I am a former detainee, who stayed about 16 months 18 days in the American federal detention, and eventually with the help of God, truth shined and I got out...
During my stay, I met something that was a missing piece in my life, this was the elegant book 'Qur'an'...
All praise to Allah, I had a chance to finish 'the book' many times, out of all of them, 2/4 (half) was authentic or original Arabic, 1/4 was English translation, ant 1/4 was Turkish language ( I rather not say exact numbers, but I wrote them for my own statistic along with the start and finish date, and I witness many favors of this in terms of understand what is going on in my level of understanding of the book by the time)
Every time I start reading, I made my own notes (regardless of the language that I am on), I did this because to increase my poor understanding... As I told you I was in prison, one thing about prisoner, you have absolute control for your 24 hours, no rent to pay, no cell phone to answer, no internet to surf, beyond that, as an inmate you are constantly seeking to find a way to connect God almighty... reading the word of God should be the 'short cut' for this endless struggle.
I remember, in my first hatim (reading whole Qur'an cover to cover), it was crazy, I had many question marks all over the chapters... it was like me ,as an alien, is from one planet and Qur'an is from the different galaxy!
I did not erase any or most of my note (even after many times), in order to see what I said in the past and why. After I made several hatims, I start thinking "was I insane? when I wrote this note here, or put question mark here" because everytime I finished it, this will give me different angle to look to whole book and also, by seeing what I wrote in the past will increase my acceptance for mine ignorance about Qur'an and I realize that I should be more careful in the future about saying anything :)
Let me cut this part short, and focus on 'the various translation that I tasted' (fully or partly) for those who may know Turkish I will made some comments about them as well... Original Arabic text is consider word of God, for this reason, it is surely 'perfect' book and no need for any more praises...
Let me start... Bismillah...
1. Maulana Muhammad Ali (1874-1951)
One day my fellow prisoner brother Muhammad ,who happen to be has similar charges with me, left outside, and he left me his green Qur'an, this was the incident that I come to close this translation, one thing that I must admit, it was not easy in the beginning due the fact that Maulana Muhammad Ali used old English spelling and structure of the sentences. I took special class to learn what was what. Another fact was that, I was lending my English translations to the non-muslim/muslim fellow prisoners, whoever I gave this book, most of them fascinated about the book, even sometimes more then me, and in one incident, one of them literally cried in front of me! (I know it is hard to believe, if you never experience such thing) I did not believe what I saw in the beginning.
Back to Translation of Maulana Muhammad Ali, He is saying in the beginning of his book, he spent his early life for the translation back in the 1900s, and thru out his life, he edit/upgrade his translation, and he admits that he learned a lot by searching what this verse is really meant. I assume that I read the lastest version (1996 print) , I am sure it will worth reading old version in order to see his personal transaction during his life...
I would like to write my humble observations about this translation
- This translation is good for academic type person or, if not well educated about the book. Because, Ali dives much deeper than mainstream tafseers (interpretations) with his elegant scholarly commentaries, especially with his beautiful kalime(word) game, and explaining why he choose xxx specific word not zzz one. This is just amazing.
- His commentary offers the multiple possibilities, looking to same verse from different angles, and this happens ( mostly ) without telling you which one is true(!). But sometimes, he can not stop himself and let the reader know what he is thinking( I did not like when this occurs, because he gives you all the alternatives which make you more less see what would be right for your heart, but when he says "I think this is the one" and when you do not think this way, this is disappointing, this happens when Ali discuss the issue whether hell(jahannam) is everlasting or not(Ali is not sure the Arabic word 'abadan' means forever or too long). However, to be honest to all, this was good for me, to see what others think.
- He is an expert in both language (Allah knows best), this gives a linguistic harmony in both language, for instance, when he strives to select a word for (Ashabi cannah) ( plz see 59:20 commentary , it is amazing). And this occurs almost every another page! This taught me, when I recite Qur'an, I start thinking 'why Allah chose this word ( for instance 'nar' means fire ) for this verse, but not this (say 'jahannam').
