pls advise (muslims only)

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جوري

جوري

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I have a friend who is dear to me, and I wish very much to offer du3wa though not be pushy ( been five yrs) lol-- Anyhow to make a long story short
I have been searching for the perfect transliteration of the Quran with some commentary for guide, and I have quite a few here at home and many recommendations as well, but my personal favorite has alwas been Muhammad Asad's work, I'd like to know if others recommend him as well or if there is better and why you think it is better....
here is a sample of his work a his biography

from suret ad duha which is a brief example of his work



The Message of the Quran

Muhammad Asad



AD-DUHA (THE BRIGHT MORNING HOURS)

THE NINETY-THIRD SURAH
Total Verses: 11
MECCA PERIOD



Introduction



IT IS SAID that after surah 89 (Al-Fajr) was revealed, some time elapsed during which the Prophet did not receive any revelation, and that his opponents in Mecca taunted him on this score, saying, "Thy God has forsaken and scorned thee!" - whereupon the present surah was revealed. Whether or not we accept this somewhat doubtful story, there is every reason to assume that the surah as such, although in the first instance addressed to the Prophet, has a far wider purport: it concerns - and is meant to console - every faithful man and woman suffering from the sorrows and bitter hardships which so often afflict the good and the innocent, and which sometimes cause even the righteous to question God's transcendental justice.



IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE:



1) CONSIDER the bright morning hours,



(2) and the night when it grows still and dark.*



* The expression "bright morning hours" apparently symbolizes the few and widely-spaced periods of happiness in human life, as contrasted with the much greater length of "the night when it grows still and dark", i.e., the extended periods of sorrow or suffering that, as a rule, overshadow man's existence in this world (cf. 90 : 4). The further implication is that, as sure as morning follows night, God's mercy is bound to lighten every suffering, either in this world or in the life to come - for God has "willed upon Himself the law of grace and mercy" (6:12 and 54).



(3) Thy Sustainer has not forsaken thee, nor does He scorn thee:*



*Sc., ''as the thoughtless might conclude in view of the suffering that He has willed thee to bear".



(4) for, indeed, the life to come will be better for thee than this earlier part [of thy life]!



(5) And, indeed, in time will thy Sustainer grant thee [what thy heart desires], and thou shalt be well-pleased.



(6) Has He not found thee an orphan, and given thee shelter?*



*Possibly an allusion to the fact that Muhammad was born a few months after his father's death, and that his mother died when he was only six years old. Apart from this, however, every human being is an "orphan" in one sense or another, inasmuch as everyone is "created in a lonely state" (cf. 6:94), and "will appear before Him on Resurrection Day in a lonely state" (19:95).



(7) And found thee lost on thy way, and guided thee?



(8) And found thee in want, and given thee sufficiency?



(9) Therefore, the orphan shalt thou never wrong,



(10) and him that seeks [thy] help shalt thou never chide,*



*The term sa'il denotes" literally, "one who asks", which signifies not only a "beggar" but anyone who asks for help in a difficult situation, whether physical or moral, or even for enlightenment.



(11) and of thy Sustainer's blessings shalt thou [ever] speak.*



*Sc., "rather than of thy suffering".

from this sura

[media]http://youtube.com/watch?v=My3PVW0gHj0[/media]

his biography from wiki can't gurantee its accuracy

Muhammad Asad (born Leopold Weiss in July 1900 in what was then Polish Lemberg in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv in Ukraine; died 1992) was a Jew who converted to Islam.


[edit] Biography
Asad was a descendant of a long line of rabbis. However, his father was a barrister. He received a thorough religious education. He was proficient in Hebrew from an early age and was also familiar with Aramaic. He studied the Old Testament, as well as the text and commentaries of the Talmud, the Mishna and Gemara. Furthermore, he delved into the intricacies of Biblical exegesis, the Targum.

After abandoning university in Vienna, Asad (or Weiss, as he was then) had drifted aimlessly around twenties Germany, even working briefly for the expressionist film director Fritz Lang. By his own account after selling a jointly written film-script, he blew the windfall on a wild party at an expensive Berlin restaurant, in the spirit of the times. He got his first journalism published through sheer chutzpah while working as a telephone operator for an American news agency in Berlin. Using the simple expedient of ringing up her Berlin hotel room, he obtained an exclusive interview with the visiting wife of the Russian author Maxim Gorky, and the story was taken up by his employers.

Weiss later moved to the British Mandate of Palestine, staying in Jerusalem at the house of an uncle, the psychoanalyst Dorian Weiss. He picked up work as a stringer for the Frankfurter Zeitung, selling articles on a freelance basis. His pieces were noteworthy for their understanding of Arab fears and grievances against the Zionist project. Eventually contracted as a full-time foreign correspondent for the paper, his assignments led him to an ever deepening engagement with Islam, which after much thought led to his religious conversion in 1926. He spoke of Islam thus:

"Islam appears to me like a perfect work of architecture. All its parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support each other; nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking; and the result is a structure of absolute balance and solid composure."

