English translations of the Quran

Following is a list of English translations of the Quran. The first translations were created in the 17th and 19th centuries by non-Muslims, but the majority of existing translations have been produced in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The earliest known English translation is The Alcoran (1649) which is attributed to Alexander Ross, chaplain to King Charles I. It was translated from the French translation, L'Alcoran de Mahomet, by the Sieur du Ryer.

The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1734) was the first scholarly translation of the Quran and was the most widely available English translation for 200 years and is still in print. George Sale based this two-volume translation on the Latin translation by Louis Maracci (1698).[1] Thomas Jefferson had a copy of Sale's translation, now in the Library of Congress, that was used for House Representative Keith Ellison's oath of office ceremony on 3 January 2007.[2]

Muslims did not begin translating the Quran into English until the early 20th century.[3] The Qur'an (1910) was translated by Mirza Abul Fazl of Allahabad, India. He was the first Muslim to present a translation of the Qur'an in English. The English Translation of the Holy Qur'an with Commentary (1917), translated by Maulana Muhammad Ali, was "the first English translation by an Ahmadiyyah follower to be generally available and to be made accessible to the West."[4] Muhammad Ali was the leader of the Lahori Ahmadis. Wallace Fard Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam, exclusively used Ali's translation.

The meaning of the Qur'an (1940) by Muhammad Asad AKA Leopold Weis, was first original work by a European in English on interpretation of Quran and have translation. He started writing the commentary while living in Arabia in the 30s. Available at al-quran.info.[5]

The Koran Interpreted (1955) by Arthur Arberry was the first English translation of the Quran by an academic scholar of Arabic, Islam, and Sufism. Arberry attempted to maintain the rhythms and cadence of the Arabic text. For many years, it was the scholarly standard for English translations.

The Holy Qur'an: Arabic Text and English Translation (1990) was the first translation by a Muslim woman, Amatul Rahman Omar.

The Noble Quran: Meaning With Explanatory Notes (2007) by Taqi Usmani is the first English translation of the Quran ever written by a traditionalist Deobandi scholar.[6]

Clear Quran (2012) by Talal Itani, a computer programmer Arab American, emphasis on simplicity and literal translation, available online at al-quran.info and m.clearquran.com.

  • The Easy Quran: A Translation in Simple English. Translated by Tahir Mahmood Kiani. Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd. 2022, (originally published independently, 2019).ISBN 978-1915357007 (https://tahapublishers.com/book/the-easy-quran). It is considered the easiest and most accessible translation by far, useful for both children and adults.

Non-Muslim translations

Notes

  1. Palmer was a Cambridge scholar entrusted with the preparation of the new translation for Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East series.
  2. Bell was a lecturer in Arabic studies at Edinburgh University.
  3. Dawood was a native Arabic speaker from Iraq's now-defunct Jewish community. He preferred comprehensibility to literalism in translation, making his version easier to read. The first edition of the Dawood translation rearranged the chapters into approximate chronological order, but later editions restored the traditional sequence.
  4. Cleary is a well-known California-based translator of numerous Buddhist works. His translation was based on an earlier partial translation, which the American Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf highly praised.
  5. Jones is an Arabist and retired lecturer at Oxford University.
  6. McAuliffe's version is based on the Pickthall translation.

Ahmadi translations

Notes

  1. Mohammad Khan's translation reflects an Ahmadiyya worldview.
  2. A revised edition was published in 1951; Ali spent the last five years of his life working towards it. It was redesigned with a new typeface and an expanded index in 2002.
  3. Amatul Rahman Omar was the first woman to translate the Qur'an into English, working with her husband Abdul Mannan Omar.

