Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.

1749-8171
439???
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Blackwell
Oxford,
Religion
RECO
©
Journal
140
March
4
0
Review
30???
2009
Ziad 2009
The
Compilation
UK
Article
Compass
Publishing
Translations
ElmarsafyAuthor
of ©Ltd
2009
the Qur’An into Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Western Languages

Translations of the Qur’an into Western

Languages
Ziad Elmarsafy*
University of York

Abstract
This article traces the history of the translation of the Qur’An into Western
languages from the Middle Ages to the present day. The focus is primarily
on translations into English and French. The author considers the problem of the
translation of the Qur’An in light of the development of Oriental studies in
the West as well as the political frameworks that inform the processes of access
to and interpretation of the text.

If ever politics drove scholarship, it was in the Western translation of the

Qur’An. Just as translations of the Qur’An flew off the shelves in the wake
of the devastating attacks of September 11, the earliest attempts at a
complete translation from the Arabic text were prompted, in part, by the
many clashes between Muslims and non-Muslims over the centuries and
the theological polemics that went with those encounters. Not coincidentally,
the conception of one such project occurred at a key geographic and
cultural interface between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds; namely,
the Iberian peninsula. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, decided that
fighting Islam by force of arms was insufficient and ineffective. After a
visit to Spain, he coordinated a group of scholars whose task was to
translate the Qur’An. The Toledan Collection (alias the Cluniac Corpus,
1142–1143) contained a number of texts aimed at providing the reader
with a context within which the Qur’An was framed: a history of the
Arabs and biography of the prophet, both based on Arabic sources, along
with didactic dialogues and summaries of Islamic doctrine. All of these
texts served an auxiliary function to Robert of Ketton’s ‘translation’ – not
a faithful translation, in fact, but a paraphrase that incorporated the text
of several exegetes into the body of the text – of the Qur’An under the
title Lex Saracenorum seu Alchoran (The Law of the Saracens, or the Alchoran).
Despite the liberties that Robert of Ketton took with the text, it was a lasting
success, serving as the basis for numerous future Western translations of
the Qur’An. Despite Mark of Toledo’s more accurate thirteenth-century
translation, the Cluniac corpus’s user-friendliness, aided and abetted by
the Cluniac network, ensured its wide distribution.
© 2009 The Author
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
 Translations of the Qur’an into Western Languages 431

Robert of Ketton’s approach – calling the Qur’An the ‘Law of the

Saracens’ rather than ‘the liturgy’ or ‘the Book’ of the Muslims, as well
as his prioritizing the content rather than the form of the text – would
likewise set the tone for future Western translations of the Qur’An. Like
Robert, future translators would adopt prescribed polemical roles in order
to portray Islam in a negative light, while simultaneously paying careful
attention to the text under scrutiny with the tools available (Burman
2007, p. 3). Since the word ‘Qur’An’ connoted controversy in many circles,
especially in light of increasing conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims,
translators sometimes felt compelled to sharpen their attacks on Muhammad
and the Qur’An lest they be mistaken for Muslim sympathizers, often using
prefaces and illustrations as ways of compromising with the authorities and
protecting themselves (Hamilton 2008).
Robert’s translation was printed in 1543 in revised form by Theodor
Bibliander, Zwingli’s successor in the Chair of Theology at Basle, as part
of a three-volume reference work under the title Machumetis Sarracenorum
principis vita ac doctrina omnis . . . (The Life and Teachings of Machumet, Prince
of the Saracens). There were other attempts at translating the Qur’An during
the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, such as the now lost ‘translation’ by
Juan de Segovia (1454–1456), which was an accessory to an older Castilian
translation, as well as Johannes Terrolensis’s translation commissioned by
Egidio da Viterbo (1518), which only survives in manuscript form. Once
again, Bibliander’s project was driven by controversy: Bibliander claimed
that his motive was to show where real heresy lay in the Catholic–
Protestant polemic. The work is prefaced by Luther, together with a letter
by Philip Melanchthon and an apology by Bibliander – a necessity in view
of the authorities’ opposition to its publication. In the apology, Bibliander
argues that although the Qur’An contained much that was heretical, it
should not be ignored. Other parts of the Cluniac corpus are included,
as well as countless refutations of Muslim doctrine by various hands.
Despite its questionable quality, the significance of this publication lies in
the fact that it is the first published translation of the Qur’An, as well as
the fact the Qur’An has now becomes an integral part of polemics within
Christianity, as opposed to being used to address Christian–Muslim
polemic. Four years later, Andrea Arrivabene, retranslated Bibliander’s
Latin Qur’An into Italian (while claiming to have produced a new translation
from the Arabic text), and in 1616 Salomon Schweigger retranslated
Arrivabene’s retranslation from Italian into German under the title, Der
Türken Alkoran, thereby indicating the extent to which ‘Muslim’ and
‘Turk’ were now synonymous (as opposed to the previously more current,
‘Saracen’), and the reality of the Ottoman military threat in Central
Europe. In 1641, an anonymous Dutch translator retranslated Schweigger’s
retranslation of Arrivabene’s retranslation of Bibliander’s version of Robert
of Ketton’s translation of the Qur’An, producing a text five times removed
from the Arabic original.
© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
432 Ziad Elmarsafy

