Exegetical Qur’an Translation: Theoretical and Practical Considerations
Sohaib Saeed
Director, Ibn Ashur Centre for Quranic Studies–UK
sohaib@ibnashur.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2228-6989
Received: 04/10/2023 Peer-reviewed: 06/03/2024 Accepted: 21/04/2025
Abstract
Objectives: This paper assesses the ongoing practice of Qur’an translation based on Arabic exegetical works and explores theoretical considerations and practical issues facing various projects. It aims to inform the approach of individual translators and state and non-state institutions that intend to use exegesis as a basis for accuracy and consistency.
Methodology: The study analyzes primary texts (Qur’an and tafsīr translations and their Arabic sources) and references secondary literature concerning the relationship between tafsīr and translation.
Results: The study demonstrates the value of “instructive” exegesis over the commonly used “paraphrastic” type. By identifying examples of errors caused by misreading of exegetical works, it highlights the necessity of assigning translators who are qualified to engage with both the Quranic text and the tafsīr genre.
Originality: The paper highlights problems not previously identified in the use of exegesis in translation and provides practical solutions of value to subsequent projects on an individual or institutional level.
Keywords: Qur’an; Translation; Exegesis; Tafsīr; Egypt; Saudi Arabia
Cite this article as: Saeed, S. “Exegetical Qur’an Translation: Theoretical and Practical Considerations”, Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies, Qatar University, Vol. 43, Issue 2 (2025).
https:/doi.org/10.29117/jcsis.2025.0424
© 2025, Saeed, S., Published in Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies. Published by QU Press. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use of the material, appropriate credit, and indication if changes in the material were made. You can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format as well as remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited. The full terms of this licence may be seen at: https:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
ترجمة القرآن الكريم المبنية على التفسير: اعتبارات نظرية وعملية
صهيب سعيد
المدير المؤسس لمركز ابن عاشور للدراسات القرآنية–بريطانيا
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2228-6989
تاريخ الاستلام: 04/10/2023 تاريخ التحكيم: 06/03/2024 تاريخ القبول: 21/04/2025
ملخص البحث
أهداف البحث: يقيم هذا البحث الممارسة المستمرة لترجمة القرآن الكريم بناءً على الأعمال التفسيرية العربية، ويستكشف الاعتبارات النظرية والقضايا العملية التي تواجه المشاريع المختلفة، ويهدف إبراز نهج المترجمين أفرادًا ومؤسسات حكومية كانت أم غير الحكومية الرامين إلى اتخاذ التفسير أساسًا للدقة والاتساق.
منهج البحث: تحتوي الدراسة تحليلًا للنصوص الأولية (ترجمات القرآن والتفسير ومصادرها العربية)، مع الإشارة إلى الكتابات الثانوية فيما يخص العلاقة بين التفسير والترجمة.
النتائج: يبرز البحث قيمة التفسير «التوجيهي» مقارنة بالنوع «الإجمالي/إعادة الصياغة» الشائع الاستخدام. ومن خلال أمثلة للأخطاء الناجمة عن القراءة الخاطئة لكتب التفسير، يسلط البحث الضوء على ضرورة تعيين مترجمين مؤهلين للتعامل مع النص القرآني ومصادر تفسيره.
أصالة البحث: يسلط البحث الضوء على مشاكل لم تُحدّد سابقًا فيما يخص استخدام التفسير في الترجمة، ويقدم حلولًا عملية ذات قيمة للمشاريع اللاحقة على المستويين الفردي والمؤسسي.
الكلمات المفتاحية: القرآن، الترجمة، التفسير، مصر، السعودية
للاقتباس: سعيد، صهيب. «ترجمة القرآن الكريم المبنية على التفسير: اعتبارات نظرية وعملية»، مجلة كلية الشريعة والدراسات الإسلامية، جامعة قطر، المجلد 43، العدد 2 (2025).
