Nerval et la sourate coranique Al Nûr (24 ; 31) Une rencontre manquée ?

This article analyzes the reasons why Gérard de Nerval, in his Voyage en Orient, made an interpretive mistake when he transcribed a verse from the Koran into French. As the transcription comes at the end of a series of faulty rewrites, this article shows how the error is partly attributable to ideological information: the cultural taboos pervading an English intertext that obscures the original message. This semantic flaw is consequently taken to reveal the hidden motives behind the trip.