As of the middle of the seventeenth century, then, no Western reader

has what can properly be called a complete published translation of the
canonical codex of the Qur’An – there were only paraphrases with interpolated
exegeses, revised paraphrases and retranslations increasingly distant from
the Arabic text along with the occasional partial translation. All of this
would change in 1647, with the publication of André Du Ryer’s Alcoran
de Mahomet. Du Ryer had a long and varied career as a diplomat in the
Middle East, with appointments in Alexandria, Cairo and Istanbul.
Although far more attentive than his predecessors to the form and literary
qualities of the Qur’An, Du Ryer nevertheless rendered the Arabic text
into the elegant French that would be deemed acceptable for a seventeenth-
century public without being overly concerned with an accurate rendition
of the content (Hamilton & Richard 2004, pp. 101–103).
Although it contains several serious mistakes, Du Ryer’s is a vast
improvement on what had gone before, as witness his openly acknowledged
reliance on well-established exegeses, despite the fact that he occasionally
gets the attribution wrong (Hamilton & Richard 2004, pp. 96–101).
Instead of providing the reader with voluminous compendia aimed at
refuting the Qur’An, Du Ryer contents himself with a six-page summary
of ‘la religion des Turcs’, openly derogatory in tone but arguably included
to camouflage Du Ryer’s sympathy with the Muslims (Hamilton & Richard
2004, pp. 93–96). Du Ryer takes the reader away from the mode of
translation borne of conflict and crisis, towards a more genuine, if still
troubled, intercultural connection.
None of Du Ryer’s inaccuracies stopped Alexander Ross from publishing
an English retranslation of his Alcoran in 1649. Although the translator’s
identity is unknown, Ross clearly takes pains to display his anti-Muslim
credentials (possibly, again, in an attempt to foil any censors’ attempts at
accusing him of holding too favourable a view of Islam): the reader is
promised a text in which ‘the great Arabian Impostor now at last after a
thousand years, is by the way of France arrived in England, and his
Alcoran, or gallimaufry of errors (a Brat as deformed as the Parent, and
as full of Heresies, as his scald head was full of scurf ) hath learned to speak
English.’ The Ross Qur’An would eventually become the first one to be
published in the USA (Springfield, MA, 1806). Du Ryer’s translation was
also retranslated into Dutch and German by Jan Glazemaker (1658 and
1688), and into Russian (with numerous inaccuracies) by Petr Vasilyevic
Postnikov (1716) and in a more accurate version by Mikhail Verevkin (1790).
By the end of the seventeenth century, Arabic studies and library
collections in the West finally reached a point that enabled a complete
translation with a fuller set of annotations. Ludovico Marracci, one of the
sharpest minds of the age, published his monumental Alcorani textus
universus . . . in Padua in 1698. This publication is striking on a number
of levels: the reader is met with the fully vocalized Arabic text of the
Qur’An, followed by a detailed translation, followed by an impressive set of
© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
 Translations of the Qur’an into Western Languages 433