- You find sometimes two different commentaries, one from 1900's and other one from 40's, this is also very nice, because during that time the (western) world witness two big wars, this is indeed a big impact of Ali's thinking about the some verses, those ones worth reading, even if you do not have time for entire his word...
- One important thing, when I start this translation, I showed this book to our beloved imam who comes two times a week to jail for 'Muslim service'. He is an American born revert Muslim (he uses the word revert not convert), and done his study in Pakistan, as soon as he held the green book, he said "Ahmet be very careful, because you may not know (yes I did not know) there is a false(dalalah) movement called 'Ahmediah' in Pakistan who is claiming to be a prophet!. Yes, Maulana Muhammad Ali was member of this movement, although he considered the movement to be part of Islam, others considered it outside the fold of Islam. And second half of his life, he branch off from this movement and do his own works more mainstream (this is clearly understandable when you read his commentaries. BUT this is not mean accept everything, it is always good to be careful about when you deal with translation of word of God.) And I learned later in my research, the Almadiyya movement accept the Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdulla Abu Gasim(PBUH) a the seal of the Phophets. They say that they believe Madhi had come. This is it. It is very interesting almost every movement around the world(whether you are in the US or in the Yemen, or in the Turkey) that I investigated, most of them (90%) (at least the dedicated members or the front runners of the movements) believes that Madhi had come and in their and some go beyond that and say Mahdi is our leader. Allah knows who is who... (thanks for comments, it is good to read what you guys think about this out there)
- Ali's translation is more for Muslim than for non-Muslim. This was my observation, when I handed this book to non-Muslim. (This is probably his deep analyzes will be too much for someone who does not know anything). And I witnessed that one non-Muslim read this book about two days and he came to me and said "someone has changed this book!!!"(let me translate that means 'this is too good to be true')
- This book has many extras in the beginning, defending women in Islam, and the Prophet Muhammad(PBUH). This was worth to mention, well done job there.
- The down side, in some pages, Ali give too much information or his research about that verse, which makes reader fall apart from the clear mind set.
2. Ali Ünal (1955 - present)
Ali Unal's translation stands out with his modern English language. This would make readers more appreciate, especially when they need not dictionary every page. But interestingly, Unal sometime(about 35%) uses the outdated words rather than the simple one. This looks amateur and un-mature to the readers.
First of all, we should note that Unal is the member of the Nur movement or with its current name Gulen movement. This may be a plus, because Gulen movement represent a merciful face of the modern Islam. However, this makes this translation far from being an objective one. In some verses, the reader clearly see that author forget explaining verses rather he start defending why this verse pro-peaceful. I personally do not think this is a bad thing to do, but still it makes reader not sure what is going on about subject.
In the begging of my reading of this translation, I thought it may be a good idea that there are many comments(tevil) placed in the brackets. But after reading a while, this start bothering me. It look just too much. The author may think this is a good idea, but most Qur'an readers do want to here what God says, not what author thinks.
This work, has a lot more extra article, in the begging and at the end. This makes this translation more pleasant to read.( the bee story in the end must read)
Suat Yildirim (1941- Present)
I only had this book for a while when I had nothing else better to do. Therefore, I had an opportunity to scan this book a lot. Every time I finished it, I had put my own notes instead of the author! this was beyond my control I just had to do it. I should be honest, I want to make no comment about this translation, it needs much more work for became a better one.
I also took a look translations, such as Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Asad (reading now English and Turkish one) and Pickthall. I do not think it is wise to say anything about these before reading it thoroughly.
I must mention that there is nothing like 'the perfect' translation! (since we are not perfect), Only God almighty is perfect and so His words(whether this is original Qur'an or Torah or Gospel, I make no distinguish among them 2.256). All translations have his own unique beauty and various merits. Reader would understand this, when s/he tastes different translations.
I shall end this article with my humble opinion. It is a constant struggle when you read a translation. You sometimes think, 'this is not a proper word for this, this may be one'. Well, you might be right! And if you can put up a better work, go ahead and do it...
for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_the_Quran
As Salamu Alaykum wa Rahmetullah wa Barakatuh...