https:/doi.org/10.29117/jcsis.2025.0424
©2025، سعيد. مجلة كلية الشريعة والدراسات الإسلامية، دار نشر جامعة قطر. نّشرت هذه المقالة البحثية وفقًا لشروط Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). تسمح هذه الرخصة بالاستخدام غير التجاري، وينبغي نسبة العمل إلى صاحبه، مع بيان أي تعديلات عليه. كما تتيح حرية نسخ، وتوزيع، ونقل العمل بأي شكل من الأشكال، أو بأية وسيلة، ومزجه وتحويله والبناء عليه، طالما يُنسب العمل الأصلي إلى المؤلف. https:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Since the beginning of this century, English translations of the Qur’an have been published at a startling rate. Major state institutions and non-governmental organizations in the Muslim world continue to develop projects to translate the Scripture into numerous languages. In many cases, the genre of tafsīr (exegesis) plays a significant role in the work of the translators in both traditional works and modern commentaries intended for this purpose. It is undoubtedly the case, as I argue below, that greater engagement with exegesis is to be welcomed and encouraged. However, there are conceptual and practical issues that are often overlooked by researchers, practitioners, and institutions.
This paper sets out to highlight these issues by addressing, first, the potential for error on the part of translators as they draw from tafsīr. Secondly, we raise the question of the nature of exegetical guides to translation and the features they ought to display to perform their functions effectively. The purpose is to point the way to best practice, not only for individuals but for institutions that are seeking to use tafsīr to maximize accuracy and consistency in their translations of the Qur’an into the languages of the world.
Let us begin by considering two propositions concerning the relationship between the disciplines of Qur’an translation (tarjamah) and exegesis (tafsīr). Each of these statements invites clarification and qualification:
A. Translation is a form of exegesis or a stage that follows from it.
B. Like exegesis in general, translation requires training and credentials.
Let us consider these concepts in turn. Exegesis as a process has two parts: the interpreter (mufassir) first considers the words and any other relevant information to reach an understanding of the Quranic verse. Then they formulate an explanation using alternative words, which may be in the same language, Arabic. The translator, likewise, must first decide what they understand from the text and then convey that surface meaning in their target language.[1] It is readily apparent that there is a strong resemblance between certain forms of exegesis, particularly the paraphrastic format variously described as tafsīr ijmālī (summary), mukhtaṣar (concise), or muyassar (simplified) – and translations in non-Arabic languages. This resemblance makes it tempting to think that one naturally leads to the other, such that a brief exegesis of this kind is ideal for producing translation, but this assumption will be challenged later in this paper.[2]
We said already that a translator must necessarily first understand something from the Quranic text, but is that understanding reached independently? Ibn ʿAbbās (d. 68/687) famously delineated four categories of verses: those which can and must be grasped by every Muslim; those whose meaning is accessible to any speaker of Arabic; those which are understood only by the learned scholars; and those which are known truly only to Almighty Allah.[3] Putting aside the issue of the last category (often known as the mutashābih verses),[4] this rubric implies that any translator who claims to access all the Qur’an’s meanings directly is – or purports to be – a scholar. However, it is possible to lighten the translator’s burden slightly: they can simply take the explanation from any exegetical scholar and translate accordingly. Indeed, after this hermeneutical science and the cumulative tradition of explanations of the Qur’an have grown over fourteen centuries, it would be remiss of any translator to disregard that resource and rely upon his or her impressions of the Quranic text.[5]
This leads us to the question of credentials. Muslim scholars, such as Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) in his compendium Al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, have listed some fifteen sciences which any interpreter of the Qur’an must master before offering an independent opinion.[6] While individual items on the list could be queried,[7] our point here is the seriousness with which stepping up to the role of mufassir was treated. It is not necessarily the case that Muslim communities had equivalent expectations of Qur’an translators, nor that the translators themselves always felt that they had to aspire to such a level or prove themselves worthy. We could make an argument that not all exegetes need to be of the same caliber: for those whose only purpose is to summarize or select from standard traditional explanations, there is a level of competency that need not be as advanced as for those who will delve into hermeneutical complexities and even advance novel interpretations. Therefore, a translator who decides to depend fully upon the authors of tafsīr could fulfill the task without presuming to be on their level. However, there is a type of competency which is rarely considered, let alone discussed in this context: the ability to read tafsīr correctly and effectively. We return to this point in the next section.
