author
Edward Sell
1839–1932
An Anglican missionary and prolific writer, he spent decades in India studying Islam and explaining it to English-speaking readers. His books reflect a long career shaped by teaching, scholarship, and close engagement with South Asian religious life.
1 Audiobook
The Faith of Islam
by Edward Sell
About the author
Born in 1839, Edward Sell became an Anglican missionary, orientalist, and writer whose career was closely tied to India. Reliable reference sources describe him as a missionary scholar who worked for many years in Madras and became especially known for his studies of Islam.
He was educated at the Church Missionary College, Islington, and went to India in the 1860s. Accounts of his life note that he served in education and church work, including leadership at a Muslim school in Madras and later service connected with the Church Missionary Society. He also received academic recognition during his career, including a doctorate, and built a reputation for unusually wide literary output.
Sell is remembered today mainly for the many books he wrote on Islam, Qur'anic studies, and related history. Even when readers disagree with his viewpoint, his work remains part of the record of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century missionary scholarship in British India.