Following is alist of English translations of theQuran. The first translations were created in the17th and19th centuries by non-Muslims, but the majority of existing translations have been produced in the20th and21st centuries.
The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1734) was the first scholarly translation of the Quran and was the most widely available English translation for 200 years and is still in print.George Sale based this two-volume translation on the Latin translation byLouis Maracci (1698).[1]Thomas Jefferson had a copy of Sale's translation, now in theLibrary of Congress, that was used for House RepresentativeKeith Ellison'soath of office ceremony on 3 January 2007.[2]
Muslims did not begin translating the Quran into English until the early 20th century.[3]The Qur'an (1910) was translated byMirza Abul Fazl ofAllahabad,India. He was the first Muslim to present a translation of the Qur'an in English.The English Translation of the Holy Qur'an with Commentary (1917), translated byMaulana Muhammad Ali, was "the first English translation by anAhmadiyyah follower to be generally available and to be made accessible to the West."[4] Muhammad Ali was the leader of theLahori Ahmadis.Wallace Fard Muhammad, the founder of theNation of Islam, exclusively used Ali's translation.
The Koran Interpreted (1955) byArthur Arberry was the first English translation of the Quran by an academic scholar of Arabic, Islam, andSufism. Arberry attempted to maintain the rhythms and cadence of the Arabic text. For many years, it was the scholarly standard for English translations.
The Holy Qur'an: Arabic Text and English Translation (1990) was the first translation by a Muslim woman, Amatul Rahman Omar.
In October 2023, a new translation of the Quran byZafarul-Islam Khan was released asThe Glorious Quran — English Translation with Annotations Based on Earliest Authoritative Sources.
The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, tr. into English Immediately from the Original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, Taken from the Most Approved Commentators. To Which Is Prefixed a Preliminary Discourse. Translated byGeorge Sale. London: C. Ackers, 1734, available online at al-quran.info.[6]
^Palmer was a Cambridge scholar entrusted with the preparation of the new translation for Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East series.
^Bell was a lecturer in Arabic studies at Edinburgh University.
^Dawood was a native Arabic speaker from Iraq's now-defunct Jewish community. He preferred comprehensibility to literalism in translation, making his version easier to read. The first edition of the Dawood translation rearranged the chapters into approximate chronological order, but later editions restored the traditional sequence.[citation needed] His version was criticise byZiauddin Sardar, as "violent and sexist" in comparison to more modern translations published byThe Guardian.[10]
^Cleary is a well-known California-based translator of numerous Buddhist works. His translation was based on an earlier partial translation, which the American Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf highly praised.
^Jones is an Arabist and retired lecturer at Oxford University.
^McAuliffe's version is based on the Pickthall translation.
The Holy Qur'an: Arabic Text and English Translation.Translated by Amatul Rahman Omar and Abdul Mannan Omar. Noor Foundation International, Inc., 1990.ISBN0976697238.[c]
^Mohammad Khan's translation reflects an Ahmadiyya worldview.
^A revised edition was published in 1951; Ali spent the last five years of his life working towards it. It was redesigned with a new typeface and an expanded index in 2002.
^Amatul Rahman Omar was the first woman to translate the Qur'an into English, working with her husband Abdul Mannan Omar.
^Rashad Khalifa is a controversial teacher and computer scientist. He claimed to have used mathematics and computers to find hidden meanings in the Qur'an.
^This is an English translation of the Urdu translation, Mafhum-al-Quran (1961).
^The translation attempts to explain Qur'anic verses by cross-references within the Qur'an.
^They claim to offer a non-sexist understanding of the text.
The Qur'an with an English Paraphrase, Translated by Ali Quli Qara'i. Iranian Centre for Translation of the Holy Qur'an/Islamic Publications International, 2005.ISBN978-1904063179.
^This volume includes Arabic text and English translation arranged chronologically. It also includes an abstract (Allahabad).
^This translation attempts a poetic rendering of the Qur'an.
^This was claimed to be the first solo translation of the Qur'an by an American woman. The Sahih international (1997) version, was translated by three American women. It has also been called a feminist translation.