Intra-faith translations

Notes

  1. Features verse-by-verse commentaries and essays by both Shiite and Sunni scholars.

Qur'anist translations

  • Quran: The Final Testament. Translated by Rashad Khalifa. Islamic Productions, 1981. ISBN 9780934894760.[lower-alpha 1]
  • Exposition of the Holy Quran. Translated by Ghulam Ahmed Pervez. Lahore: Tolu-E-Islam Trust, 1996.[lower-alpha 2]
  • The Qur'an As It Explains Itself. Translated by Shabbir Ahmed. Bedford: Lighthouse, 2003. ISBN 9780974787985.[17][lower-alpha 3]
  • The Quran: A Reformist Translation. Translated by Edip Yuksel, Layth Saleh al-Shaiban, and Martha Schulte-Nafeh. London: Brainbow Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0979671500.[lower-alpha 4]
  • The Message - A Translation of the Glorious Qur'an. Translated by the Monotheistic Group. London: Brainbow Press, 2008.ISBN 978-0979671548
  • The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation. Translated by Sam Gerrans. Quranite, 2016.ISBN 978-1-914385-04-9


Notes

  1. Rashad Khalifa is a controversial teacher and computer scientist. He claimed to have used mathematics and computers to find hidden meanings in the Qur'an.
  2. This is an English translation of the Urdu translation, Mafhum-al-Quran (1961).
  3. The translation attempts to explain Qur'anic verses by cross-references within the Qur'an.
  4. They claim to offer a non-sexist understanding of the text.

Shi'a translations

  • The Qur'an. Translated by Mirza Abul Fazl. Allahabad: Asgar & Co., 1911.[18][lower-alpha 1]
  • The Qur'an. Translated by Mohammed Habib Shakir. New York: Tahirke Tarsile Qur'an, 1968.[19]
  • The Holy Qur'an: The Arabic Text and English Translation (1981). Translated by Muhammad Sarwar. Englewood: The Islamic Seminary Inc.,1981.[20]
  • The Holy Qur'an. Translated by Syed V. Mir Ahmed Ali. Tehran: Osweh Printing & Publication Co., 1988. ISBN 9780940368842
  • The Quran: A Poetic Translation. Translated by Fazlollah Nikayin. 2000. ISBN 978-0967473208.[lower-alpha 2]
  • The Qur'an in Persian and English. Translated by Tahere Saffarzadeh. 2001.[21][22]
  • The Qur'an with an English Paraphrase, Translated by Ali Quli Qara'i. Iranian Centre for Translation of the Holy Qur'an/Islamic Publications International, 2005. ISBN 978-1904063179.
  • The Sublime Qur'an. Translated by Laleh Bakhtiar. Chicago: Kazi Publications, Inc., 2007. ISBN 978-1567447507.[3][23][lower-alpha 3]
  • The Magnificent Qur'an: A 21st Century English Translation.Translated by Ali Salami. Tempe: Leilah Publication, 2016. ISBN 099633386X.

Notes

  1. This volume includes Arabic text and English translation arranged chronologically. It also includes an abstract (Allahabad).
  2. This translation attempts a poetic rendering of the Qur'an.
  3. This was claimed to be the first solo translation of the Qur'an by an American woman. The Sahih international (1997) version, was translated by three American women. It has also been called a feminist translation.

Sunni translations


Notes

  1. An English convert to Islam penned this translation at the behest of the Emir of Hyderabad while on a sojourn in India. Pickthall's widely printed translation was regarded as "an important milestone in the long course of Koranic interpretation" by later esteemed Qur'an translator A. J. Arberry, who also noted a few problems with Pickthall's verse numbering, which deviated in places from what had by then become the standard Arabic edition by Gustav Fluegel.
  2. The anglophile British-Indian Abdullah Yusuf Ali undertook this work at a time when the Qur'an had yet never been properly presented in English from a Shia perspective and only non-Muslim translations were available, which were sometimes overly unsympathetic. It has become one of the most widely used English editions of the Qur'an due to the quality of the translation and its use of extensive footnotes. In the 1980s, the book was appropriated by the Saudi religious establishment and edited to fit the country's Wahhabi/Salafist perspective. This latter version is today widely distributed as the Amana Edition.
  3. This is the first English translation of Abul Ala Maududi's original Urdu translation of the Qur'an.
  4. The suras are presented in chronological order.
  5. Muhammad Asad.is a Jewish convert to Islam.
  6. Irving is a Canadian Muslim who is an author, professor, translator, and activist. His English-only edition uses a North American vernacular.
  7. This translation uses Simple English, also called basic English.
  8. This is a translation by three American women converts, naming themselves Saheeh International.
  9. The husband-and-wife team behind this translation are disciples of Abdalqadir as-Sufi
  10. This translation is among the most widely read translations in the world.
  11. This volume presents the Arabic text using a Romanized transliteration system that allows English-speaking readers to pronounce the Arabic. The English translation is an amalgamation of other translations.
  12. The translator is a member of the Gülen Movement, a Turkish Islamic group.
  13. This is a translation of Javed Ahmed Ghamidi’s Urdu translation.

