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 bookshops for English Qur’an translations today, the number of recent translations that claim to be ‘clear’, ‘easy’, ‘simple’, ‘plain’, or all of those things at once, is striking. We find a ‘plain English translation’ (the subtitle of The Majestic Qur’an, by Musharraf Hussain), a ‘clear and easy to understand modern English translation’ (the subtitle of Talal Itani’s Quran in English), a ‘super-easy to read’ translation (the subtitle of another edition of Itani’s work), and we find translations that are called ‘The Clear Qur’an’ or ‘The Easy Qur’an’. This is partly an allusion to the Qur’an’s description of itself as a ‘clear book’ (kitab mubīn; e.g. Q 26:2), but it is obviously also currently an important selling point for Islamic books in English.
What makes these translations so ‘clear’ and ‘easy’, according to the translators? This thread will focus on answering that question by looking at three recent Qur’an translations into English available for sale in Islamic bookstores in the UK in the summer of 2024, all of which are called either ‘The Easy Qur’an’ or ‘The Clear Qur’an’. I will refrain here from going into details about the translators, their methods and ideologies, and the publication history of their books. Rather, I will compare their approaches and discuss their respective understandings of how to produce an accessible English Qur’an translation. These are the three translations I am examining:
The Easy Qur’an: Translation of the Holy Qur’an in Easy English with explanatory notes and reasons of revelation by Imtiaz Ahmad, a Pakistani-American author ‘with a missionary zeal’ who now lives in Medina, according to the front matter, was first published in 2010. The most recent edition was printed in 2022 by Dakwah Corner Bookstore, a Malaysia-based publisher with branch offices in Mecca and Abuja, Nigeria.
The Clear Qur’an: A thematic English translation by the Egyptian-Canadian scholar and imam Mustafa Khattab, first published by Book of Signs Foundation in Lombard, Illinois, in 2016, is one of the most popular English Qur’an translations currently in print, partly because it is distributed at a low price by Darussalam, one of the largest Islamic publishers worldwide. It is part of an entire ‘Clear Qur’an’ series with many different formats and versions that suit different purposes as well as much additional material, such as a Qur’an dictionary.
The Easy Quran: A Translation in Simple English by Tahir Mahmood Kiani, a UK-based teacher, author and translator, is the most recent of the books discussed here. Published in 2022 in London by Ta-Ha publishers, one of the oldest Islamic publishers in the UK, it is marketed as ‘an ideal first Quran for young people, adults who are new to the Quran as well as those who simply wish to read an undemanding translation’.
There are two striking commonalities between these three translations, besides their claims to be easy to understand. First, all three are committed to daʿwa, the ‘call to Islam’, which is aimed not only at Muslims but also explicitly at non-Muslims. Kiani dedicates his translation ‘to the guidance of all people’, Ahmad wants to present ‘Allah’s words’ in an easy manner ‘on the path of inviting (to Allah’s way)’, and Khattab recounts at the beginning of his introduction how a conversation with a non-Muslim taxi driver about the supposed hostility of the Qur’an towards non-Muslims opened his eyes to the many misrepresentations contained in English Qur’an translations and to the need for a better translation.
Second, they all opt for contemporary English. In Kiani’s and Ahmad’s case, this is British English, and in Khattab’s, it is Canadian English, but all three notably shun the archaic King James style that characterised every single Muslim-authored Qur’an translation into English until the 1970s, and which is still favoured by some translators, such as the team who produced the Study Qur’an. King James English might convey a particular sense of gravitas, but it is obviously not considered conducive to producing a ‘clear’ or ‘easy’ translation by these three authors.
Despite their agreement on language register, there are differences regarding their linguistic choices. Ahmad emphasizes not only the desire to win over non-Muslims, but also his aim to meet the needs of non-native speakers of English, whom he wants to be able to understand his translation even if their mastery of English is only at an intermediate level. This reflects the extent to which English is framed as a global language that anyone should be able to understand, and partly explains the current trend for simpler translations. However, Ahmad’s own mastery of English seems to be at a rather intermediate level, which might also be the reason why he asserts in his introduction that his focus is on content, not ‘idiom’, as if accuracy of meaning can easily be separated from the language in which it is expressed. His translation contains sentences such as ‘That is the Book (the Qur’an) has no doubt in it’. Whether such explicit dismissal of the need to write in good English really results in a text that is easy to understand is open for debate.