scholarly notes adducing multiple Arabic sources, exegetical and historical,

usually quoted in the original and then translated into Latin. Unfortunately,
the volume of all this valuable information is matched, nay dwarfed, by
the painstaking ‘refutation’ that Marracci adds to every translated passage.
That the refutation was the point of Marracci’s lifelong project is evinced
by his publication of a four-part Prodromus ad refutatio alcorani (A Prologue
to the Refutation of the Qur’ân) in 1691, which Prodromus was then republished
alongside the translation of 1698. Despite the open hostility of Marracci’s
tone (in the conclusion he congratulates himself on having ‘killed
Muhammad with his own sword’), and the often too literal quality of the
translation, the sheer wealth of information contained therein makes it a
good candidate for the title of the first encyclopaedia of the Qur’An.
Marracci’s massive effort was clearly inscribed within the strategy of the
Catholic reformation, undertaken with the aim of restoring the intellectual
and theological glory that was the Church of Rome before the reformation.
Ironically, another translation would shortly come along that was spurred
and supported by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge
(SPCK), which, although initially founded with the aim of opposing what
was seen as the moral laxity of the early eighteenth century, soon turned
into an anti-Catholic platform. (Haydon 1993) In 1734, with the support
of the SPCK, George Sale produced what many consider to be the finest
early modern translation of the Qur’An in the English language. Although
he did not reproduce the Arabic text, Sale stopped at nothing to produce
a balanced and informative rendition of the Qur’An, so much so that the
few anti-Muslim statements that one runs across in his paratexts come
across as being perfunctory and insincere. The translation, which is copiously
annotated (there are footnotes to the footnotes on every page), is preceded
by a long ‘Preliminary Discourse’ (the title is a riposte to Marracci’s
Prodromus) in which Sale presents the history and geography of seventh-
century Arabia, the rise of Islam, the history of the revelation and collec-
tion of the Qur’An, as well as a cursory map of the doctrines and schools
of thought of Islamic theology. Sale clearly acknowledges his debt to the
previous generation of Orientalists – Marracci and Pocock in particular –
but the result of his research and skill as a translator are unparalleled.
Over the course of the eighteenth century, all three translations would
be retranslated in whole or in part, with Sale enjoying the widest diffusion
of all. Of the three translations of the early modern period, Sale and
Du Ryer were the ones that enjoyed the widest readership. By the mid-
eighteenth century hybrid editions that combined a French translation of
Sale’s ‘Preliminary Discourse’ with the text of Du Ryer’s translation of the
Qur’An were common in France. Sale’s translation was retranslated into
German by Theodor Arnold (1764) – a mere 8 years before David
Megerlin’s translation of the Qur’An from Arabic into German (1772) – as
well as Russian by Alexei Vasilevich Kolmakov (1792) and Hungarian by
Istvan Szokoly (1822). The Arnold and Megerlin translations had a
© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
434 Ziad Elmarsafy

significant impact on the thinking of Goethe, who found fault with both
of them for being insufficiently literary and poetic. This particular way
of thinking about the Qur’An would eventually lead to a genealogy of
translations that attempted to live up to its literary qualities, such as the
translations from Arabic into German by Boysen (1773), by the German
Orientalist and poet Friedrich Rückert in a translation published post-
humously and by Rudi Paret (see below). The Marracci translation did
not circulate as widely, probably because its cost and size made it difficult
to obtain, though its continued use within the Orientalist community
well into the nineteenth century attests to its quality.
In 1783, there appeared a second French translation, ostensibly based
on the Arabic, by Claude Savary. Savary claims to have published the text in
Mecca, though this seems to be part of a consistent pattern of exaggeration
and decoration that one also finds in his translation. What the Savary
translation lacks in critical and historical apparatus it makes up in notes
devoted to local colour, yielding to an exoticizing aesthetic situated
between rococo and romanticism. Its inaccuracies indicate that it is more
of a retranslation of Marracci’s text rather than a straight translation from
the Arabic, though none of this has prevented its repeated republication
during the twentieth century.
During the nineteenth century, two key shifts affected the production
and circulation of the translation of the Qur’An in the West. The imperialist
project led to a move away from the axis joining scholarship and theology
towards the axis joining scholarship and conquest. Thus, Albin de Biberstein
Kazimirski’s excellent French translation of the Qur’An was first published
in 1840 as part of a massive tome entitled, Les Livres sacrés de l’orient edited
by a sinologist, Guillaume Pauthier, whose preface argues that a better
understanding of the Qur’An would lead to better control over, or at least
a better experience in, France’s colonies. It bears pointing out, however,
that Kazimirski’s sympathies on the matter are more difficult to locate, and
that Pauthier adds to the political ambiguity by adding a French translation
of Sale’s ‘Preliminary Discourse’ to the volume. The Kazimirski trans-
lation also saw separate publication in 1840 as well as several revisions and
corrections over the course of the decade, with the final edition going
through multiple reprints well into the twentieth century and major specialists
attesting to its quality (Arkoun, Rodinson) with each reprinting.
The Kazimirski translation is also marked by a certain paucity of notes
as compared with its eighteenth-century predecessors, perhaps reflecting
a further division of the field of Orientalism: it is now assumed that the
reader will refer to outside sources (such as Kazimirski’s fine French–Arabic
dictionary) as he or she sees fit, rather than expecting the whole to be
contained within one volume. With the philological and critical research
of Weil, Flügel and Nöldeke, Qur’Anic studies took a giant step forward.
Thus, translations of the Qur’An with the Suras arranged in chronological
order start to appear in 1861, when John M. Rodwell published his
© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
 Translations of the Qur’an into Western Languages 435

