This brand-new translation of selected suras and verses of the Qur’an into English does something new and unusual: the translator, Shawkat Toorawa, aims to present those segments of the Qur’an that are most commonly used by Muslims in prayer and ritual around the world, roughly in the order in which Muslims encounter and memorise them throughout their lives. Furthermore, he strives to do so in a style and form that is sensitive to the Qur’an’s aesthetic and affective qualities.
Toorawa, who is professor of Arabic at Yale University, has worked on translating various different suras of the Qur’an over decades. The first samples were published in the Journal of Qur’anic Studies in 2007, and the previously published translations have already been discussed on the GloQur blog. For his new book, Toorawa heavily reworked, and sometimes completely rewrote, his translations, trying to free himself more from the Arabic syntax and to focus on achieving a better aesthetic effect in English. He also decided against including every sura he has previously translated in favour of a stricter focus on suras and passages of universal devotional importance.
This is an interesting choice which makes the book distinctive from the many partial Qur’an translations into English that already exist. Some, addressing children who are learning to recite and/or memorise the Qur’an, for example, limit themselves to the juzʾ ʿamma, the last part of the Qur’an that contains the shortest suras and is therefore commonly taught first – with the addition of the Fātiḥa, the first sura, which is always included at the beginning of such translations. And some have a thematic focus, for example on legal or ethical topics or stories about prophets, while others try to present the most important passages from each sura in terms of the sura’s core message, as the authors see it. European romanticists with a penchant for poetry, on the other hand, have tended to concentrate on the most rhythmic, colourful, and evocative suras. All these choices indirectly play a certain part in Toorawa’s selection, because both meaning and aesthetics are among the reasons for which certain suras and verses became part of a devotional canon, but Toorawa has chosen to focus strictly on their role in this devotional canon as a guiding principle for both the selection and arrangement of Qur’anic segments in his book. Thus, the content of the book bears a striking resemblance to that of centuries-old manuscripts containing selections of Qur’anic passages that have been preserved, for example, in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), because these manuscripts, too, focused on segments that Muslims would want to recite, memorise, and use in rituals.
Just like most Muslim-authored collections, the book opens with the Fātīḥa. This is followed by the short suras at the end of the Qur’an, starting with al-Ḍuḥā (Q 93). After that come sections containing suras for daily and weekly recitation, as well as Friday verses and suras. Finally, two sections contain not suras but selected verses: first, verses glorifying God and second, supplication verses. An appendix provides a list of waẓīfas, or lists of recommended recitations. The main body of the text is preceded by a short introduction that includes personal biographic reflections and an overview of the concept and method of the book, as well as some basic information about the Qur’an.
The translations are thoughtful, laid out on the page in a variety of ways depending on the content and style of each segment, and clearly the result of years of painstaking work. As an example of Toorawa’s translation style, this is his English rendition of the Throne Verse (āyat al-kursī, Q 2:255):
God — There is no God but
He, without beginning or end,
Unwearying, untouched by Time,
Keeper of Heaven and Earth,
Unattainable without permission,
Knower of what is and was
— others know only what He allows.
Heaven and Earth are subsumed by His
Throne and are preserved without effort.
God — Exalted, Sublime.
Compare this to the translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, which Toorawa himself mentions as a formative influence:
When the two translations are juxtaposed like this, Yusuf Ali’s translation comes across as verbose while Toorawa’s translation is succinct, because he favours weighty, concise expressions over a precise rendition of every Arabic word. This approach will probably not fully suffice to fulfil Toorawa’s stated intention to bring across the experience of having grown up in a Qur’anic “soundscape”, as he calls it, to non-Muslim readers – but then, this is something that no translation could possibly achieve. Overall, Toorawa’s new partial translation is a remarkable, original, and welcome attempt at bridging the gap between academic approaches to the Qur’an and Muslim practice and piety.
Johanna Pink