Saudi Arabia

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 #152: Between Mauritius and Saudi Arabia: The trilingual Qur’an translations of Houssein Nahaboo

On the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, a dentist called Houssein Nahaboo (1920–2000) published Qur’an translations in no less than three languages – Mauritian Creole, French and English – during the 1980s. Through the lens of the small Muslim community of Mauritius in general, and Nahaboo’s work in particular, we can observe both the local …

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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 #144: Darussalam International as a Multilanguage Publisher

While QTOTW#140 covered Darussalam’s main publishing projects in English, and QTOTW#138 their translation into French, this post goes further in presenting their Qur’an translations into other languages. A Saudi-based multilingual international publishing house, Darussalam now operates in more than thirty countries and is positioned as one of largest publishers of translations of the Qur’an in …

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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 #141: Global publishers of Qur’an translations 4: the Saudi Arabian Tafsīr al-ʿUshr al-Akhīr project

            In contrast to other Saudi publishers, Tafsīr al-ʿ‘Ushr al-Akhīr project is dedicated solely to publishing Qur’an interpretations in a variety of languages, using a rather more ‘centralized’ exegetical approach than is the norm. Established by the Communities Awareness Society (al-Jamaʿaiyyah li-Taʾwiyyah al-Jāliyyāt)  in the Old Industrial City of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, the idea …

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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 #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 #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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Qur’an translation of the week #103: ‘Interpretation of the meanings of the Noble Qur’an in the English language‘ by al-Hilālī and Khān- the story behind the first translation of the Qur’an in Saudi Arabia (2/2)

How does the early 1977 edition of the Hilali-Khan translation differs from later revisions? First of all, the English text of 1977 is almost completely free from the inclusion of Arabic glosses, i.e. transliterated Arabic words inserted in brackets, with only very few exceptions. Consider, for example, Q 2:43. In both the 1977 and 1978 …

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