English translation (albeit in a chronological order that differed from those

proposed by Weil and Nöldeke). The chronological trend would eventually
peak with the English translation of Richard Bell, first published in 1937–
1939, though the full scholarly apparatus that went with his work would
not be published until some 40 years after his death in 1991. Bell’s trans-
lation rearranges individual verses and parts of verses, often depicting his
chronological theories through the arrangement of the text on the page.
Régis Blachère’s French translation (1947–1949) of the Qur’An combines
the Qur’An and its scholarly apparatus: the detailed and annotated trans-
lation presents the Suras in the order suggested by Nöldeke with various
thematic subheadings, taking variant readings into account and fully
engaging with the genetic history of the text of the Qur’An, itself a major
constituent of Blachère’s introduction. A second edition of Blachère’s
translation, without the introduction and with the text arranged in
traditional order, appeared in 1957. The last of the century’s great historicist-
philological translations was produced by Rudi Paret in 1962, followed by
a commentary and concordance in 1971. Paret aimed at reproducing the
meaning that the Qur’An had at the time when it was first heard, and, in
a gesture that seems to have been inspired by Marracci though used for a
diametrically opposed end, sought to understand the Qur’An through the
Qur’An itself. Part of the process involved a certain degree of scepticism
towards exegetical texts composed long after the death of the Prophet and
the compilation of the Qur’An. Needless to say, Paret’s text is fascinating
but makes for difficult reading, even after the changes that he introduced
in 1982.
More translations in the West tackle the reality of the years of conflict
between Muslims and non-Muslims head-on, with ethical and political
criteria occasionally prevailing over linguistic ones, and the pendulum
swinging back to the evaluation of relations between Muslim and non-
Muslim rather than relations between Christians as had been the case in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. +Abdullah Yusuf +Ali, whose monumental
translation into English includes extensive notes and a commentary in verse,
refers in his introduction to the extensive ‘amount of mischief done by
these versions of non-Muslim and anti-Muslim writers [i.e. Western
translators from Robert of Ketton to E. H. Palmer] has led Muslim writers
to venture into the field of English translation’ (Yusuf +Ali 1934, p. xv).
Nevertheless, Yusuf +Ali’s translation is remarkable for its broad-minded
approach to translation, giving the reader a good idea of the multiple
levels of meaning in play at any one textual moment. Yusuf +Ali draws on
a number of commentaries from across the cultural spectrum, making a
point of listing Nöldeke-Schwally’s Geschichte des Qorâns alongside several
dictionaries, including those of Lane and Penrice, in addition to the
standard exegeses. Muhammad Abdel Haleem’s introduction to his important
English translation (2004) contains a review of his predecessors that calls
attention to the extent to which various translations ‘respect’ for the
© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
436 Ziad Elmarsafy

