True Teachings Of Islam

ISLAM – 205

Translations From Other Translations

Moslem expansion eastward moved Persian scholars to translate the Holy Qor-aan into Farsi for a faster and wider spread of Islam in their vast empires in eighth and ninth centuries A.D.

Moslem conquest of Spain led local leaders to get translation in the Spanish to learn what had turned the illiterate Arabs into a formidable force that conquered Spain to rule it for centuries.

Moslem rise in the Middle East resulted translation in Latin for European kings to see how the brute Bedouins evolved into a phenomenon that was trampling over their mighty kingdoms.

Moslem domination over the eastern Europe caused translations into French and German when the Ottoman Empire secured for itself a big name by routing the Crusades and Templers.

Moslem law being followed by the millions produced English translations when India and the Far East became ruled by the British Empire on-which-sun-never-set by the 17^th century AD.

Many authors found it easier to translate from earlier works in European languages that wrote from the left to right rather than learning a new language that even wrote from the right to left.

The eighteen-century industrial revolution and widespread use of the press created a mushroom of translations which today are estimated to be several hundred and making money selling them.

Moslems read and practiced the Holy Qor-aan — and Islam spread. Then they started reading just the translations by self-serving special agendas. The resulting nose-dive fell us where we are.

Many copy-cats of earlier works knowing little Arabic nevertheless embarked upon translating the Holy Qor-aan. See our commentary Translations with Author’s Whims

Even if a translation with Different Ideas, Different words or No Human Assist is a unique way of expression by an author, a bona fide good faith of Additions or Subtractions is hardly sub judice.

Translations from translations are known to fail in conveying the original intent but they become really poor when done by authors who were unfamiliar with the Arabic grammar and violated it.

Rules of Arabic grammar form a humongous number of root-based words. All roots carry their meanings into each derivate word. Every change and modification that forms a derivate word also weaves into it a unique nuance. This one rule of grammar makes the Arabic so expansive in vocabulary, rich in meanings and rather difficult to translate. Attempted translations of the Holy Qor-aan with little knowledge of Arabic grammar is to say the least a gross misconduct.

See the root fa-aa-la. Its past tense has fourteen (14) words, i.e., fa-ala, fa-alaa, fa-aloo, fa-alut, fa-ala-taa, fa-ul-na, fa-ul-ta, fa-ul-to-maa, fa-ul-toom, fa-ul-tay, fa-ul-to-maa, fa-ul-toon-na, fa-ul-to, fa-ul-naa. Each word has imbedded in it some pin-pointed meanings to show if it is for the masculine gender or feminine, and if it is for 3^rd person, 2^nd person or 1^st person. Another fourteen (14) words are for its present tense. Another fourteen (14) words are for its future tense. These forty-two (42) words are verbs that convey meanings in the active voice. Then there are more words that convey action in the passive voice. Then there are nouns of many types, and adjectives and adverbs — all from the same one root. The list goes on. This unique precision in the meanings of each word is the hall-mark of Arabic. No wonder translating it is not easy.

The translations on the market clearly show that any mistake in the tense, gender or voice made in the 1^st place got only magnified by the time it was re-translated a 2^nd, 3^rd and later time. The massive on-line bashing of Islam is based almost entirely upon such unfortunate mistranslations.

Every commune, cult, dogma, group, mythology, philosophy, religion, society, statehood, system or tradition has some beliefs it considers essential to its presentation, promotion and propaganda, even when others construe and criticize them as matters of blind faith. A translator should convey fully and faithfully every fact in the original which leads to its convictions, every element which highlights its goals and every manifestation which portrays its pictures crystal clear although his choice of verbiage will nevertheless trump his work and let his personal perspective creep in.

This site offers a simple and straightforward translation of the Holy Qor-aan making every effort to convey exactly what its sender the Almighty God had intended to codify in His This Message.

