Qur’an translation of the week

Qur’an translation of the week #209: ‘The Qurán’: A Christian version of a Muslim-authored Qur’an Translation

In this post, we will examine what is likely the first Urdu translation produced within a Christian missionary context: ‘The Qurán’. Published in 1844 by the Presbyterian Mission Press of Allahabad, it features Shāh ʿAbd al-Qādir’s very prominent and influential Urdu translation transcribed into Latin script. Shāh ʿAbd al-Qādir’s rendition was completed at the end of the eighteenth century and originally […]

Qur’an translation of the week #209: ‘The Qurán’: A Christian version of a Muslim-authored Qur’an Translation Read More »

Qur’an translation of the week #208: Al-Qur’an Adventure, A One-Stop Qur’an for All from AlQosbah Publishers 

The trend towards embracing the Qur’an as the primary text of Islam in Muslim-majority countries like Indonesia has led to a notable emphasis on memorization (hifz al-Qur’an) over engagement in deeper contemplation of the scripture through the mediation of tafsīrs or translations. The recent upsurge in Qur’an memorization gained momentum in 2003 with the establishment of Pesantren

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Qur’an translation of the week #207: Creolised Urdu, imported revivalism: The Kanz-ul-Īmān in Mauritian Creole 

In 1995, two preachers from Port Louis, the capital city of the island of Mauritius, published a Qur’an translation into Mauritian Creole. Le Saint Qur’aan did not actually claim to be a direct translation of the Arabic Qur’an, however, but was rather presented as a rendition of an Urdu Qur’an translation, the Kanz-ul-Īmān by Ahmad Reza Khan Barelwi (1856–1921).

Qur’an translation of the week #207: Creolised Urdu, imported revivalism: The Kanz-ul-Īmān in Mauritian Creole  Read More »

Qur’an translation of the week #206: The lost manuscript: an early Ukrainian translation of the Qur’an (1913–1914)

In his early, short bibliography The Koran in Slavonic (New York, 1937), the Slavic Studies scholar Avrahm Yarmolinsky asserts that there is no translation of the Qur’an into any of the Slavic languages, including Ukrainian. However, just two decades later, the well-known scholar of the Qur’an and translator Muhammad Hamidullah mentions an enigmatic Ukrainian interpretation

Qur’an translation of the week #206: The lost manuscript: an early Ukrainian translation of the Qur’an (1913–1914) Read More »

Qur’an translation of the week #205: Sher Ali’s English Quran translation and the rise of the first global publisher of Quran translations

The Ahmadiyya movement, a messianic reform movement founded in British India in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908), was the first Islamic group to actively undertake a project to translate the Qur’an into various European languages in the early twentieth century. Their primary motivation was to make the Qur’anic text accessible to a broader

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Qur’an translation of the week #204: The Qur’an, clear and easy: Three recent English translations

Gone seem to be the days in which it was the state of the art for a Muslim translator to name their work something along the lines of ‘A Probably Failed Attempt at Translating Some of the Approximate Meanings of the Verses of the Holy Qur’an into English’. Instead, when one browses websites or Islamic

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Qur’an translation of the week #203: Script Changes: The Conversion of a Madurese Latin-Script Qur’an Translation into Carakan Script

A guest contribution by Masyithah Mardhatillah & Moh. Hafid Effendy, IAIN Madura, Pamekasan, Indonesia No less than four translations of the Qur’an into Madurese, a native language of the island of Madura in the Java Sea, off the northeastern coast of Java, have been produced in the last twenty years. One of these is now

Qur’an translation of the week #203: Script Changes: The Conversion of a Madurese Latin-Script Qur’an Translation into Carakan Script Read More »

Qur’an translation of the week #202: The Majestic Qur’an by Ali Özek and his team: an early Turkish translation of the Qur’an into English from the 1990s

Prof. Ali Özek (1932–2021) was a leading Turkish scholar in religious studies, and for much of his career was affiliated with the theological faculty of Turkey’s most renowned educational institution, Marmara University in Istanbul. As early as in 1982, he published a translation of the Qur’an into Turkish, ‘Kur’an-ı Kerim ve Türkçe Açıklamalı Meali’ (which he undertook

Qur’an translation of the week #202: The Majestic Qur’an by Ali Özek and his team: an early Turkish translation of the Qur’an into English from the 1990s Read More »

Qur’an translation of the week #201: Mullah Muhammad Jalizadah and his ‘Kurdish Interpretation of the Word of God’

Mullah Muhammad Jalizadah (1876–1943, also known as Mullah Gewre, ‘Great Mullah’, in Kurdish) was a renowned Islamic scholar from South Kurdistan in Iraq. He was born and raised in a prominent scholarly family, and his father and grandfather (Mullah Abdullah and Mullah Asa’d Jalizadah) were both also high ranking scholars in the region. Born in

Qur’an translation of the week #201: Mullah Muhammad Jalizadah and his ‘Kurdish Interpretation of the Word of God’ Read More »

Qur’an translation of the week #200: The Brave New World of machine translation

There is no reason to assume that the field of Qur’an translation remains untouched by the commercial opportunities inherent in machine translation and the predatory use of online content. And, indeed, if you search Amazon.com for English Qur’an translations, one of the many options offered to you is a prime example of both phenomena: The

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