Kitâb ül-‘Ahd el-Atik [The Book of the Old Testament] & Kitâb ül-‘Ahd el-Cedîd el-ensûb ilâ Rabbinâ ‘?sâ el-Mesîh? [The Book of the New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ].

Paris: British & Foreign Bible Society, at the Imprimérie Royale, 1827. First Edition of the complete Bible in Ottoman Turkish, the chief language of European and Asiatic Turkey, and the official language of the Turkish Empire. The translation was undertaken in the 17th century by Wojciech Bobowski, a Polish convert to Islam known as Ali Bey, chief translator to Sultan Muhammad IV, at the instigation of Levin Warner, then Dutch Ambassador at Constantinople. It is apparently based upon a French protestant version. The New Testament from his manuscript held by Leyden University was edited by Heinrich Friedrich Diez, former Russian Ambassador at Constantinople and further revised and edited by French Oriental scholar, Jean Daniel Kieffer [1767-1832] before being printed in Paris in 1819. In 1820 Kieffer became the first Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in France, and in the same year began a thorough revision of Ali Bey's translation of the Old and New Testaments. The complete Bible, without the Apocrypha, was published in 1827 in an edition of 5,000 copies together with a further 2,000 copies of the New Testament on its own. Darlow & Moule 9456. 2 Parts in 1. 4to. pp. 2 p.l., 7, [1]blank], 984; 2 p.l., 3, [1]blank, 318. printed in Arabic type with full vocalization. later cloth (binding worn but sound, internally very good). elala5475