See also

References

  1. Reading Islam's Holy Book by Eric Walberg, Al-Ahram Weekly, 20–26 September 2007 Issue No. 863
  2. "Thomas Jefferson's Copy of the Koran To Be Used in Congressional Swearing-in Ceremony". loc.gov. U.S. Library of Congress. 3 January 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2017.
  3. Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen S. (10 April 2007). "A new look at a holy text". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
  4. Ali, Maulana Muhammad (2012). The Holy Qur'an. Dublin, Ohio: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam Lahore Inc., U.S.A. pp. I-1. ISBN 978-0-913321-01-0.
  5. Asad, Muhammad (1980). The Message of the Qur’ān ebook. Distributor: E. J. Brill. Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus. OCLC 1036705681.
  6. Nawi, Zaharudin; Marzuki, Zunaidah Mohd (20 June 2017). "Mufti Muḥammad Taqī 'Usmānī and his scholarly contribution to the Qur'anic studies: Mufti Muhammad Taqī 'Usmānī dan sumbangan ilmiahnya dalam bidang al-Quran". Al-Irsyad: Journal of Islamic and Contemporary Issues. 2 (1): 106. doi:10.53840/alirsyad.v2i1.29. ISSN 2550-1992. S2CID 164280586.
  7. "Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed". Posner Memorial Collection |.cmu.edu. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  8. Muhammad. The Koran translated by Rodwell via Internet Archive.
  9. Richard Bell, The Qur’ān. Translated, with a critical re-arrangement of the Surahs, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, Consulted online at “Quran Archive - Texts and Studies on the Quran” on 20 Nov. 2022:
  10. Muhammad (1955). The Koran Translated by A. J. Arberry via Internet Archive.
  11. "The Qur'an". wwnorton.com. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  12. "The Holy Quran by Mohammad Khan". quran-archive.org. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  13. The Holy Qur'an - original source (1917, revised 1920), by Maulana Muhammad Ali
  14. Salahuddin, Pir, The Wonderful Koran. A New English Translation, Raftar-i-Zamana Publications, Consulted online at “Quran Archive - Texts and Studies on the Quran” on 21 Nov. 2022:
  15. Burke, Daniel (4 December 2015). "Could this Quran curb extremism?". CNN. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  16. "The Study Quran". HarperOne. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  17. "The Qur'an as it explains itself, 5th Edition, March 2012" (PDF).
  18. Abu’l-Fazl, The Qur’an. Arabic Text And English Translation: Arranged Chronologically: With An Abstract, Asgar & Co., Allahabad, India, Consulted online at “Quran Archive - Texts and Studies on the Quran” on 21 Nov. 2022:
  19. "M. H. Shakir | The Holy Quran; Arabic Text & English Translation". quran-archive.org. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  20. "The Holy Quran - Muhammad Sarwar". quran-archive.org. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  21. Saffarzadeh Commemoration Due Iran Daily, 18 October 2010
  22. Art News in Brief Tehran Times, 28 October 2008
  23. Useem, Andrea (18 April 2007). "Laleh Bakhtiar: An American Woman Translates the Qur'an". Publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
  24. Dihlawi, Hairat. The Koran, I. M. H. Press, Delhi, Consulted online at “Quran Archive - Texts and Studies on the Quran” on 21 Nov. 2022:
  25. Mohammed, Khaleel (2005). "Assessing English Translations of the Qur'an". Middle East Quarterly. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  26. Ali, Hashim Amir (1974). The message of the Qur'an presented in perspective. Internet Archive. Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co. ISBN 978-0-8048-0976-4.
  27. Zavadski, Katie (26 March 2017). "How Three American Women Translated One of the World's Most Popular Qurans". The Daily Beast.
  28. "Saheeh International: The Saheeh International™ Team & Dar Abul-Qasim". Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
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