Quran Translations

Hi

I'd like to know which translations everyone likes.

I like The Koran Interpreted by A.J. Arberry because I like how it sounds and is fairly literal. I really liked Martin Lings' translations that he used Muhammad, his life based on the earliest sources, and some of his translations have been culled from many of his books and gathered at http://altafsir.com/ViewTranslations.asp?Display=yes&SoraNo=1&Ayah=0&amp... . He is some kind of expert on Shakespeare, and it shows in his translation.

I also like MH Shakir's translation. It is simple and concise, and has evoked feelings in my soul that other translations have not.

So, what translations do you like and why?

NB: some of these touchstones are going nowhere near where they should be.

Yes, people really do like Yusuf Ali. I, however, never really liked it--I just did not like his style of English.

His commentary is not too extensive; it mainly consists of some footnotes.

If you want a good commentary in English, I recommend Muhammad Asad's The Message of the Qur'an. It's free for non-Muslims at https://www.cair.com/explorethequran/request.asp - but you do have to pay the shipping. He has taken commentary from many of the early Arabic sources. Sometimes he goes with minority views, but for the most part his translation and commentary are pretty accurate in the normative Islamic sense (IMHO).

I have a few Pickthall translations, but I really haven't used Pickthall's translation enough to even have a real opinion on it, but I do like all his olden words :) makes it seem more majestic, I guess.

It's hard for me to say, because I cannot read the classical Arabic and compare the real thing with the various translations. But these days, I prefer the recent translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem. It's written in clean, modern English and is therefore very easy to read. (I'm not fond of slogging through Ye Olde Englische when it comes to something like the Qur'an.)

It also contains just enough footnotes to maintain clarity, but not so much that they are distracting or start to overwhelm the Qur'an itself. Abdel Haleem, who is a Muslim as well as a professor and translator, also includes an introduction that discusses the Qur'an's style, themes and context; he also tackles oft-misunderstood verses, the Qur'an's literary style and themes, and a history of English translations of the Qur'an.

Wow, I have his work, but I never really looked in it too much. I received it from a friend who works for Oxford Univeristy Press. That history sounds interesting, I'll give it a look.

There's also another new translation by Thomas Cleary that I had acquired but never used, and now no longer have it.

I have heard good things about Asad's translation, which you also recommend. Is it done in modern English (i.e. not in King James/Shakespeare style)?

You can read it, along with Asad's notes, here.

Excellent! I'm sure I'll purchase the Asad translation at some point, but I can enjoy perusing that page in the meantime. Thank you. :)

You're welcome. I haven't bought Asad's translation either, but I am planning to, eventually :) . Too many books to buy, so it's not very high on the priority list.

I have Abdulhaqq and Aisha Bewley's translation as well.

http://bewley.virtualave.net/quran.html

It's based on the Warsh reading.

They made the choice to not translate certain "big concept" words that tend to be not translated by Muslims which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, IMO. Their translation has a loose poetry type of "look." I think their scholarly approach and modern type of language makes it an appealing option.

BTW it's English only.

Thanks, I'll take a look at her translation.

In case anyone wants to follow along, over on http://hotair.com author Robert Spencer author of such books as The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, just started a series called Blogging the Quran, where he presents and discusses the entire Quran (he mentions and links to several of the translations mentioned in this thread). Today was the first message, Sura 1.

Somehow, I doubt Robert Spencer's qualifications. Some of his work would be comical if it wasn't so inaccurate.

>15 mujahid7ia:, Yes, Robert Spencer should certainly be taken with caution. Although I guess no one can really be completely 'objective,' his work strikes me as polemical rather than academic.

>14 EncompassedRunner:, Having said that, I am actually really curious to see what he has to say in this Blogging the Qur'an series.

I am partial to Ahmed Ali's translation (the touchstone to the work won't work), simply because it was the first encounter I had with the Qur'an and I enjoyed it very much, although I admit I have not re-read the translation in full in many years and I do not know anything specifically about his background or qualifications. I much prefer it to the Marmaduke Pickthall translation, which as someone said, is too Ye Olde English for my tastes.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the Ali translation is dual language, with the Arabic text placed alongside the translation.

> 16, I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, whose translation I mentioned in 6, also wrote a book called Understanding the Qur®an : themes and style whose touchstone is slightly off; the actual title is Understanding the Qur'an: Themes and Styles, and the Amazon.com page is here. Perhaps that book, in conjunction with his Qur'an translation, would be of help to you.

Edited to fix html tags and stuff.

>17 EncompassedRunner: - Hah, I just heard about The Noble Koran - I had no idea there was such a thing. I too am interested to see it at some point.

Right now I am reading M.A.S Haleem's translation and I find it overall very easy to read. I like the footnotes that refer to other Qur'an ayat and their notes for more clarification.

I am very curious to see the new translation that came out by Laleh Bakhtiar, an American woman, who addresses contemporary theory on the translation of the 'beating' verse and asserts that it is often misinterpreted and mistranslated as 'beat' but should be 'separate'. I had the opportunity to glance at her introduction where she outlines this argument and offers evidence. I must say, I have seen this argument before and tend to agree with it. It is much more in line with the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad whom, when he was mad at his wives one time, avoided them and did not beat them (obviously). The title of her translation alone makes one want to give this one some serious perusal...'The Sublime Qur'an.' What a great title.

