The Glorious Quran – English translation with annotations based on earliest authoritative source by
Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan. Pharos Media & Publishing. Pg 1338. New Delhi. Hardback.
Yet another English translation of the Qur’an has been published in India, but the translator says it differs from other translations.
This latest translation aims to present the Qur’an “the way Islam’s earliest generations understood it. It is the first major Indian contribution to the English translation of the Qur’an since the popular translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, which was first published in the early 1930s,” writes Dr Zafrul-Islam Khan.
Khan says his translation “does not offer any ideological or philosophical interpretation of the divine text.” (p18)
Therefore, his method is to use only the earliest and most basic Arabic works of tafsir (exegesis), hadith, and sunnah to “understand the meanings of words, terms, and the reasons for a particular revelation.”
Khan began this translation over a decade ago as a revision of Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s (AYA) English translation of the Qur’an. However, after a lot of revisions of AYA’s work, this translation is no longer just a revision; rather, it is “a new work” by Khan. (p16) Khan has compiled a separate book that shows “some of the major mistakes and shortcomings of AYA’s translation that necessitated this work.”
Footnotes in this work aim to facilitate an ordinary Muslim or non-Muslim reader to understand the meanings and context of ayahs (verses). Khan argues that he has also avoided academic or comparative comments that may confuse an ordinary reader. However, in many instances, he delves into very detailed references to give opinions from various scholars and exegesis as footnotes, which tend to be academic.
The translation includes extensive annotations of verses, laws, names, and places mentioned in the Qur’an.
His translation, I agree, is one of the better works on the Qur’an, and the modern English translation makes it easier to read and understand the Qur’anic verses.
Added various appendices on various aspects of the Qur’an is a very useful background for understanding the holy book.
The appendices include a short biography of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) based on original sources; the 99 names and attributes [“Best Names”] of Allah are mentioned, indicating their meanings; the ayah where a certain name or attribute first occurred in the text; the names of all Prophets mentioned in the Qur’an are published too; a dictionary of Islamic terms and a subject index of the Qur’an are also included.
Dr Khan’s work is a significant contribution to the English translation of the Qur’an and will be useful to the younger generation of Muslims in understanding the Qur’an. It is highly recommended.
Abdul Adil
