When a translator entitles his work The Textual Translation For The Qur’an The Supreme in an attempt to render the Arabic phrase al-tarjama al-naṣṣiyya li-l-Qurʾān al-Majīd into English, this is a clear indication that he is taking the concept of ‘literal translation’ to the extreme. And indeed, this is the explicit aim of Abdulaziz F. …
In 1985, T.B. (Thomas Ballantyne) Irving, also known as al-Hajj Ta‘lim ‘Ali (1914–2002), published a book entitled The Qur’an: The First American Version. Printed with funding from global donors, including a major halal food business that Levantine Muslim migrants had founded in the American Midwest, its publication was part of a globalizing trend that has …
Qur’an translation of the week #188: The first ‘American Qur’an’ Read More »
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 …
Aziz Kur’an is a Turkish Qur’an translation based on Le Saint Coran by Muhammad Hamidullah. Producing such a translation of a translation is an unusual decision given that there are already dozens of Qur’an translations on the Turkish market from the original Arabic. It speaks to the renown and appeal of this illustrious and prolific …
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 …
A guest contribution by Sheam Khan, University of Leicester Identifying the ideology of a Qur’an translator has rarely been more complex than in the case of The Sublime Quran and its translator, Laleh Bakhtiar, whose ideological positions are often paradoxical. There is a wealth of information available regarding her life and works, but the polarities …
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 …
