Bausani was not a theologian but a historian of religions and a scholar of Islamic mysticism (he also translated Persian poets like ʿUmar Khayyām and Rūmī). This dual lens allowed him to avoid two common pitfalls. First, he did not read the Quran through a Christian lens (unlike many earlier Catholic translators who looked for “types” of Jesus or “prophecies” of Muhammad as a heretic). Second, he did not reduce the Quran to a purely historical document of 7th-century Arabia.
To understand the value of , one must first understand the man. Alessandro Bausani (1921–1988) was not merely a translator of Arabic; he was a titan of Islamic and Iranian studies. He held the chair of Arabic Language and Literature at the Sapienza University of Rome and later the chair of Islamology at the University of Naples "L'Orientale." Bausani Il Corano.pdf