This week we look at the Urdu translation by the famous scholar and writer Abul Kalam Azad, who left a lasting impact on the Indian subcontinent through both his journalistic and political careers. Abul Kalam Azad (d. 1958) was descended from a family that had long served the Mughals in India and that emigrated to […]
Qur’an translation of the week #118: Tarjumān-i Qurʾan Read More »
In previous posts (QTOTW 39 and 46), we have introduced the Persian Qur’an translation authored by Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī (1703–1762), and his son Shāh ʿAbd al-Qādir Dihlawī’s Urdu translation, both of which had a huge impact on subsequent Qur’an translations produced in the Indian subcontinent during the nineteenth century. Father and son both opted
Qur’an translation of the week #59: The first complete verbatim Urdu Qur’an translation Read More »
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Indian subcontinent witnessed a significant increase in the production of Qurʾan translations into vernacular languages. The continuing rise in literacy rates, accompanied by falling printing costs, enabled more people to engage with the Qur’an and explore its meanings at an individual level. This, in turn, created
Qur’an translation of the week #53: Nazir Ahmad’s Urdu Qur’an translation Read More »
South Asian Muslims have been translating the Qur’an into Urdu for over two centuries. The first complete Urdu translations emerged at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. “Mūḍiḥ al-Qurʼān”, which is arguably the first full Qur’an translation to be written in idiomatic Urdu, was authored by Shāh ʿAbd al-Qādir
