There has been a history of close interaction between the Byzantine and Arab cultures in the Mediterranean and Middle East ever since the Arab conquests in the seventh century CE. This, and the concomitant rise of Christian-Muslim polemics, resulted in the production of the first complete translation of the Qur’an into Greek before the end …
“This work”, says the publisher, Lentera Hati, “was not named ‘The Qur’an and its Translation’, because its author, M. Quraish Shihab, was acutely aware that the Qur’an is a holy book that cannot possibly be translated into any other language. All that the exegetes can do is to reveal the meaning, not translate it!”Despite these …
This week our attention focuses on the translation made by one of the most charismatic Muslim preachers in contemporary Russia, Shamil Alyautdinov (b. 1974). An Imam in Moscow, he holds various titles in the Muslim Spiritual Administration of the European Part of Russia (DAMER). Alyautdinov is author of more than thirty books and, quite uniquely …
We noted previously that official efforts by Egypt’s religious establishment – represented by Al-Azhar University – have been eclipsed by translations by men associated with the institution. Today’s post concerns one of those. The 1st edition (2007) of “The Gracious Quran: A modern-phrased interpretation in English” is particularly fine, in two volumes: one with the …
To mark the arrival of a certain president-elect (!), this week’s post concerns another “muntakhab” – a project to standardise Qur’an translation according to the scholarship of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University. “Al-Muntakhab fi tafsir al-Qur’an” is better translated as ‘The Select Interpretation of the Qur’an’. This thread draws numerous points from Stefan Wild’s paper on “Muslim …
Qur’an translation of the week #26: Al-Montakhab Read More »