I actually have enjoyed Pickthall's translation as far as Ye Olde Englishe translations go. I tend to find more clarity in his than others when comparing them side by side. I haven't made a detailed examination however.

Yusuf Ali was the first Qur'an I owned and it was one of the large ones with extensive footnotes. I have heard it is banned by the LA county school system for apparantly rather ugly footnotes about Jewish people. I haven't looked but I hope this is not true. I need to examine it one of these days.

Khan's translation is horrible. I hate saying that about a translation of the Qur'an because I know the translators probably made a sincere effort. I tend to suspect that it is polemical however. In my opinion, it is a translation that promotes salafi/wahabbi ideology heavily rather than an effort to be unbiased. Of course, any translation will have bias, but this seems very heavily tilted. I remember one day (years ago) being asked about 'stoning' for adultery by someone visiting a university club meeting. Some friends and I had a copy of Khan's with us and we decided to look and 'see what the Qur'an says' and in parentheses was a description of stoning as being the punishment. We accepted that as being 'in the Qur'an' but a year later I realized we had been duped. It is NOT in the Qur'an and these parenthetical additions were not explanations of the actual text but inserted opinions! That is how I learned my big lesson on being careful about translations.

Thank you to whomever posted the link to the CAIR site that sends out Asad's translation. I had forgotten about that but just went and ordered a copy. I have been looking for a copy for quite awhile, however, being a grad student, I can't afford the normal 40 to 60 dollar price tag. The website where a translation is available (also linked by someone above) is one I have gone to many times and is much appreciated. They need to work on the interface though, but hopefully will get it straightened out. There are also some websites that have multiple versions of the Qur'an (I think 11) side by side and Asad's with notes is included.

Someone mentioned wanting a book above that has each word with the verses it appears in. This is not what you are looking for but it is interesting. It is lists of the words of the Qur'an broken down into just the individual words without being repeated. In the Qur'an many of the words are repeated quite a few times and they say that memorizing only something like 2,000 words (I totally forget how many so don't quote me) allows one to know 80% of the Qur'an. Here is a link to a site that has it: http://www.understandquran.com/80Eng.htm

Disclaimer - I have not perused this site so I have no idea who the owners are. I just did a quick google search and came up with it.

A Concordance of the Qur'an by Hannah E. Kassis is a useful concordance that lists every single word in the Quran alphabetically, and then cites the reference for the ayat.

Hope you're able to find a copy!

I found Kassis useful but bulky - literally - at least the edition I worked with. If you know your way around the Arabic alphabet the Mu'jam al-Mufahris li al-Faz al-Qur'an al-Karim by Muhammad Fuad Ab al-Baqi is a wonderful concordance. It find it invaluable and relatively easy to use.

As a beginner I was looking for the simplest accurate rendering in English, and several websites and Muslim educators recommend "English Translation of the Meaning of Al-Qur'an : the Guidance for Mankind," by Mohammad Malik, published by The Institute of Islamic Knowledge, isbn 9830651924.

There's also a slightly more expensive version that includes the Arabic; however, I don't think that it has transliteration.

Each Sura has an introduction, and there are parenthetical explanations of difficult or ambiguous phrases/words, glossary, historical essays ....

The whole work is user friendly.

Not only is Spencer's work "comical" and "inaccurate," but it is completely hostile to Islam, Muslims, and the Quran. While his commentary has a scholarly/academic patina, that of his coterie of commentators is often outright vicious. Using his site to study Islam is like reading white supremacist ranting to study African American history or Judaism--the difference being that Spencer seems to be studious in his analyses.

Spencer's commentaries on the Suras don't seem to be too off the mark to me, although it isn't hard to detect a certain subtle condemnation of the Qur'an's statements about Jews. At times reading him I was reminded of comments I had read in M.A.S. Abdel Haleem's translation. That said, the posts by readers that follow each of his weekly commentaries are ignorant, bigoted, hateful, and frightening. The site that hosts Spencer's Qur'an blog lists it in the "War on Terror" section, which seems to say it all.

This LT group seems almost dormant.

The Qur'an A New Translation: M.A.S Abdel Haleem, Oxford World's Classics is a welcome new Translation, Abdullah Yusuf Alis's The Meaning of the HOLY QUR'AN is also good , specoially the one that have been revised into Modern english.
However the Best Translation that I regularly read is the The Qur'an Arabic Text With Corresponding English Meanings, Revised and Edited by Saheeh International
Published by Abul-Qasim Publishing House, Jeddah Saudi Arabia ISBN 9960 792 633
However this is difficult to obtain but it is available at www.kitaabun.com

This acclaimed translation of the meanings of the Holy Qur'an has set new standards of readability and accuracy, for the benefit of everyone needing a resource of the Qur'an in English. Readers will appreciate the clear, modern English, the smooth flow of sentences, and the concise footnotes which give necessary information but allow uninterrupted reading of the main text. The scholars and translators of Saheeh International have paid careful attention to authentic sources of hadeeth and tafsir and have made comparisons with previous classic English translations. The result is a highly accessible and reliable work that can be used by anyone wanting to study the authentic meanings of the Holy Qur'an