Quran

MonkhouseIHH

Hello,

I was wondering is there anywhere i could purchase an English translation of the Quran? I live in Dublin btw. Much thanks.

wes

You should be able to get a copy in Easons or pretty much any bookstore.

hivizman

All of the currently available English language renderings of the Qur'an have pros and cons. If you want a translation just to read the Qur'an in English, then I like the recent translation by Tarif Khalidi, available in paperback in the Penguin Classics series. The narrative passages are presented in paragraphs while the more poetic passages are set out like poems (there are chapter and verse references in the margin, so they don't distract while you are reading). The English is clear and modern, avoiding archaic language. The downside is that, if you want a translation with a lot of notes or explanations, then Khalidi isn't the one for you. He doesn't even identify which surahs (chapters) are considered to be "Meccan" and which "Medinan".

At the other extreme, there is the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation The Meaning of the Holy Qur'an, which is widely used (it was first published in the 1930s, and was one of the first scholarly translations of the Qur'an into English). It's available in a pocket edition (though with very small print), that includes his notes (over 6,000 of them) and the Arabic text. Yusuf Ali consciously wrote in the style of the King James Bible, so his translation sounds very old-fashioned. It's widely available on-line, though, so it's worth buying only if you want a translation that fits in your pocket.

I often refer to Muhammad Asad's translation The Message of the Qur'an, which comes in a beautifully presented but very heavy (around 3kg) single volume, with notes, the Arabic text and a transliteration of the Arabic, so you can get a sense of how the Qur'an actually sounds and can follow recitations. Asad's English is more readable than Yusuf Ali's, and he often selects very vivid words for his translation, so the imagery is strong. Again, this translation is available on the internet if you search for it.

Another translation I like is that by Pickthall The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an, though make sure you get the "new modern English" edition, which uses more modern language rather than archaic language (such as "ye" and "thee"). There's a clearly printed paperback edition (no Arabic text), with brief introductions to each surah.

The other recent (2004) translation that may be in general bookshops is Abdel Haleem's for the Oxford World's Classics series. I was less impressed by this than by Khalidi's, though Abdel Hameed is a leading academic (Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London) and an authority on the Qur'an. I found his writing style rather flat, possibly because in a technical sense it is slightly closer to a literal translation than some of the others.

If you don't actually need a book, then there is a very helpful resource called The Quranic Arabic Corpus with seven different English translations presented in parallel, verse by verse - see my post in the resources sticky thread.

irishconvert

MonkhouseIHH wrote: »

Hello,

I was wondering is there anywhere i could purchase an English translation of the Quran? I live in Dublin btw. Much thanks.

I highly recommend this copy:

http://al-quraan.org/order-alquran-copies-c-1.html?zenid=34d9d2bff294b2c5c215e7c68bfe9f6e

It has explanation of the meaning of each surah (chapter) in a lot of detail and is great for a non-Muslim or new convert to Islam.