Kiani uses the most colloquial register of the thee translators, for example frequently using contractions: ‘Don’t they see that We’ve made the night for them to rest in and the day clear to see?’ (Q 27:86). Khattab’s English is the most formal, but at the same time the most fluent and eloquent of the three, which is partly because he is more prone to using common English expressions instead of slavishly following the syntax and terminology of the Arabic text.
Compare their approaches to the first part of Q 28:9, which describes the situation after Pharaoh’s wife has picked up baby Moses from the river:
وَقَالَتِ ٱمْرَأَتُ فِرْعَوْنَ قُرَّتُ عَيْنٍۢ لِّى وَلَكَ لَا تَقْتُلُوهُ عَسَىٰٓ أَن يَنفَعَنَآ أَوْ نَتَّخِذَهُۥ وَلَدًۭا وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
Ahmad: ‘And the wife of Firaun (Asiya) said: “(This child) is the comfort of my eyes and yours too (i.e. we will be pleased to look at this lovely child). Don’t kill him. He may benefit us or we may adopt him as a son. And they were not aware of it (that they had killed several hundred innocent children to kill this very child).’
Khattab: ‘Pharaoh’s wife said ˹to him˺, “˹This baby is˺ a source of joy for me and you. Do not kill him. Perhaps he may be useful to us or we may adopt him as a son.” They were unaware ˹of what was to come˺.’
Kiani: ‘Pharaoh’s wife said: “He is a coolness of the eye for my happiness and yours too. Don’t kill him. He could be useful to us or we might adopt him as a son.” They had no idea who he really was.’
This example throws several differences between the translations into sharp relief. First, only Khattab dares to make a free and idiomatic translation of the Arabic expression qurratu ʿaynin, rendering it as ‘a source of joy’. This makes his translation read naturally and fluently, something that neither ‘a coolness of the eye’ nor ‘the comfort of my eyes’, which stay closer to the literal meaning of the Arabic expression, really accomplish. Second, only Ahmad uses Arabic terminology; not only does he give the Arabic names of biblical figures, as in this verse, but he also frequently employs Arabic terms such as Salat, Zakat, and Hajj in his translation. Neither Kiani nor Khattab do this, but only Khattab goes so far as to use the English word ‘God’ to render the Arabic Allāh (although this was changed in some online editions of his translation).
The third difference pertains to the amount of exegetical information contained in the text of the respective translations. The level of divergence between them in this respect is clear from simply looking at the length of the respective physical texts. Kiani’s is shortest, providing a bare translation with only very occasional and usually inconsequential insertions that are marked as such, and no other paratexts such as footnotes, headers, or sura introductions. Conversely, Ahmad’s is longest, containing a substantial amount of explanation. He rarely relegates this information to footnotes, which are mostly reserved for occasions of revelation and ḥadīths. Instead, he manages to, for example, translate the three Arabic words fa-idhā faraghta fa-nṣab in Q 94:7 as ‘Hence, when you are free, then put great effort in worshipping (i.e. in Salat, supplication, propagation of Islam, Jihad etc.) till you feel tired. (Hence, Islamic preachers should also engage themselves in remembrance of Allah in private hours. Just preaching others is not enough).’ Khattab’s approach falls somewhere in between Ahmad’s and Kiani’s. His translation contains frequent but brief explanatory insertions that are marked by unobtrusive half brackets, but never to the extent that they outweigh the actual translation or interrupt the reading flow; rather, they are added to enhance the reading flow. Additional information is presented in footnotes, which take up a moderate amount of space.
