rare manuscripts of Persian, Turkish, and Arabic origins (which is now held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford).
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