Mohammed.Amin.comFresh thinking from a British Muslim
Summary
10 September 2010
Speakers of Arabic universally consider the Quran to be the ultimate text in poetic Arabic.
Disbelievers regularly accused the Prophet (peace be upon him) of making up the Quran himself, instead of it being divine revelation. God’s response, revealed through the Prophet (pbuh) was straightforward, as in Quran 2.23-24 (Muhammad Asad translation):
And if you doubt any part of what We have, bestowed from on high, step by step, upon Our servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah of similar merit, and call upon any other than God to bear witness for you - if what you say is true! And if you cannot do it - and most certainly you cannot do it - then be conscious of the fire whose fuel is human beings and stones which awaits all who deny the truth!
The existence of the Quran has served to stabilise the Arabic language, so that present day speakers of Arabic can understand the Quran tolerably well I believe, even though Arabic has changed a bit during the intervening 1,400 years. Compare this with Anglo-Saxon from 622 CE which would be incomprehensible to a modern English speaker.
The recitation of the Quran by an expert is often deeply moving even for those who do not understand Arabic. You can listen to an example at Quran Explorer. (Remember to click the “Play” button in the bottom left corner of the screen.) Muslim children, regardless of their native language, are usually taught how to sound Arabic script, and I learned this myself both when young and again in later life, but did not persevere as I found it frustrating since I did not understand what I was reading aloud.
Due to the subtlety of the language, the Quran is generally considered as not truly translatable. However, that does not eliminate the need of non-Arabic speakers to understand it; the Quran is God speaking directly to mankind and we need to read and understand what He said. Some learn Arabic as a second language; that is excellent if you master the language. However, the challenge should not be underestimated. I spent seven years learning French at secondary school, and while I can get a general understanding of a newspaper article, I would not dream of trying to understand Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy relying upon my French ability.
Accordingly, I consider that unless a non-native Arabic speaker has genuinely mastered the language, the best course of action is to read and understand the Quran in translation. The natural question of course is to ask how you can be confident that the English text you are reading is an accurate and unbiased rendering of the Arabic original. In my view, there are two parts to the answer:
There are three translations I particularly recommend.
Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem, OBE is Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and editor of the Journal of Quranic Studies. He is a native Arabic speaker, being born in Egypt and he learned the Quran by heart during childhood. I have had the privilege of meeting Professor Haleem in London.
This translation was published in 2004. For both Muslims and non-Muslims, I recommend this as the first translation that you should read for the following reasons:
Abdullah Yusuf Ali CBE, FRSL (1872 – 1953) was born in Gujarat, British India, and memorised the Quran as a child. His translation was done from 1934 to 1938, and I believe was the second major translation into English by a Muslim, the first being that by Marmaduke Pickthall. (The Pickthall translation is available free on the internet.)
It is readily available from the Islamic Propagation Centre International in Birmingham, although it is cheaper to buy it from Amazon.co.uk. Each page has the Arabic text, with English translation beside it. The translation is very extensively footnoted. Indeed, almost half of each page is devoted to footnotes.
The English text of the translation is available free on the internet, but without the footnotes.
Until I learned of the next translation, the Yusuf Ali translation was my first source of reference when I wanted to understand the Quran.
Muhammad Asad (1900-1992) was Jewish, born as Leopold Weiss in Lwow, Galicia, now in Poland, and then part of the Austrian empire. He converted to Islam in 1926 and became Muhammad Asad. He had a remarkable life, including becoming Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, and I recommend reading the Muhammad Asad's biography published in 1995 in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. The translation took him 17 years.
When I was in Granada, Spain in May 2010, I learned that Muhammad Asad is buried there, but sadly the cemetery was closed on the only occasion when I was able to try visiting his grave.
His translation is my current favourite, both for the clarity of the translated text and for the footnotes. The text of "The Message of the Qur'an" is available free on the internet. You can also download a free PDF of "The Message of the Qur'an" which gives you both the translation and the footnotes. My review of "The Cambridge Companion to the Quran" edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe has a quote from her explaining why Asad produced his translation.
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