Best English translation of the Qur'an

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Dave...

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Hi everyone

Because I am a Christ who believes the Bible I do understand that there are llimitations in translations to English. All things considered, is there agreement among Muslims with regards to what would be considered a reliable English translation of the Qur'an?

Thank you

Dave
 
Dave... said:
Hi everyone

Because I am a Christ who believes the Bible I do understand that there are llimitations in translations to English. All things considered, is there agreement among Muslims with regards to what would be considered a reliable English translation of the Qur'an?

Thank you

Dave
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Peace Dave,

I am glad to see you understand the limitations of every translations and the best any can do is only an approximation. Like Sister Lily mentioned it is best to read several translations to get a fuller grasp.My personal choices for people to read are Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Pickthal and Asad. Above all avoid any translations written by non-Muslims. Too often I find they contain what seem to be deliberate errors. (Not all, but probably most, with the translation by Kalifa being the worse) I especially like Ali and Pickthal because here you get the input from an Native Arabic speaker who was fluent in English and an English Native speaker who was fluent in Arabic. Asad gives a nice view as here you get the input from a Jewish revert to Islam who is fluent in both Arabic and English.

The difficulty in Arabic is to fully understand a single word you need to understand the full context of the Surah it is found in.

Arabic while easy to learn is difficult for an English speaker to grasp the fullness of each word. For example there are nearly 100 different words that translate into English as camel. But, if you understand Arabic, each word is very different and by the word used you know the age, sex, color and other aspects of the camel, from that single word.
 
Most of the time I prefer Yusuf Ali's translation best. If you are planning to purchase a qur'an, I'd suggest you read several different ones on-line first and then select which one you prefer. I agree with what the others said about reading several translations. A website that I like is this one, because it has three side by side: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/
 
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Thanks for the replies everyone.

I don't speak Arabic, but I believe that I do have a basic understanding of the translation difficulties. A word for word translation is probably not preferable for clarity, but at the same time, it protects against people translating their personal opinions into the text, like a thought for thought translation allows the possibility for. The word for word translation then assumes that the reader will do his own studying beyond the simple reading of the text.

You guys gave me a lot to consider. Thanks again.

Dave
 

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