The Meanings of the Noble Qur’an with Explanatory Notes by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani (b. 1943), first published in 2007, is rooted in the Deobandi movement which originated in India in the nineteenth century and promotes a conservative brand of Islamic revivalism that upholds the authority of traditional Hanafi scholarship. As a result of the […]
The provision of Qur’ans aimed at children is a niche market, and there are not many Qur’an publishers that cater to this need. Furthermore, many of those that do exist do not facilitate teaching the Qur’an in an easy-to-understand, child-friendly way. As discussed in a previous thread, the Indonesian publisher Syaamil tried to fill this
Despite its nearly ninety-year history (with the first volume appearing in 1934), Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s translation of the Qur’an continues to outperform many other translations in terms of the frequency with which it is reprinted and the number of different publishers who reprint it, not to mention citations. What is sometimes not as frequently discussed
Usually, the history of Muhammad Asad’s (1900–1992) translation is dated back to the publication of the complete edition in 1980, while the first, partial version (comprising the first nine suras) which was printed in 1964 has become a bibliographical rarity. The 1964 edition was published by the Islamic Center of Geneva, which was based in
The English Qur’an translation by M. H. Shakir is widely available today in various printed editions produced by numerous publishers, and also on websites and smartphone apps. It is sometimes mistakenly ascribed to the renowned Egyptian scholar Muḥammad Shākir (1866–1939), however he was an opponent of Qur’an translations and it is safe to assume that
This week we will take a closer look at Muhammad Ali’s 1923 Urdu translation, Bayān al-Qurʾān. Muhammad Ali, a prominent Ahmadi scholar, ascended to the leadership of the Lahore branch following a schism within the Ahmadiyya movement in 1914. In a previous post, we introduced Muhammad Ali and his influential English Qur’an translation of 1917
Qur’an translation of the week #171: Muhammad Ali’s Urdu Translation: Bayān al-Qurʾān Read More »
When browsing any Muslim missionary bookstand in Europe today, it is hard to miss a particular series of Qur’an translations by a company named as Goodword. Almost all of them are printed in pocket format and feature the same blue and white cover adorned with stylized tulip flowers, reminiscent of Ottoman non-figurative illumination. These small
Over the last few years, the Saudi-based Rowad Translation Center (Markaz Rawwād al-Tarjama) has grown to become one of the biggest private publishers of Qur’an translations. It publishes translations into a number of languages and is the main caretaker of the multilingual website QuranEnc.com, one of the biggest sources of Qur’anic interpretations on the web.
Qur’an translation of the week #165: The Rowad Translation Center – A Saudi Charity Read More »
Despite the fact that Mahmoud Ayoub (1935–2021) was a fairly renowned member of the Muslim community in North America, his translation of the Juzʾ ʿamma, the last of the thirty parts of the Qur’an, is virtually unknown and hard to obtain. It is a fascinating source for at least two reasons: first, because of its
In May 2023, I came across an English Qur’an translation that appeared at first glance to be a reprint of an old work but, as is often the case, at second glance turned out to be much more than that. Right next to the entrance of the Ibn Tulun Mosque, one of the major Islamic
Qur’an translation of the week #159: An Englishman’s translation in present-day Egypt Read More »