language of the Qur’An and the prophet of Islam (Abdel Haleem 2004,
pp. xxvii–xxviii).
A similar dynamic obtains in continental Europe. In 1972, two French
translations of the Qur’An were published, both by what might be called
sympathetic translators: Sheikh Si Hamza Boubakeur and Jean Grosjean.
The former is a massive translation with a very erudite commentary based on
both traditional Muslim and Western sources. In his preface, Boubakeur
explains that his intention was to protect Islam and the Qur’An from the
‘calumnies’ of their detractors (Boubakeur 1995, p. 12). The Grosjean
translation was published in a deluxe edition with a preface by Jacques
Berque (who would himself translate the Qur’An in 1990) in which he
emphasizes the Qur’An as the privileged point of entry into the civilization
of the Arabs (Le Coran 1972, p. 9). In both cases, the production of the
text is clearly in dialogue with France’s large Muslim population, a direct
result of the policies of imperialism and decolonization of the past two
centuries. Like Grosjean, Denise Masson’s excellent French translation
(1967) repeatedly draws attention to the similarities between the Qur’An
and the Bible with a view to implementing the ethos of appreciating the
Other formulated by Louis Massignon.
Of the many responses and reactions to Western imperialism and
missionary activity in South Asia, the A’madiyya movement has had a
significant impact on the translation of the Qur’An. The movement’s strong
commitment to literacy among its own members and proselytization
abroad has given rise to a number of translations of the Qur’An into
Western languages. These are marked by the incorporation of pronounced
rationalizing and de-metaphorizing tendencies, leading to some unusual
interpretations. The introduction to Muhammad Zafrulla Khan’s 1971
translation takes pains to explain that the jinn are, in fact, human beings
‘who for any reason . . . would have a tendency to regard themselves as
superior to and withdraw themselves from the society and companionship
of their less-favoured fellows’ (Khan 1971, p. 16) Similarly, ad Q27:19,
Khan follows the earlier Ahmadiyya translator Maulvi Muhammad ‘Ali in
translating wâdï-l-naml as ‘the Valley of Al-Naml’, and namlah as ‘a woman
of the tribe of the Naml’ rather than ‘Valley of the Ants’ and ‘an ant’,
respectively. He also reads hudhud (Q27:21) as the proper name of a person
named Hudhud rather than a common noun meaning ‘hoopoe’ or
‘lapwing’. In this translation, the details of Solomon’s miraculous ability
to communicate with birds and animals are seriously depleted.
The question of Imam} (Twelver Sh}+}) translations of the Qur’An is
complicated by the paradoxical Sh}+} position of endorsing the canonical
codex of the Qur’An while simultaneously adhering to the belief that this
codex has been corrupted. Although it would be difficult to speak of a
‘Sh}+}’ translation of the Qur’An, many recent translations have incorporated
elements of Sh}+} exegesis into the notes and commentary. Thus, in the
translation of SV Mir Ahmad Ali (1964), which was published with a
© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
 Translations of the Qur’an into Western Languages 437

commentary by Ayatullah Mirza Mahdi Pooya, we find explicit and

lengthy documentation ad Q33:33 that the phrase ahl al-bayt (‘people of
the house’ or ‘members of the family’) refers specifically to five members
of the family of the prophet, namely Muhammad himself, his daughter
Fätima, +Al}, and their children μasan and μusayn. This reading of this
particular verse is also found in Yusuf +Al}, ad loc. Similarly ad Q24:35, we
read that the phrase nûr +alâ nûr (‘light upon light’) is to be interpreted as
Muhammad and Ahl al-Bayt. Ad Q36:12, we are told that the phrase
imâm mubïn (‘clear writing’ or ‘a clear book’) actually refers to ‘Al}, the
first imAm. Other annotations explicate the link between the Qur’An
and the imamate, +Al}’s status as Muhammad’s successor and various aspects
of Sh}+} law.
Recent advances in computing power led Rashad Khalifa to propose a
new translation of the Qur’An (1982) and a new foundation of Islam
(renamed ‘Submission’). Khalifa saw in the mathematical patterns of the
Qur’An proof of its divine provenance and wrote extensively about the
recurrence of various patterns in the text, all based on the number 19.
One of the more unusual conclusions reached by Khalifa is that the two
verses Q9:128–129 are false and should therefore be removed from the
codex (Khalifa 2003).
Among the more politically engaged translations, Laleh Bakhtiar’s 2007
English translation, The Sublime Quran, deserves special mention. Bakhtiar
tackles one of the most controversial verses in the Qur’An – wû…ribuhunna
(Q4:34, meaning ‘hit them’ or ‘smack them’), often read as a verse permitting
violence against women. Bakhtiar translates this verse to mean ‘stay away
from them’, referring to the separation that should follow marital strife
(Bakhtiar 2007, pp. lii–lv) Although this interpretation is not entirely
original to Bakhtiar – Abdulhamid Abusulayman made a similar case in
2003 (Abusulayman 2003) – the fact that it is advanced in the context of
the translation of the entire Qur’An from Arabic into English as attracted
a great deal of media attention and, inevitably, controversy.
Among the recent English translations that successfully convey the lyrical
force and emotional charge, of the Qur’An, Tarif Khalidi’s is outstanding. The
deft use of layout, language and learning combine to move the reader in
a way that approximates its impact on those who heard the earliest
revelations. Khalidi’s background as a historian at home in contemporary
Anglophone literature makes it likely that this will be a translation of
lasting influence.
As of this writing, however, there have been few attempts, if any, of
bringing to the Qur’An something like what the higher criticism brought
to the Bible starting in the late nineteenth century. Clearly such a project
would require a team of translators rather than, as has been the case
hitherto, one translator working in splendid isolation over several years.
All hope is not lost, however: as repeated calls for such work are issued,
they are bound to be heeded sooner or later (Gilliot 1992).
© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
438 Ziad Elmarsafy

