King Fahd Complex

Qur’an translation of the week #170: Ahmadiyya missionaries and the Qur’an in Greek

A guest contribution by Marina Pyrovolaki, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Theology School The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat (AMJ) published their first ever translation of the Qur’an into Greek in 1989, as part of their longstanding project to translate the Qur’an into multiple languages, exactly one hundred years after the Ahmadiyya was first founded in 1889 in …

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Qur’an translation of the week #165: The Rowad Translation Center – A Saudi Charity

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. …

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Qur’an translation of the week #155: Postcolonial ambivalences in West Africa: The Fula Qur’an translation by Oumar Bâ

In a period in which, one after another, the countries of francophone Africa gained independence, the renowned West African intellectual Oumar Bâ (1917–1998) embarked upon writing the very first Qur’an translation into the Fula (or Fulani, or ‘Peul’ in French) language. Or at least, it was the first translation that was put down in writing, …

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Qur’an translation of the week #146: Noor International: An emerging Saudi Arabian publisher of Qur’an translations

In around 2018, another publisher that specializes in ‘translating the meanings of the Holy Quran into international languages’ emerged in Riyadh, registered as ‘Noor International.’ During its first four years of operation, this publishing house has produced English, French, European Spanish and Latin American Spanish translations of the Qur’an. For its English translation, it simply …

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Qur’an translation of the week #142: An Emblem of an Epoch: The Russian Qur’an Translation by the Azerbaijani Scholar Elmir Quliyev

If an ordinary Muslim for whom Russian is the mother tongue were asked today to recite Sūrat al-Fātiḥa from memory, it is very likely that their recitation would be based on Elmir Quliyev’s translation of the Qur’an. The ubiquitous presence of this Qur’an translation in print and online apps, and on peoples’ tongues, reflects the …

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Qur’an translation of the week #140: Anglo-Islamic Publishers Going Global: Darussalam International

A guest contribution by Azhar Majothi, University of Nottingham (azhar.majothi@nottingham.ac.uk) Darussalam International is one of the Muslim Anglosphere’s most recognisable brands in Islamic book publishing today. Since its establishment in Riyadh in 1986, the publisher claims to have printed more than 1,400 ‘authentic’ Islamic titles in various world languages. Despite the publisher’s achievements, little is …

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Qur’an translation of the week #139: Nobre Alcorão: the Qur’an in Portuguese

The history of this translation of the Qur’an into Portuguese, printed by the King Fahd Qur’an Printing Complex (KFQPC) in 1425/2004 and widely distributed all over Brazil, has its roots in the mid 1980s. In 1984, the Muslim World League contracted a scholar of Arabic called Helmi Nasr (1922–2019) to translate the Qur’an into Portuguese. …

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Qur’an translation of the week #138: Inspiration and plagiarism in translation: Cheikh Boureïma Abdou Daouda’s French Qur’an translation, published by Daroussalam

When does a translation draw inspiration from its predecessors and when is it plagiarized? The French Qur’an translation published by the private Saudi daʿwa-oriented publisher Daroussalam certainly raises this question. Compare these two translations of Q 100 (Sūrat al-ʿĀdiyāt): The one on the left was produced by Cheikh Boureïma Abdou Daouda from Niger and published …

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Qur’an translation of the week #133: Global publishers of Qur’an translations: The Conveying Islamic Message Society from Alexandria, Egypt

The Conveying Islamic Message Society (‘Jamʿiyyat Tablīgh al-Islām’, or CIMS) is one of the oldest Islamic non-government organizations in the world, and is especially interested in Islamic missionary activity, or daʿwah. The ‘call to Islam’ has always been its main priority, and it directs its mission to both Eastern and Western audiences. Now operating from …

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Qur’an translation of the week #124: The Muslim World League as a Publisher of Qur’an translations

The Muslim World League (‘Rābiṭat al-ʿĀlam al-Islāmī’, MWL) officially came into being on December 15, 1962. This global Muslim organization, which has its headquarters in Mecca, remains one of the most influential transnational Islamic institutions and has realized many different goals, from the cultural and religious to the political. Fifty years on from its establishment, …

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