Islam – 200

List of translations of the Holy Qor-aan in Wikipedia

Although some earlier works are mentioned on page 69-A of ARO’s work, Wikipedia has an elaborate list of translations of the Holy Qor-aan in several languages. This list must be edited from time to time but when viewed in 2017 contained the following Main article: English translations of the Quran

The earliest known translation of the Qur’an in any European language was the Latin works by Robert of Ketton at the behest of the Abbot of Cluny in c. 1143. As Latin was the language of the church it never sought to question what would now be regarded as blatant inaccuracies in this translation which remained the only one until 1649 when the first English language translation was done by Alexander Ross, chaplain to King Charles I, who translated from a French work L’Alcoran de Mahomet by du Ryer. In 1734, George Sale produced the first translation of the Qur’an direct from Arabic into English but reflecting his missionary stance. Since then, there have been English translations by the clergyman John Medows Rodwell in 1861, and Edward Henry Palmer in 1880, both showing in their works a number of mistakes of mistranslation and misinterpretation, which brings into question their primary aim. These were followed by Richard Bell in 1937 and Arthur John Arberry in the 1950s.

The Qur’an (1910) by Dr. Mirza Abul Fazl (1865–1956), a native of East Bengal (now Bangladesh), later moved to Allahabad, India. He was the first Muslim to present a translation of the Qur’an into English along with the original Arabic text. Among the contemporary Muslim scholars Dr. Mirza Abul Fazl was a pioneer who took interest in the study of the chronological order of the Qur’an and drew the attention of Muslim scholars to its importance.

With the increasing population of English-speaking Muslims around the start of the 20th century, three Muslim translations of the Qur’an into English made their first appearance. The first was Muhammad Ali‘s 1917 translation, which is composed from an Ahmadiyya perspective, with some small parts being rejected as unorthodox interpretation by vast majority of Muslims. This was followed in 1930 by the English convert to Islam Marmaduke Pickthall‘s translation, which is literal and therefore regarded as the most accurate.^[8] Soon thereafter in 1934, Abdullah Yusuf Ali (from Bohra community) published his translation, featuring copious explanatory annotation – over 6000 notes, generally being around 95% of the text on a given page – to supplement the main text of the translation. This translation has gone through over 30 printings by several different publishing houses, and is one of the most popular amongst English-speaking Muslims, alongside the Pickthall and Saudi-sponsored Hilali-Khan translations.^[9]

With few new English translations over the 1950–1980 period, these three Muslim translations were to flourish and cement reputations that were to ensure their survival into the 21st century, finding favour among readers often in newly revised updated editions. Orientalist Arthur Arberry’s 1955 translation and native Iraqi Jew N. J. Dawood‘s unorthodox translation in 1956 were to be the only major works to appear in the post-war period. A. J. Arberry’s The Koran Interpreted remains the scholarly standard for English translations, and is widely used by academics.^[9]

The English Translation of Kanzul Iman is called “The Treasure of Faith,” which is translated by Farid Ul Haq. It is in simple, easy-to-understand modern-day English. Explanations are given in brackets to avoid ambiguity, provide better understanding and references to similar verses elsewhere.

Dr. Syed Abdul Latif’s translation published in 1967, regarded highly by some (he was a professor of English at Osmania University, Hyderabad), was nevertheless short-lived due to criticism of his foregoing accuracy for the price of fluency.

The Message of the Qur’an: Presented in Perspective (1974) was published by Dr. Hashim Amir Ali. He translated the Qur’an into English and arranged it according to chronological order. Dr. Hashim Amir-Ali (1903-1987) was a native of Salar Jung, Hyderabad, Deccan. In 1938 he came under the influence of Dr. Mirza Abul Fazl Allahabadi, and took a deep interest in the study of the Qur’an and was aware of the significance of the chronological order of the passages contained in it.

A Jewish convert to Islam, Muhammad Asad‘s monumental work The Message of The Qur’an made its appearance for the first time in 1980.

Professor Ahmed Ali‘s Al-Qur’an: A Contemporary Translation (Akrash Publishing, Karachi, 1984, Reprinted by Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1987; Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1988, with 9th reprinting 2001). Fazlur Rahman Malik of the University of Chicago writes, “It brings out the original rhythms of the Qur’anic language and the cadences. It also departs from traditional translations in that it gives more refined and differentiated shades of important concepts“. According to Francis Edward Peters of New York University, “Ahmed Ali’s work is clear, direct, and elegant – a combination of stylistic virtues almost never found in translations of the Qur’an. His is the best I have read”.