The fourth difference has to do with the way in which the translators handle exegetical differences of opinion. They clearly disagree when it comes to the meaning of the last three words of Q 28:9, wa-hum lā yashʿurūn: what was it that ‘they’ (which refers either Pharaoh and his wife or, since this is not a dual pronoun, more likely their people, although none of the translators specify this) were not aware of or did not know? Khattab thinks that it refers ‘what was to come’, i.e. to the conflict between Pharaoh’s people and the Israelites as well as the subsequent divine punishment. Ahmad thinks it refers to the fact that the child they want to adopt is actually the same child they tried unsuccessfully to have killed. Kiani’s interpretation is similar, if vaguer: ‘They had no idea who he really was’. But in contrast to Ahmad and Khattab, he does not mark the second part, ‘who he really was’, as his own addition, despite the claim in his introduction that all additions to the Qur’anic meaning are marked by a distinctive typeface. Generally, Kiani often marks inconsequential additions this way but leaves exegetical interventions that actually have a significant impact on the meaning unmarked, giving the impression that they are part of the source text. Khattab and Ahmad are far more consistent about distinguishing the translation from additional commentary, but only Khattab sometimes indicates in footnotes that there could be an alternative understanding of a verse (although not in this case).
A fifth important difference is not apparent from verse-level comparison but is immediately visible when glancing at the actual pages of the translations; this relates to the ways the translators structure their texts. Ahmad has a conventional system, translating the Qur’an verse for verse with no further subdivisions except for indications of the thirty parts (ajzāʾ) of the Qur’an, which have a devotional function but do not help structure the content. Kiani makes an effort to provide structure by arranging groups of verses in thematic paragraphs. Khattab does this as well, but goes further, giving each paragraph a header. For example, in his translation the verse above (Q 28:9) is located at the beginning of a paragraph titled ‘Moses in the Palace’. Moreover, each sura is prefaced by a brief introduction that summarises its main themes. From these introductions, it is clear that Khattab is a proponent of the idea that the Qur’an’s suras were not randomly put together in order of descending length, without regard for content, but that their arrangement follows a logical sequence that is part of the Qur’an’s miraculous nature. Khattab takes great pains to explain the connection of each sura to the preceding and subsequent one in his sura introductions.
From these observations, it becomes clear that the three translators have quite different ideas of what constitutes a text that is easy to understand, and how to produce one.
For Kiani, an ‘undemanding’ translation means a clear, linear text in colloquial English without parentheses, ambiguities, or alternative meanings, even if this comes at a cost: he provides no additional information that would enable readers to make sense of those parts of the Qur’an that are hard to understand without knowing their background and context; and in the desire to make the translation as one-dimensional as possible, the boundaries between translation and his interpretive additions are often indiscernible.
Ahmad’s translation tends towards the opposite extreme because, for him, an ‘easy Qur’an’ means leaving nothing open to interpretive chance and providing an abundance of exegetical content so that the reader will not run a risk of ‘misunderstanding’ the text. He is explicitly not concerned with the reading flow or eloquence of the text, as long as the sentences are not too long and ‘difficult words’ are avoided. When it comes to his stated goal of convincing non-Muslims of the divine origin of the Qur’an, he is more interested in explaining the ‘scientific miracle’ of the Qur’an than in bringing across the power of its language, which – mistakes aside – is drowned in technical explanations.
Khattab seeks to strike a middle ground between a ‘naked’ translation, Kiani-style, and a Qur’anic commentary in which the source text is outweighed by the exegetical superstructure, Ahmad-style. For Khattab, clarity is achieved, first, by using eloquent and correct English, second, by highlighting the thematic structure of the Qur’an through the use of paragraph breaks, headers, and sura introductions, and third, by inserting just as much additional explanation into the text of the translation as is needed to ensure a good reading flow but no more than that. The use of half brackets, rather than the more visually disruptive full brackets, and the relegation of technical information to footnotes help maintain legibility. None of these features, taken by themselves, are entirely new and original. As early as 1917, the English Qur’an translation by Muhammad Ali of the Lahore Ahmadiyya became a worldwide success for its innovative use of paragraph headers, sura introductions, the clear separation between translation and commentary, and – like Khattab’s translation – the inclusion of an informative introduction on Islam. From the 1970s onwards, when Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī and Muḥsin Khān published their translation, Muslims increasingly favoured contemporary English over the King James style, with many striving for legibility and ease of comprehension. The success of Khattab’s ‘Clear Qur’an’ series suggests that Khattab has managed to combine these existing approaches in a way that readers looking for an accessible translation appreciate, although some of this might be owed to skilful marketing and Darussalam’s wide distribution networks.
Johanna Pink