Quran translations: Separate works

I noticed that The Koran (Classics), which is the Penguin edition of N.J. Dawood's English version of al-Qur'an, has been combined with an edition of the Abdullah Yusufali translation. I think they should be separated and treated as separate works, as should other English versions. Similarly, none of these translations should be combined with the Arabic Qur'an.

I placed this disambiguation notice in "Common Knowledge" and wanted to invite comments here. Viz., "This is the English translation by N.J. Dawood. Other English versions (e.g., by Ahmed Ali, M.M. Pickthall, Yusufali, et al.) should be listed as separate works rather than combined with this one."

I am a newcomer, so please forgive me if this has been hashed out in the past.

Hi alarob, the Qur'an issue has been brought up in the past, on the Combiners group in a thread called The Koran. There is another, newer thread about it, too, here, which you might find helpful.

Personally, I'm with you -- I'd prefer to see different translations of the Qur'an listed separately. But I think the majority does not view it that way, and on LibraryThing, there is a preference to have all translations grouped together, so that seems to be the standard practice.

#1 and #2--I totally agree, this is shocking as the Quran "translations" (interpretations) sometimes vary quite significantly, and very, very often the Qurans are not just the translation itself but commentary and helps provided by the "editor" that can even mean exactly opposite from one Quran to the other. Much effort was previously spent in uncombining these books, but some obviously very uninformed person(s) have messed this up.

I shall just add my own agreement to the above.

As I understand it, there have been concerns about some of the translations coming out of Saudi Arabia at the moment. Now I`m no expert, those concerns may be unfounded for all I know. But it`s going to be very difficult for individuals to make informed choices if quite different translations and/or interpretations are lumped together in this way.

From my own experience, it`s true of many works that different translators provide very different finished products. That`s true of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, it`s certainly true of the two very different Penguin translations of The Iliad that I`ve owned and I recall owning a copy of Plato`s Republic that differed significantly from one owned by a friend.

Questions of interpretation and translation are never going to go away. I can`t see it`s helpful to lump different translations together.

#4, yes, and there are different formats of Qurans also--for example, two very different Qurans: (1) Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur'an (that is out of Saudi Arabia and is considered one of the most pro-jihad Qurans) has an entire Appendix on Jihad in the back and has all sorts of notes along the bottom of the pages as well as parenthetical insertions throughout the text of the Quran itself; versus (2) The Simple Quran by Center for the Study of Political Islam or CSPI, which doesn't merely have insertions of parenthetical words, but has entire paragraphs inserted within the Quranic text--now, these paragraphs come from the Hadith and Sira, and so do give context to the Quran, so it's not like I'm saying this is bad, but it's very, very different from your ordinary Quran. I actually like both Qurans, but they are significantly different in substance!

(used bold since Touchstones weren't working)

I guess this is an uphill battle..., we have been through this with the Bibles as well (the German-language bibles are a mess of modern Catholic translation/Einheitsübersetzung and Luther Bibles ATM). People just look at the title and combine away, or decide along the lines "I want to know how many other people have the Quran".
The problem with disambiguation notices is that they will have to be placed with every single work in every language. Were I to look at the work page of the Dawood Quran, I wouldn't see the notice, because I am coming from LT.de not .com. Probably the best way is to put them at least with the most popular editions...

Oh, and hi, alarob :-). Another BCer found his way here?

#6 And an overdue hi to you, GFI.

Looking over these comments, it looks like distinguishing the translations would be wasted effort. Perhaps the best course is to add notes to Common Knowledge. In the "Disambiguation notice" perhaps?

Hej, alarob :-).
Yes, and meanwhile the LT crew has changed the code, so disambiguation notes in one language domain will show up in other domains (which would mean that one should best write in English, even if coming from an other domain, to be understood by the most people).