This week we look at the first Muslim-authored translation into German, which was published during World War II by Maulana Sadr-ud-Din (d. 1981), a missionary of the Lahore branch of the Ahmadiyya movement, and caused much controversy within his community. Sadr-ud-Din, who had previously worked as a missionary in Woking in the United Kingdom, arrived …
In 1915, the Ahmadiyya Movement published the first part of The Holy Qur-ān with English Translation and Explanatory Notes, the first Ahmadi translation to be published in a European language. The Ahmadiyya Movement was the first Islamic group to begin translating the Qur’an into European languages, a project they initiated at the beginning of the …
Qur’an translation of the week #127: The First Ahmadi English Qur’an translation Read More »
In 1931, the Indian Shi’i activist A.F. Badshah Husain started publishing an English Qur’an translation ‘according to Shia traditions and principles.’ In this translation, which has to the best of our knowledge never been completed, Husain aimed to defend both the Qur’an and Imami Shi’i doctrines against British Orientalists, Islamic modernists and, in particular, the …
This week we will look at Muhammad Ali’s influential English translation, entitled The Holy Qur-án, which was first published in 1917. Muhammad Ali (d. 1951) was a renowned Ahmadi scholar who was born in 1874 in Murar, in the state of Kapurthala in India. Ali studied mathematics, law and English at university, after which he …
Indonesia has experienced approximately 350 years of colonization, first by the Portuguese and Dutch following the arrival of the Dutch VOC (Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie) in the 1600s and, more recently, with three years of Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945. The country’s struggle to achieve independence was not easy, especially given the diversity of …
One of the most populous Muslim areas of Europe, former Yugoslavia played quite a significant role in the development of Muslim revivalism and activism in the Eastern European context. This is reflected in the fact that one of the first Muslim translations of the Qur’an into the local language, ‘Kur’an Časni’ (‘The Holy Qur’an’), appeared …
This week we take a close look at Abdul Hakim Khan’s (d. 1917?) ‘The Holy Qurʾan with a commentary’, which was published in 1905 and is the first English translation of the Qurʾan to be authored by a Muslim. As this post coincides with Christmas, we will focus on the way Khan treats the conception …
The history of the first Afrikaans Qur’an translation throws a spotlight on the afterlives of slavery and colonialism, the international movement of texts and ideas in the twentieth century, and the disruption of modern South African history. ‘Die Heilige Qur’ān’ by Imam Mohammed Armien Baker (1910–1982) was first published in 1961 by Nasionale Boekhandel, in …
Recently, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat has published a new revised German translation of the Qur’an. In this post, I will take a close look at this new edition and discuss some of the things that have been changed. The Ahmadiyya Movement has been translating the Qur’an into different languages for more than 100 years, with …
In celebration of the one-year anniversary of ‘Qur’an Translation of the Week’, the GloQur team today jointly looks at modern translations of a contested verse. We will discuss Q 5:51, a verse that pertains to the relations between Muslims, on the one hand, and Christians and Jews, on the other hand. How is it rendered in …
