Recommended English Translations of the Quran

Which of the English translations or meanings

of the Arabic,

Quran

would you recommend to the viewers

as being the best?

There are many English translations of the Quran.

As a machine Quran has been translated in

most of the major languages of the world.

As far as the English is concerned, in

our foundation Islamic Research Foundation,

we have more than 50 50 different translations

of the Quran only in English language.

The best

overall

amongst all the English translations,

there are a few, one of them is

Desai International,

this is the copy.

Desai International,

it is translated

just a few years ago.

It was translated

by

3 American ladies,

these 3 accepted Islam and Alhamdulillah,

they have referred to various previous translations and

this is authentic translation.

But one thing I would like to mention

that no translation of the Quran

is exactly

as the original word of Allah

because the translation is a human handiwork. So

no translation would be free from errors,

no translation. It can come closer

to the meaning of the Quran, but because

the translation is a work of a human

being, it can come no way

exactly the same

as the Arabic Quran, but amongst the one

that we have in English language, sir international

is one of the good ones.

The translation is authentic

but naturally as I mentioned that there is

bound to be a few errors.

The other one

which is overall good

and which I recommend

is the translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali.

Abdullah Yusuf Ali spent more than 40 years

only in translating the Quran

and overall I say that if you want

to give to a non Muslim, the translation

overall is good. It has commentary, it has

good footnotes

and

the English is a bit archaic,

you know the old English,

which most of the people do not like,

but actually it is closer to Arabic.

Because Arabic is a language

in which you have 2 genders male and

female

and

numbers we have 3, singular,

dual and plural.

So in English language if I have to

say you,

whether it's a male or a female, I

use you, whether it's a single person

or 2 persons

or more than 2, I use the same

you. For 6 different people,

whether single, dual

or plural, whether male or female I use

the same you, but in Arabic,

for a male single person, there is a

different you, anta,

for a female

single person it's anti, similarly dual for male

female is separate, plural more than 2 male

female is separate, that's 6 different yous.

So in this archaic

English,

it's the you, dev, e, di, dhow, which

is closer

to the Arabic, but it is difficult for

those who are not used to distinguish English,

difficult, but there are people who have simplified

the singing shop that likes to follow and

they have taken out this e and dhow

and made it into

you etcetera.

But overall, this translation is very good, but

again has some errors which are cross errors,

you should be aware of it.

These errors are cross,

but barring these errors which are there as

I mentioned that, this is one of the

old translations

and it is one of the most popular

translations.

There have

been tens or maybe 100 of millions of

copies

of the race of Ali which has been

distributed throughout the world

Because it's a popular translation, there are books

written against this Quran also maximum,

but alhamdulillah,

it is a good handiwork. We have to

be careful of the errors. The other good

translation

is noble Quran

by Taqwydin

Hilali

and Musen Khan.

This translation I especially recommend for the Muslims.

I don't recommend for the non Muslims because

it has too many brackets.

And

it's good for the Muslims because in the

footnotes, very often,

they give references from, say, Bukhari,

say, Muslim. So it's helpful for the Muslim

to understand the Quran better. But for non

Muslim, because of the brackets and too many

explanation,

it may not be very much feasible for

Dawah work according to me.

The other translation which is good

is by Abdul Mujid Dariyabadi,

it's in 4 volumes.

Its main specialty is, it's good for comparative

religion

and it gives quotation from the bible and

the other scriptures besides the Psalms scriptures.

Another English translation which is good is by

Muhammad Asad.

It is a very logical translation. He very

often

quotes Samok Shari, it's Kashaf, but if you

be careful, sometimes he goes overboard, He tries

to prove everything logically,

even the miracles, etcetera, so he has to

be careful. Otherwise,

its argument is very sound.

We have to be careful. As I said,

no translation is free from error. Then the

other translation that we have is by Mohammad

Quttaal,

you know, the British, But it's only translation,

there's no commentary, there's no footnotes.

We have the translation

of T. B. Irving, which is the American

translation.

If you're American English, that's a good translation,

TB Irving.

If you want a poetic translation,

then Arthur Arbery is there.

He is a non Muslim, but it's a

poetic translation.

These are mainly the translations

which are translated directly from Arabic to English

and the famous one. There are many other,

several.

There are some translations which have been translated

from Arabic

to another language Urdu and then to English.

For example,

by Maulana Abu Allah Maududi

and that is called as the FEM Lu

Quran,

that is a good

translation, it is in 6 volumes. The new

one is in more volumes and especially

the new translation from Urdu to English, Zafarishat

Ansari

is Sabat in English,

and it's a different view.

You know, it's there's a different view, a

different angle

of the Quran.

I would like to mention one more, the

other one which translated from Arabic

to Urdu to English

is by Morana Shamsbih Sadha. It is in

3 volume Daud al Quran.

So these are some of the important translations,

I think it is approximately 10 that I

have mentioned.

There are more than 50

that are available and

in the market may be more.

want, they can differ with this translation.

want, they can differ with this translation.