Only some of the meanings of Qur’an are captured by any translation. Because of this, several translations don’t even claim to translate the Qur’an but rather “the meanings of the Qur’an”. But as long as you appreciate that to really understand the full subtleties and ranges of meanings of the Qur’an you need really to go into the Arabic text, then you will treat translations with appropriate caution. As a matter of fact, in dealing with translations, we are inevitably dealing with interpreting the Qur’an.
Being what it is, there have been many great efforts to interpret the Qur’an. These have employed other additional sources to justify their interpretations. For example, in the explanation of the Qur’an (tafsir) by Tabari, many sayings attributed to the prophet (pbuh) are employed as well as quotes from the Bible. Some translations try to take these sources into account too, however in my opinion the translations which do this tend to distort the meanings of the words of the Qur’an by using other material which is less authentic. This is very dangerous in translation because it sets other material as equal to the Qur’an. That other material can even be easily misunderstood as being part of the Qur’an when, in fact, it is not.
There are two examples of this process that I am aware of. Firstly, The translation “The Noble Qur’an” (A Summarized Version of At-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir with comments from Sahih Al-Bukhari By Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali, Ph.D. Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan ) This one doesn’t actually change the translation as such but it adds large sections in brackets within the translation within which are meanings derived from classical commentaries. This confuses the text of the Qur’an with text from other sources. Usually, text in brackets within a translation is used to give some implied word which is missing, but the meaning of which is clearly in the Qur’an. This is the way it is used in pretty much all translations. Commentaries should be clearly separated from the translated text and should instead be added in footnotes.
I recently became aware of a translation that goes one more step and removed the brackets (Behbudi and Turner’s The Qur’an: A new Interpretation). This means that the meanings of the verses of the Qur’an are now fully mixed in with the meanings of many derived sources of interpretation. In some cases this dramatically changes the obvious meanings of the Qur’anic verses! I would seriously recommend that you do NOT read this translation.
Other translations have other problems. The standard one published by Penguin books by Dawud is a translation not liked by many because of his choice of words. It tends to capture some strange and sometimes negative meanings when others would be preferable. Some Muslims point to the possible reason for this being that Dawud was not a Muslim (but a Jew) and did not pick the most accurate meanings. Arberry is a quite old translation, not widely available any more. It lacks a set of footnotes and comments and similarly sometimes the choice of words is odd and misleading.
There are a few translations that I would recommend. The one I find most useful is written by Yusuf Ali. This has gone through a number of editions and revisions of the commentary. The version produced by Amana Publications is probably the best. This translation is done with an audience in mind, familiar with what was - at the time (1930’s) - the standard King James Bible. It therefore is in a rather antiquated English and uses words like “ye”, “thou”, “thee” etc. But if you can get past these archaisms it is still a very good translation with a thorough commentary suitable for a Western reader and a good index. Of course it is never going to capture all the meanings of the original but it captures a good subset.
Another translation I like is by Muhammad Asad. This translation is very well tuned to the western mind. It contains many good insights into the meanings of the Qur’an. However, sometimes his comments are perhaps too much his opinion and not really justified by the text. So, this is a translation to read along with other translations that expose you to other meanings in the verses. As far as I know there is no edition of this translation with an index but it does have extensive footnotes and comments.
Another translation that is quite popular is by Marmaduke Pickthall. This is quite a direct translation of the Arabic but I have never seen it published with comments and footnotes. This can leave a first-time reader with many unanswered questions.
There are many new translations being published these days, each with a variation in how to approach the Qur’an. I recommend that whichever translation you go with, read others as well to ensure that you appreciate the different possible meanings that the Qur’anic text has.
Finally, I would like to stress again that learning Arabic in some way will help a great deal in your understanding of the Qur’an. Even a fairly basic grasp of the language will help you in many ways. For example, with only a simple ability to recognize words and sentences, you can easily spot where the “translation” is adding a whole phrase to the actual text and this will prevent you from thinking something was part of the Qur’an when it is not. I was quite shocked to see how blatantly this was done in some cases!
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Where can one purchase this tafsir? I could only find the following link:
Re: Which Translation of Qur'an do you prefer?
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