At the cusp of the 1980s, the 1973 oil crisis, the Iranian Revolution, the Nation of Islam and a new wave of cold-war generated Muslim immigrants to Europe and North America brought Islam squarely into the public limelight for the first time in Western Europe and North America. This resulted in a wave of translations as Western publishers tried to capitalize on the new demand for English translations of the Qur’an. Oxford University Press and Penguin Books were all to release editions at this time, as did indeed the Saudi Government, which came out with its own re-tooled version of the original Yusuf Ali translation. Canadian Muslim Professor T. B. Irving‘s ‘modern English’ translation (1985) was a major Muslim effort during that time.^{[citation needed]}

Qur’an: The Final Testament, Islamic Productions, Tucson, Arizona, (1989) was published by Rashad Khalifa ( رشاد خليفة ) [19 November 1935 – 31 January 1990]. Khalifa wrote that he was a messenger (rasool) of God and that the Archangel Gabriel ‘most assertively’ told him that chapter 36, verse 3, of the Quran, ‘specifically’ referred to him.^[10][11] He is referred to as God’s Messenger of the Covenant, by his followers.^[12] He wrote that the Quran contains a mathematical structure based on the number 19. He made the controversial claim that the last two verses of chapter nine in the Quran were not canonical, telling his followers to reject them.^[13] His reasoning was that the verses, disrupted an otherwise flawless nineteen-based pattern and were sacrilegious inasmuch as they appeared to endorse worship of Mohammed. Khalifa’s research received little attention in the West. In 1980, Martin Gardner mentioned it in Scientific American.^[14] Gardner later wrote a more extensive and critical review of Khalifa and his work.^[15]

The arrival of the 1990s ushered in the phenomenon of an extensive English-speaking Muslim population well-settled in Western Europe and North America. As a result, several major Muslim translations emerged to meet the ensuing demand. One of them was published in 1990, and it is by the first woman to translate the Quran into English, Amatul Rahman Omar, together with her husband, Abdul Mannan Omar^[16]. In 1991 appeared an English translation under the title: The Clarion Call Of The Eternal Qur-aan, by Muhammad Khalilur Rahman (b. 1906–1988), Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was the eldest son of Shamsul Ulama Moulana Muhammad Ishaque of Burdwan, West Bengal, India, – a former lecturer of Dhaka University.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996 the Saudi government financed a new translation “the Hilali-Khan Qur’an” which was distributed free worldwide by the Saudi government as it was in line with their particular interpretation .^[17]

In 1999 a fresh translation of the Qur’an into English entitled The Noble Qur’an – A New Rendering of its Meaning in English by Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley (who is an American) was published by Bookwork,^[18] with revised editions being published in 2005 ^[19] and 2011.^[20]

The Qur’an in Persian and English (Bilingual Edition, 2001) features an English translation by the Iranian poet and author Tahere Saffarzadeh. This was the third translation of the Qur’an into English by a woman, after Amatul Rahman Omar,^[21] and Aisha Bewley – and the first bilingual translation of the Qur’an.^[22][23][24]

In 2003, the English translation of the 8-volume Maariful Quran was completed and the translation of the Qur’aan used for it was newly done by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani in collaboration with his brother Mawlana Wali Raazi Usmani and his teachers, Professors Hasan Askari and Muhammad Shameem.

In 2004 a new translation of the Qur’an by Muhammad Abdel-Haleem was also published, with revised editions being published in 2005 ^[25] and 2008.^[26]

In 2007, The Meanings of the Noble Qur’aan with Explanatory Notes by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani was published. It has been published in 2 volumes at first and later, in a single volume. It is the first single-handed English translation of the Qur’aan done by an authentic Sunni Islaamic scholar who is also one of the greatest scholars living today, if not the greatest. He also translated the Qur’aan in simple Urdu, making him a translator of the Qur’aan in dual languages. In 2007 The Sublime Qur’an appeared by Laleh Bakhtiar; it is the second translation of the Qur’an by an American woman.^{[22][27][28][29]}

In 2009 Maulana Wahiduddin Khan translated the Quran in English, which was published byGoodword Books entitled, The Quran: Translation and Commentary with Parallel Arabic Text. This translation is considered as the most easy to understand due to simple and modern English. The pocket size version of this translation with only English text is widely distributed as part of dawah work.

