Scott Smith, MA, DEA, is a regional manager and sociolinguistics consultant for SIL in Africa, and a translation consultant-in-training. He and his wife Margaret joined SIL in 1987.
BIBLE TRANSLATORS: MANY OF THE EARLIEST INCARNATIONAL MISSIONARIES TO ISLAM
Abstract
RamĂłn Lull, Morning Star of Bible Translation
34 years after Lull convinced the Council of Vienne to establish Hebrew/Greek training at five paramount universities, John Wycliffe began Hebrew/Greek studies at Oxford. Tyndale also studied Hebrew/Greek there. Lull published theology in his native Catalán. He tutored future kings of Aragón, and his protégé Alfonso III hired Bible translation into Catalán, giving Lull mother-tongue Scripture at age 55. Lull trained students in Arabic/Islamic theology, then began missionary service in North Africa. In 1902, Zwemer published Raymond Lull: First Missionary to the Muslims. If he had been the first, that would have been a dismal indictment of Christians over the previous 700 years.
Previous missionaries to Islam
When Lull was born, RamĂłn Nonnatus was already serving as a missionary in North Africa. His witness was so powerful, his Islamic captors pierced his lips and padlocked them shut. Before Nonnatus, Francis of Assisi presented himself to the Egyptian Sultan who had promised gold to anyone who brought him the head of a Christian. His witness was so powerful the Sultan requested prayer and released him. There were dozens of missionaries to Islam in those 700 years. The vast majority of them were Bible translators, who translated OT and NT portions into Arabic, Coptic, Geez, Syriac, Mozarabic… This paper tells their stories, moving back from Lull’s time to the very “people of the Book” who Muhammad describes so vibrantly in the Koran.