The Running Commentary of the Holy Qur-an with Under-Bracket Comments. Translated by Khadim Rahmani Nuri ofShillong, India: Sufi Hamsaya-Gurudwar, 1964.
The Clarion Call of the Eternal Quran. Translated by Muhammad Khalilur Rahman.Dhaka: 1991.
The Glorious Qur'an. Translated by Ahmad Zidan and Mrs. Dina Zidan. Zidan, 1993.ISBN978-0951811504
A Simple Translation of The Holy Quran. Translated byMir Aneesuddin.Hyderabad: Islamic Academy of Sciences, 1993.[g]
The Glorious Qur'an. Translated by Syed Vickar Ahamed.Kuala Lumpur: TR Group of Companies, 1999.ISBN983-40085-03
The Holy Qur'an. Translated by Emily B. Assami (Umm Muhammad), Amatullah J. Bantley, and Mary M. Kennedy.Jeddah: Dar Abul Qasim Publishing House, 1997.[28][29][h]
Al-Qur'an: Guidance for Mankind. Translated by M. Farooq-e-Azam Malik.Dearborn: The Institute of Islamic Knowledge, 1997.ISBN978-0911119800
Towards Understanding the Ever-glorious Qur'an. Translated byMuhammad Mahmoud Ghali.Cairo: Publishing House for Universities, 1997.
The Noble Qur'an: A New Rendering of Its Meaning in English (1999) Translated by Abdalhaqq Bewley andAisha Bewley. London: Madinah Press, 1999.ISBN9781874216360.[i]
The Gracious Qur'an: A Modern Phrased Interpretation in English. Translated by Ahmad Zaki Hammad.Reston: Lucent Interpretations, 2008.ISBN978-0978784935
Noor Al Bayan. English. Translated by Sayed Jumaa Salam.Sacramento: Salam Educational Center, 2018.ISBN978-1630750381
The Majestic Quran: A Plain English Translation. Translated by Musharraf Hussain al Azhari.Nottingham: Invitation Publishing, 2018.ISBN978-1-902248-65-3
The Easy Quran: A Translation in Simple English. Translated by Tahir Mahmood Kiani. Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd. 2022, (originally published independently, 2019).ISBN978-1915357007
SureQuran: A collaborative effort by Talal Itani and artificial intelligence.
The Glorious Quran - English Translation with annotations based on earliest authoritative sources byZafarul-Islam Khan, Published in 2023 for Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies by Pharos Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd, New Delhi. (With parallel ArabicISBN978-81-7221-134-9) (English only edition:ISBN978-81-7221-135-6)
^An English convert to Islam penned this translation at the behest of the Emir of Hyderabad while on a sojourn in India. Pickthall's widely printed translation was regarded as "an important milestone in the long course of Koranic interpretation" by later esteemed Qur'an translator A. J. Arberry, who also noted a few problems with Pickthall's verse numbering, which deviated in places from what had by then become the standard Arabic edition by Gustav Fluegel.
^The anglophile British-Indian Abdullah Yusuf Ali undertook this work at a time when the Qur'an had yet never been properly presented in English from a Shia perspective and only non-Muslim translations were available, which were sometimes overly unsympathetic. It has become one of the most widely used English editions of the Qur'an due to the quality of the translation and its use of extensive footnotes. In the 1980s, the book was appropriated by the Saudi religious establishment and edited to fit the country's Wahhabi/Salafist perspective. This latter version is today widely distributed as the Amana Edition.
^This is the first English translation of Abul Ala Maududi's original Urdu translation of the Qur'an.
^Irving is a Canadian Muslim who is an author, professor, translator, and activist. His English-only edition uses a North American vernacular.
^This translation uses Simple English, also called basic English.
^This is a translation by three American women converts, naming themselves Saheeh International.
^The husband-and-wife team behind this translation are disciples of Abdalqadir as-Sufi
^This translation is among the most widely read translations in the world.
^This volume presents the Arabic text using a Romanized transliteration system that allows English-speaking readers to pronounce the Arabic. The English translation is an amalgamation of other translations.
^The translator is a member of the Gülen Movement, a Turkish Islamic group.
^This is a translation of Javed Ahmed Ghamidi’s Urdu translation.
