Detailed Description
By any standards, the Qur’an is one of the most important and influential texts in human history. While being an inexhaustible source of guidance, wisdom, inspiration, and wonder to billions of Muslims, it is a source of curiosity or puzzlement to many non-Muslims. For believers the Qur’an is the final Message to humankind from the Creator of the Universe, and to read and strive to understand and live by it is an absolute must for all.
First published in 1930, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Koran was the first attempt ever by a British Muslim to provide the English-reading public with a translation of Islam’s holy Scripture based on authoritative sources. Pickthall was keenly aware of the awesomeness of the task that faced him. He was also a fine writer who produced novels, travel narratives and learned articles. But the ‘Bible English’ in which his translation was written appears archaic to modern readers, many of whom have difficulty in understanding it.
Meanings of The Glorious Qur’an is a new revision, adapted for modern readers. Without altering the basic character of Pickthall’s classic work, it uses clearer language and also seeks to convey more of the rhythm and rhetorical force of the Arabic. Muhammad Isa Waley has drawn on authoritative sources which elucidate key forms, principles and nuances of Arabic rhetoric and semantics unknown to (or disregarded by) translators until recently. He has also consulted Muslim specialists in Qur’anic studies. Pickthall’s own footnotes, and his introductions to each Sūrah, have been supplemented or modified by new ones outlining and contextualising their main points.
Dozens of English translations exist, but these enhancements make Meanings of The Glorious Qur’an an important addition to the available literature.