A rhymed verse edition of the entire Qur’an rendered in English by Thomas McElwain in 2010 includes rhymed commentary under the hardback title The Beloved and I, Volume Five, and the paperback title The Beloved and I: Contemplations on the Qur’an.

In 2015 Dr. Mustafa Khattab of Al-Azhar University completed The Clear Quran: A Thematic English Translation, after three years of collaboration with a team of scholars, editors, and proof-readers. Noted for its clarity, accuracy, and flow, this work is believed to be the first English translation done in Canada.^[30]

A Turkish Scholar Hakkı Yılmaz worked on the Qur’an through the root meanings of the Arabic words and published a study called Tebyin-ül Qur’an. And he also published a Division by Division Interpretation in the Order of Revelation in Turkish. His work, then was translated in English. ^[31]

In 2018, Dr Musharraf Hussain released a reader-friendly presentation of the translation of the Quran that will help readers to understand the topic being read, and learn the moving and transformative message of the Quran. There are 1500 sections with headings. The Infallible word of Allah is a literary masterpiece of breathtaking beauty, revealed by the Most Gracious and Loving Lord in an authoritative yet gentle, poetic language. This refreshing and beautiful presentation of the message of the glorious Quran is accurate, and reads easily and flows smoothly. The notes help to explain special Islamic concepts and Quranic terms, as well as Arabic metaphors and idioms. This landmark translation will appeal to English readers globally

Islam – 102

The Forecast – Of Victories  

The verse 002:130 of the Holy Qor-aan is a prayer with which the Prophet Abraham (peace be on him) beseeched the Almighty God for a very special favor for his progeny.

The verse 002:152 is how the Almighty Allah reminds mankind of a Messenger He sent to cleanse them, teach them the Scripture, Wisdom and teach What they didn’t know before.

The verse 062:003 reiterates the steps which had materialized the aforesaid occurrence and lays a foundation of a spectacular Forecast made in the next verse 062:004.

The Forecast is of successive victories in the future that will come time and again like the ocean waves that sometime high and sometime low but never stop coming.

The verses 062:003 and 062:004 merit to be studied jointly. The Note 062:004 highlights the essential elements of this Forecast.

“** Note 062:004. Apart from other meanings this verse is also a forecast. The forecast is of future events that will keep on recurring without ever coming to an end. Time and again God will select a person to depute to the folks unlettered in spiritual matters. The person chosen will be extraordinary and sent as the messenger from the Almighty Allah. His task will be to connect ordinary people with their Creator with the sturdy spiritual bonds. Miraculously this connection will set them to purify themselves inwardly and grow spiritually. Their entire society will change.

“The methodology to read, recite and rehears the Scriptures to them will revolutionize their lives. The one result of educating them this way will make them learn and live their religion and become wise. The overall change from their previous lifestyle will be mastering a control on their human frailties. The consequential ascendancy in all their worldly affairs will blossom out into a New World Order. They won’t need some primogeniture process or clannish connections to rise, rule and serve people.

“They will live as God-fearing, simple and honest persons but their way will bend mighty monarchs and posh pashas to find honor in duplicating their just society, social equality, religious freedom, highest learning, genuine service and rule of law for their own masses in their domains.

“Their religion was named Islam that meant peace. They provided peace to rich and poor, in and out of every home, whichever country or culture came under their sway. However, when the human nature of being brute, barbarian and bloodthirsty which invariably corrupts power will creep into them again, another Victory of Truth and Justice will also appear as forecast.”

The forecast of endless chain of victories for the future of mankind precipitated its first link right in the lifetime of the Holy Prophet s.a.w when he was still receiving the Holy Qor-aan.

Starting with the verse 048:002, the Soo-ra-tool-fut-ha illustrates how the first big victory came. It also demonstrates the recognizable pattern of how the subsequent victories will look.

God Almighty has kept to Himself the discretion as to the time, place and extent to fulfill this Forecast. But every one of these Victories will shape the future evolution of mankind.