His travels and sojourns through Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran (he wrote many insightful articles on Shiism), and also Afghanistan and the southern Soviet Republics, were viewed with great suspicion by the Colonial Powers. One English diplomat in Saudi Arabia described him in a report as a "Bolshevik", and it is true that he took a close interest in the many liberation movements that were active at this time with the aim of freeing Muslim lands from colonial rule. He ended up in India where he met and worked alongside Muhammad Iqbal, the poet-philosopher, who had proposed the idea of an independent Muslim state in India, which later became Pakistan. During WWII he was interned there by the British as an enemy alien. His parents meanwhile, were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. After Independence and the Partition of 1947, Asad was appointed Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations. Towards the end of his life, he moved to Spain and lived there with his second wife, Paola Hameeda Asad, until his death.

Asad wrote several books, and a biography of his early life has been published in German, Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad. Von Galizien nach Arabien 1900-1927 by Gunther Windhager (Bohlau Verlag 2002}. Weiss's own version of this period is Road to Mecca, an account of his Middle Eastern travels and his conversion, as well as his thoughts on the growing Zionist movement. He also wrote The Message of The Qur'an, a translation and brief commentary on the Muslim holy book based on his own knowledge of classical Arabic and on the authoritative classical commentaries. It has been acclaimed as one of the best, if not the best, translations of the Quran into English, although it has been criticised by some traditionalists for its Mutazilite leanings. He also wrote a translation and commentary on the Sahih Bukhari, the most authoritative collection of Hadith. In addition, he wrote This Law of Ours where he sums up his views on Islamic law and rejects decisively the notion of taqlid, or strict judicial precedent which has been accepted as doctrine by most Muslim sects except the Salafis. He also makes a plea for rationalism and plurality in Islamic law, which he sees as the true legacy of the salaf or earliest generations of Muslims. In his book Islam at the Crossroads, he outlines his view that the Muslim world must make a choice between living by its own values and morality or accepting those of the West, in which case, they would always lag behind the West, which had had more time to adjust to those values and mores, and would end up compromising their own religion and culture. There are some playfully cryptic references to him in the recent bestseller The Orientalist by Tom Reiss (Random House 2005), and some slightly more sinister ones in the English translations of W.G. Sebald.

He is father of Talal Asad, anthropologist specializing in religious studies and postcolonialism.


[edit] Works
Road to Mecca
The Message of The Qur'an
Translation and commentary on the Sahih Bukhari
This Law of Ours
Islam at the Crossroads
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I know this probably seems like an easy decision to make, but it isn't.. evidenced by the fact that I have handed my friend everything from bukhari to the life of Muhammed (PBUH) but not a single copy of the quran.. so I want an exhaustive insight and search into this please..

thank you
:w:
 
:w:

It really was just today I had any exposure to his work as a translator. The little I have read I am impressed by.

Upon seeing this thread and some searching, he seems to be very remarkable. I am more familiar with some of his work done prior to his reverting to Islam, and I find it fantastic that he had reverted. Up until today I thought Leopold Weiss and Asad were two different people.

Based just on his life story I find him as a person worth reading and I feel his input as a translator gives his translation a much deeper understanding as he is more inline with todays Americanized English.
 
yes I agree, and Jazaka Allah khyran, I found this contracted version of his work on line, there are a few chunks missing, but it is ok for me, I almost regretted not buying two versions one for myself and one for my friend, but I am already blessed with two gifts wal7mdlilah
I speak Arabic and I am already Muslim :smile: Allahouma thabit qolobona wa aqdamana 3la al'iman..

anyhow here is the abridged version
http://www.geocities.com/masad02/
and if anyone wants to buy the full text, then I have enclosed the link in my above post

:w:
 
Woodrow said:
Here it is available as an ebook download for $15. I may get this one and download it onto a SD card. Although there is something nice about hard copies.


http://ebooks.ebookmall.com/title/message-of-the-quran-asad-ebooks.htm
Click to expand...

:sl:
very nice
Jazaka Allah khyran
I might just invest in this one.. I have a sony clie NX90.. it is pretty obsolete by now, I need to upgrade it.. perhaps I should start another thread on good PDA's?
but I need something that will take at least two gig's of info plus all those cool extras portable Quran would be a really wonderful addition..

