The Orientalist Aloys Sprenger (1813-93) travelled from Austria, through Switzerland, France and England, before arriving in British India, becoming the director of Delhi College in 1845. In that role, he translated European works into vernacular languages, such as Urdu, and Muslim texts into English and German. Although Sprenger’s name appears occasionally in modern discourse, systematic studies of his life and work are largely absent. Situating Sprenger in contemporary historiography, this paper shows how knowledge travels across cultural borders. As Elshakry and Nappi note, centering the act of translation allows exploration of political and social spaces. Drawing on key sources written and translated by Sprenger, this paper examines the politics of translation in colonial settings, emphasizing the active role of the translator, while situating Sprenger in his historic context. In his 1841 translation of Al-Masudi’s ‘Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems’, Sprenger localizes the Arabic ‘Asabiyyah’ meaning ‘tribalism’, instead rendering it as ‘patriotism’, explaining that to Arabic peoples like the Bedouins this concept pertains more to familial connectedness than to the land itself. Consequently, as D’hulst and Gambier argue, translation is historically contingent, and we must therefore consider the time, place and force behind each translation. Sprenger’s recasting of ‘Asabiyyah’ exemplifies this contingency, and his role as a cultural Go-Between (a term used to describe persons acting as intermediaries, linguistically, culturally and politically) helping knowledges cross borders. By shifting the meaning of terms such as Asabiyyah, Sprenger makes knowledge commensurable to a new target audience. Using Sprenger’s largely undiscussed writings, this paper positions him as a pivotal figure in facilitating the transfer of knowledge across languages, cultures, and the development of vernacular science in British India.