Qur’an translation of the week

Qur’an translation of the week #17: Muhammad Thalib’s “tarjamah tafsiriyah”, an Islamist counter-translation

Muhammad Thalib’s “exegetical translation”, first published in 2011, is not so much a translation as it is a counter-translation. It constitutes a direct attack on the religious legitimacy of the Indonesian government, which publishes its own Qur’an translation. That translation, much to Thalib’s discontent, dominates the Indonesian market (see https://gloqur.de/quran-translation-of-the-week-01-al-quran-dan-terjemahnya/). Consequently, criticizing the government translation […]

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Qur’an translation of the week #16: Towards Understanding the Ever-Glorious Qur’an by M.M. Ghali

Since the days when they debated the validity of translating the Qur’an, scholars of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University have contributed some translations of their own. One is M.M. Ghali’s “Towards Understanding the Ever-Glorious Qur’an” (1st edn. 1997). Muhammad Mahmud Ghali (1920-2016) was Professor of Linguistics & Islamic Studies, and founder of Al-Azhar’s Faculty of Languages &

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Qur’an translation of the week #15: Translation into Polish by Musa Czachorowski

It is widely known that the first translation of the Qur’an in Europe was produced in Latin in a Christian context, but what about the first Muslim translation? That honour goes to the 16th–17th century interpretation into the Old Polish language (with extensive usage of other Slavic vocabularies like Old Belarusian), made by Tatars of

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Qur’an translation of the week #14: Koranens budskap by Mohammed Knut Bernström

Mohammed Knut Bernström, Koranens budskap – with comments by Muhammad Asad (Stockholm: Proprius förlag, 1998). New, slightly revised edition 2000, pocket edition 2002, and audio book 2002. Online edition koranensbudskap.se. The translation of the Qur’an in Europe is a history of retranslation: even if the translator is working directly with the Arabic text, s/he also

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Qur’an translation of the week #13: Turkish rhyming translation by Ali Adil Atalay “Vaktidolu”

This fascinating work by a Turkish Alevi intellectual, Ali Adil Atalay a.k.a. Vaktidolu, renders the entire Qur’an into Turkish verse, complete with metre and rhyme. It has first been brought to the attention of researchers in Qur’anic studies by M. Brett Wilson, who discusses it in his seminal article on Alevi-Bektashi interpretations and translations of

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Qur’an translation of the week #12: A Phrase-by-Phrase translation by Ali Quli Qara’i

This week, we consider another choice of formatting Qur’an translation, particularly into the left-to-right script of the English language: the “phrase-by-phrase” approach adopted by Ali Quli Qara’i. Born in Hyderabad, India, Qara’i graduated from Osmania University before doing an MBA at the University of Wisconsin. He edited the Al-Tawhid quarterly on Islamic thought from 1983-1997,

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Qur’an translation of the week #11: ‘Koran: Perevod’ by Fazil Karaogly

The first appearance of “Koran: Perevod” (“The Qur’an: Translation”) by the Azerbaijani scholar Fazil Karaogly was at the beginning of the 90’s. This seems to be the second Russian translation published in Baku; the rendition by Kračkovskij was released there in 1991. After a decade, the translation received recognition from the Turkish Directorate of Religious

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Qur’an translation of the week #10: Interlinear translations from Masjid al-Huda

Interlinear Qur’an translation is often considered a thing of the past – but in many contexts, it is alive and kicking! This points to fundamental differences between translations of the Bible and the Qur’an. Translations of the Bible are typically stand-alone texts that are meant to be read and studied by themselves. By contrast, interlinear

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Qur’an translation of the week #09: The Majestic Qur’an by Dr. Musharraf Hussein OBE

“The Majestic Qur’an” (Nottingham: Invitation Publishing, 2018) is among the recent translations placing an emphasis on “plain English”. Its translator, Dr Musharraf Hussein OBE, is a graduate of Al-Azhar and longstanding educationist in the UK. The front matter contains an endorsement from Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta’ and various individuals. The translator’s intro draws attention to the

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Qur’an translation of the week #08: Kur’oni Karim. Uzbekcha izoxli tarjima

It is not unusual that a Qur’an translation becomes a source for translations into further languages, but what about a single translator who produces his work in five languages?That is the fascinating story behind the “Kur’oni Karim. Uzbekcha izoxli tarjima” (“The Noble Qur’an: Annotated Translation into Uzbek”) by Alouddin Mansur. Born in 1952 in Qorasuv

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