| The Clear Qur'an is the first major translation to come out of Canada since the original T.B. Irving translation back in 1985. This is the English-only medium paperback edition, published in the US on newspaper quality paper mass-market style.
Why is a new translation of the Quran needed? The first translation of the Qurân into English was done in 1649 by Alexander Ross. Since that first translation, many more attempts have been made to penetrate the work from an outside, academic point of view, but it wasn’t until 1905 that M. Abdul Hakim Khan became the first Muslim to translate the Qurân into English. It would be another thirty years after that, in 1934 that Yusuf Ali would produce one of the most widely circulated versions to date.
Aside from concerns about academia and orientalism, translating the Qurân can be an enormous task even for the sincere of heart. Arabic, as a Semitic language, does not easily move over into English, and total mastery of both languages is needed before any truly satisfactory translation can be put forward. It is for this reason that a new translation is necessary. The development of linguistics, current events, and the gradual drift of the English language puts us in an important time to move forward in Qurânic translations. It is not in spite of so many translations already existing, but because so many translations already exist that we must build on those older attempts and take a leap forward to produce a Qurân translation that is modern, clear, and better researched than any previous version.
Dr. Mustafa Khattab is an authority on interpreting Islam’s Holy Book, the Qurân. He received his Ph.D., M.A., & B.A. degrees in Islamic Studies in English with Honours from Al-Azhar University. Khattab is the Adjunct Muslim Chaplain at Brock university, a member of the Canadian Council of Imams, a lecturer of Islamic Studies in English at Al-Azhar University, and a Fulbright interfaith scholar. He has served an Imam in the U.S.A. and Canada since 2007. |