Short Biography
Ziad Elmarsafy’s research focuses on the concept of identity and the
relationship between Europe and the Muslim world, as well as modern
Arabic literature and the appropriation of religion in literary and cultural
discourses of the twentieth century. He has published The Histrionic
Sensibility: Theatricality and Identity from Corneille to Rousseau (2001),
Freedom, Slavery and Absolutism: Corneille, Pascal, Racine (2003) and The
Enlightenment Qur’ân: The Politics of Translation and the Construction of Islam
(2009). Before coming to the University of York, he taught at the
University of California, Riverside, Wellesley College and New York
University. He holds a BA in Physics from Cornell University and a
PhD in French from Emory University.

Note
* Correspondence address: Ziad Elmarsafy, Department of English and Related Literature,
University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. E-mail: [email protected].
1
For most of my research, I have relied on Hartmut Bobzin’s article, ‘Translations of the
Qur’An’ in the Encyclopedia of the Qur’ân, a model of clarity and coverage with a very rich
bibliography, as well as the article and extensive bibliography in by Alford T. Welch et al., ‘Al-
0ur’An’ in the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam, especially the useful entry by Rudi Paret
under the subheading, ‘Translations of the 0ur’An.’ Shereen Khairallah’s dissertation, ‘Arabic
Studies in Seventeenth-Century England,’ is an indispensable work on early orientalism.
NB: The following bibliography lists primarily those works referred to in the article, with few
additions. Full lists of translations of the Qur’An are found in the aforementioned entries in the
Encyclopedia of the Qur’ân and the Encyclopedia of Islam. Reference to these two resources is to the
online version at www.brillonline.nl, accessed various dates September 2007 to September 2008.

Works cited and further reading

Abdel Haleem, M, Trans. 2004, The Qur’an: A New Translation by M. A. S Abdel Haleem,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Abusulayman, AA, 2003, Marital Discord: Recapturing the Full Islamic Spirit of Human Dignity,
International Institute of Islamic Thought, Occasional Papers Series II. London, UK, and
Washington D.C.
Arberry, AJ Trans. 1998 (1955), The Koran Interpreted, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Bakhtiar, L Trans. 2007, The Sublime Quran, Kazi, Chicago, IL.
Bar-Asher, MM, 2008, Encyclopedia of the Qur’ân, s.v. ‘Sh}+ism and the Qur’An.’
Bell, R, 1939, The Qur’an, Translated with a Critical Rearrangement of the Surahs. Clark,
Edinburgh, UK.
Bell, R, 1991, A Commentary on the Qur’an, 2 vols, C Bosworth and M Richardson (Eds).
Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK.
Bibliander, T, 1543, Machumetis Sarracenorum principis vita ac doctrina omnis, quae et Ismahelitarum lex,
et alcoranum dicitur, ex Arabica lingua ante CCCC annos in Latinam translata, Johann Oporinus, Basle.
Blachère, R, 1957, Le Coran, 3 vols. M. Besson, Paris, France.
Bobzin, H, 2008, Encyclopedia of the Qur’ân, s.v. ‘Translations of the Qur’an.’
Boubakeur SH Trans. 1995, Le Coran. Traduction française et commentaire d’après la tradition, les
différentes écoles de lecture, d’exégèse, de jurisprudence et de théologie, les interprétations mystiques, les
tendances schismatiques et les doctrines hérétiques de l’Islâm, et à la lumière des théories scientifiques,
philosophiques et politiques modernes, Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris.

© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x

Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
 Translations of the Qur’an into Western Languages 439

Burman, T, 2007, Reading the Qur’ân in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560, University of Pennsylvania
Press, Philadelphia, PA.
Du Ryer, A Trans. 1647 1651, L’Alcoran de Mahomet. Translaté d’arabe en françois, par le sieur Du
Ryer, sieur de la Garde Malezair, Antoine de Somaville, Paris, France.
Fück, J, 1955, Die Arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts, Harrassowitz,
Leipzig, Germany.
Gilliot, C, 1992, Le Coran: trois traductions récentes [Jacques Berque, André Chouraqui, René
Khawam], Studia Islamica vol. 31, no. 85, 159–177.
Grosjean, J, Trans. 1972, Le Coran. Précédé d’une étude de Jacques Berque, traduit de l’arabe
par Jean Grosjean, illustré de sérigraphies originales par Zenderoudi, accompagné d’un
manuscrit d’Ibn al-Bawwab commenté par D.S. Rice. Le Club du Livre, Paris, France.
Hamilton, A, & Richard, F, 2004, André Du Ryer and Oriental Studies in Seventeenth-Century
France, Studies in the Arcadian Library, vol. 1. Arcadian Library in association with Oxford
University Press, London and Oxford, UK.
Hamilton, A, 2008, The Forbidden Fruit: The Koran in Early Modern Europe, London Middle East
Institute, London, UK.
Haydon, C, 1993, Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England, c.1714–80: A Political and
Social Study, Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Khairallah, S, 1972, Arabic Studies in England in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries,
Dissertation, Faculty of Arts, University of London, UK.
Khalidi, T Trans. 2008, The Qur’an, Penguin, London, UK.
Khalifa, R, 2003, Quran Alone [online]. Retrieved on 18 September 2008 from http://
www.quranalone.com.
Khan, MZ Trans. 1971, The Quran, Curzon, London, UK.
Marracci, L Trans. 1698, Alcorani textus universus ex correctioribus Arabum exemplaribus summa fide
atque pulcherrimis characteribus descriptus (Padua). 2 vols typographia seminarii.
Masson, D Trans. 1967, Le Coran, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard, Paris, France.
Megerlin, DF Trans. 1772, Die türkische Bibel, oder des Korans allererste Uebersetzung aus der
Arabischen Urschrift selbst verfertiget . . . , Johann Gottlieb Garbe, Frankfurt, Germany.
Multilingual Qur’an. (Contains searchable translations by M. Shakir, A. Yusuf +Ali, M.M. Pickthall
and commentary by M. M. +Ali and M. M. Pooya) [online]. Retrieved 18 September 2008
from http://www.al-islam.org/quran/.
Paret, R Trans. 1966–1971, Der Koran. 2 vols (1: Übersetzung 2: Kommentar und Konkordanz),
W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Germany.
Pauthier, G Ed. & Kasimirski, M Trans. 1840, Les Livres sacrés de l’orient. Comprenant le Chou-
king ou le livre par excellence; –les sse-chou ou les quatre livres moraux de Confucius et de ses disciples;
–les lois de Manou, premier législateur de l’Inde; –le Koran de Mahomet, Firmin Didot, Paris,
France.
Pickthall, MM Trans. 1992, The Meaning of the Glorious Quran. English Translation and Explana-
tory Notes, Library of Islam, Des Plaines, IL.
Robinson, F, 1988, Varieties of South Asian Islam, University of Warwick, Centre for Research
in Ethnic Relations, Coventry, UK.
Rückert, F Trans. 1995, Der Koran in der Übersetzung von Friedrich Rückert. H. Bobzin and W.
Fischer, eds. Ergon, Würzburg, Germany.
Sale, G Trans. 1734, The Koran: Commonly called the Alkoran of Mohammed, translated into English
from the original Arabic, with explanatory notes taken from the most approved commentators, to which
is prefixed a preliminary discourse by George Sale, J. Wilcox, London, UK.
Sharon, M, 2008, Encyclopedia of the Qur’ân, s.v., ‘People of the House.’
Steigerwald, D, 2006, ‘Twelver Sh}+} Ta’w}l’, in A. Rippin (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the
Qur’ân (pp. 373–385), Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
The Alcoran of Mahomet, translated out of Arabick into French, by the Sieur du Ryer, Lord of Malezair,
and resident for the French King at Alexandria. And newly Englished for the satisfaction of all that
desire to look into the Turkish vanities (1649).
Welch, AT, 1960–, Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v., ‘Al-K,ur’An.’
Yusuf +Ali, A, 1934 (1968), The Holy Qur’ân: Text, Translation and Commentary, Shaikh Muham-
mad Ashraf, Lahore, Pakistan; DAr Al-+Arabiyya, Beirut, Lebanon.

© 2009 The Author Religion Compass 3/3 (2009): 430–439, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00140.x

Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd