A new English translation of the holy book of Islam has been released that aims to present the Qur’ān the way Islam’s earliest generations understood it. It is the first major Indian contribution to the English translation of the Qur’ān since the popular translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, which was first published in the early 1930s. With its copious annotations and appendices, this edition offers a complete introduction to the tenets of Islam.
The translator, the Indian scholar Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, initially started the work as a revision of Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s translation which, according to him, has many inaccuracies and mistakes, in addition to using archaic and versified language. Dr. Khan’s work slowly progressed over 11 years into a totally new translation with over two thousand new annotations and several appendices on the introduction to the Qur’ān, a biography of Prophet Muhammad, the Beautiful Names of Allah, a dictionary of Islamic terms and a subject index of the Quran. As such, this new translation of the Quran is a complete guide to Islam.
The translator is a well-known scholar of Islam who studied at Al-Azhar and Cairo universities and got his PhD in Islamic Studies from Manchester University. Along with his command of Arabic, he also is fluent in English and Urdu and has written scores of books in these three languages. He was a senior research fellow at The Muslim Institute in London for around 14 years. He writes and speaks Arabic with native fluency, which placed him in a unique position to do such a difficult job.
In this work, Dr. Khan depended only on the most authentic and original Arabic works and oldest books on exegesis and biographies of the Prophet and the most authentic dictionaries of the Quran and Arabic language in order to determine the meanings of difficult words, expressions and terms.
The copious new annotations have taken into account the kind of questions an ordinary Muslim or non-Muslim reader may have while reading the Quranic text. The absence of this approach in many translations has led to problems and doubts exploited by enemies of Islam.
Dr. Khan says that he has tried to present a translation that reflects as accurately as possible the way Islam’s earliest generations understood the holy text. He believes this new translation is the most accurate version of the holy Islamic scripture in simple, modern English.
The translation is published by the Delhi publisher Pharos Media in 1234 large format pages/Rs 1195. It has parallel Arabic text and its English translation. Another edition has also been published without the Arabic text, in 815 pages/Rs 795. The work may be ordered from books@pharosmedia.com. The translation will soon be published by a number of publishers in various countries and will also be available on TheGloriousQuran.net, which is under construction.
