There are a wide variety of versions of the Qur’an in English. Muslim tradition holds that the Qur’an is not translatable which is a good reminder that any version of the Qur’an in English will necessarily incorporate some element of interpretation. As with any language, English and Arabic do not have direct word-to-word correspondence, so two English versions can both be literally correct but convey very different, sometimes even opposing, meanings. Whatever version you choose to use as your primary source, when you are considering a verse it is always worth looking at a few different versions.
A good website for viewing the Qur’an and even hearing the Qur’an is quran.com.
… And here are articles by McAuliffe(2017) and Haleem(2004) evaluating translations.
Some of the translators you are most likely to come across include:
Abdullah Yusuf Ali
A. J. Arberry
- Very poetic, with an emphasis on the aesthetics of the Qur’an
Muhammad Asad
N. J. Dawood
- A problematic translation which, for many years, was the basis for the Penguin edition
M. A. S. Abdel Haleem
Tarif Khalidi
S.H. Nasr, et.al
- A study Qur’an, with a collaborative translation and extensive notes and commentaries
Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall
Michael Sells
- An aesthetically motivated translation incorporating only a limited number of verses.
The Book Foundation produces a beautiful, and very large!, edition entitled The Message of the Qur’an, with English version by Asad, and including facing Arabic, transliteration, and commentary.
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