:w:
 
thanks for that.. I love this hadith..
4) Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaye wasallam, assured that Islam is the religion of the future and it will spread all over the world; he said, "Verily Islam will reach every place as the day and night reach. There is no house (in city or desert) on Earth but Islam will enter it." (Ahmad and at-Tabari)

but there is even a more detailed one that it, I am really hoping I'll find it insha'Allah, about how people will concede their surrender :smile:

:w:
 
Here is the youtube video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtcbukncXvA&feature=related

In 1922 I left my native country, Austria, to travel through Africa and Asia as a Special Correspondent to some of the leading Continental newspapers, and spent from that year onward nearly the whole of my time in the Islamic East. My interest in the nations with which I came into contact was in the beginning that of an outsider only. I saw before me a social order and an outlook on life fundamentally different from the European; and from the very first there grew in me a sympathy for the more tranquil -- I should rather say: more mechanised mode of living in Europe. This sympathy gradually led me to an investigation of the reasons for such a difference, and I became interested in the religious teachings of the Muslims. At the time in question, that interest was not strong enough to draw me into the fold of Islam, but it opened to me a new vista of a progressive human society, of real brotherly feeling. The reality, however, of presentday Muslim life appeared to be very far from the ideal possibilities given in the religious teachings of Islam. Whatever, in Islam, had been progress and movement, had turned, among the Muslims, into indolence and stagnation; whatever there had been of generosity and readiness for self-sacrifice, had become, among the present-day Muslims, perverted into narrow-mindedness and love of an easy life.

Prompted by this discovery and puzzled by the obvious incongruency between Once and Now, I tried to approach the problem before me from a more intimate point of view: that is, I tried to imagine myself as being within the circle of Islam. It was a purely intellectual experiment; and it revealed to me, within a very short time, the right solution. I realised that the one and only reason for the social and cultural decay of the Muslims consisted in the fact that they had gradually ceased to follow the teachings of Islam in spirit. Islam was still there; but it was a body without soul. The very element which once had stood for the strength of the Muslim world was now responsible for its weakness: Islamic society had been built, from the very outset, on religious foundations alone, and the weakening of the foundations has necessarily weakened the cultural structure -- and possibly might cause its ultimate disappearance.
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The more I understood how concrete and how immensely practical the teachings of Islam are, the more eager became my questioning as to why the Muslims had abandoned their full application to real life. I discussed this problem with many thinking Mulsims in almost all the countries between the Libyan Desert and the Pamirs, between the Bosphorus and the Arabian Sea. It almost became an obsession which ultimately overshadowed all my other intellectual interests in the world of Islam. The questioning steadily grew in emphasis -- until I, a non-Muslim, talked to Muslims as if I were to defend Islam from their negligence and indolence. The progress was imperceptible to me, until one day -- it was in autumn 1925, in the mountains of Afghanistan -- a young provincial Governor said to me: "But you are a Muslim, only you don't know it yourself." I was struck by these words and remained silent. But when I came back to Europe once again, in 1926, I saw that the only logical consequence of my attitude was to embrace Islam.

So much about the circumstances of my becoming a Muslim. Since then I was asked, time and again: "Why did you embrace Islam ? What was it that attracted you particularly ?" -- and I must confess: I don't know of any satisfactory answer. It was not any particular teaching that attracted me, but the whole wonderful, inexplicably coherent structure of moral teaching and practical life programme. I could not say, even now, which aspect of it appeals to me more than any other. Islam appears to me like a perfect work of architecture. All its parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support each other: nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking, with the result of an absolute balance and solid composure. Probably this feeling that everything in the teachings and postulates of Islam is "in its proper place," has created the strongest impression on me. There might have been, along with it, other impressions also which today it is difficult for me to analyse. After all, it was a matter of love; and love is composed of many things; of our desires and our loneliness, of our high aims and our shortcomings, of our strength and our weakness. So it was in my case. Islam came over me like a robber who enters a house by night; but, unlike a robber, it entered to remain for good.

Ever since then I endeavoured to learn as much as I could about Islam. I studied the Qur'an and the Traditions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him); I studied the language of Islam and its history, and a good deal of what has been written about it and against it. I spent over five years in the Hijaz and Najd, mostly in al-Madinah, so that I might experience something of the original surroundings in which this religion was preached by the Arabian Prophet. As the Hijaz is the meeting centre of Muslims from many countries, I was able to compare most of the different religious and social views prevalent in the Islamic world in our days. Those studies and comparisons created in me the firm conviction that Islam, as a spiritual and social phenomenon, is still in spite of all the drawbacks caused by the deficiencies of the Muslims, by far the greatest driving force mankind has ever experienced; and all my interest became, since then, centred around the problem of its regeneration.

From "Islam, Our Choice"
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Jazaki Allah khyran ukhty
he is so full of old world charm..

Allah yer7amo

:w:
 

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