Waleed Al-Amri, a researcher and practitioner of Qur’an translation, has highlighted the potential problem of over-reliance on exegesis, such that the Revealed Text is obscured by a “middle layer” which is actually the thing being translated: “Thus the relation between the Qur’an and its supposed translations is that of an Original and a poor Replica – retaining only the shadow of the depth of the Original.”[8] It should first be noted that every translation could, upon this logic, be dismissed as a shadow of the original, not least in the case of divine scripture and the Qur’an in particular. It is not the use of exegesis as an intermediary that creates this loss, but the nature of the Source Text and the differences between the languages. When the tafsīr work is sufficiently rich and detailed, it provides the translator with valuable insight concerning the meaning of individual words, phrases, and sentences in the Qur’an, as explained by the greatest minds of Muslim tradition. Rather than a loss, this is undoubtedly a tremendous gain.
At the same time, there is, in principle, a limiting process in the use of tafsīr. While it is frequently the case that a Quranic expression appears to be open to numerous possibilities, the exegetes may rule out some of those, limiting the meaning to one possibility or more. However, it should be remembered that this process is not motivated by caprice, lack of imagination, or disrespect to the richness of Arabic! More often than not, the exegetes are relying upon context and other hermeneutical factors to specify which meaning is intended. This can save the translator some of the time it takes to ponder over these factors, as well as the embarrassment of making an error from a lack of reflection. Of course, a suitably qualified and confident translator might decide to overrule their judgment.
In my view, the danger of the “middle layer” applies most potently to the paraphrastic style of Arabic commentary, which has sometimes been commissioned by state institutions to guide their projects of Qur’an translation. The instruction is sometimes made explicit: translate the exegesis, not the Qur’an itself! Then the task becomes to translate the words of human beings, and the work is one degree removed from its original purpose. If, instead, the intent is simply to be guided by that commentary while actually translating the Qur’an, then the “concise/simplified” text is not a suitable format because it lacks the required information to guide the translator, as I shall argue in more detail in a later section of this paper.
If you peruse the introductions provided by many translators to their publications, you will often find them citing their reference works of Arabic exegesis. This applies to Orientalists[9] just as it does to translators working from and for the Muslim community, and a common motivation may be to assure the reader of the rigor and accuracy of the translation. It may also be to signal its alignment with a particular school of thought.[10] Our present focus is upon how exegesis informs the work of translation itself, though it may also play an important role in providing additional information that the translator incorporates in parentheses or footnotes. A translator may well want readers to believe that he has direct understanding of the Quranic text, but the expectation in mainstream Muslim contexts is that such understanding must have been developed through reading works of tafsīr, which can then be cited whenever that translator feels the need to justify a particular point.[11] We will first discuss this category of translators who use exegesis according to free choice, before considering the more constrained approach of following a particular mufassir.
In what follows, I draw attention to several examples where a translator has erred while extracting information from a work of exegesis. The sole purpose in doing this is to demonstrate that referring to books of exegesis is not sufficient to guarantee sound understanding of the Quranic text, because – aside from the fallibility of tafsīr itself – nobody is automatically equipped to read that genre, nor is it simply a matter of fluency in the Arabic language. Like any branch of Islamic knowledge and other areas of the humanities and sciences, some technicalities require familiarity and training for a person to grasp them correctly. It may be ironic for a genre specifically designed to provide clarity on the meanings of the Qur’an, but it is not necessarily the case that the tafsīr is more transparent (to all readers) than the text being explained. Authors in the genre have different styles, draw upon a wide range of vocabulary and terminology foreign to the Qur’an, and may delve into depth on certain subjects from grammar to theology – all of which requires the reader to have the necessary background to understand and appreciate it. While it is important – and relevant – to note the scope for different interpretations of what any mufassir is saying, this subjectivity does not mean that every reading is valid and correct.
With this background, it should be emphasized that I do not mean to discredit these translators by highlighting certain errors, which do not outweigh the tremendous benefit of their works. I am simply raising fundamental questions about standards and expectations, with an eye to the future. Are references to exegesis taken at face value by readers, and should that be the case? What kind of training should we demand for those who translate Scripture for us, and what kind of review is necessary for such publications? Do we respect the tafsīr genre enough to look for specialists to engage with it, and is there enough trepidation on the part of translators that they would be held to account for errors, in this life before the Next? Should it be a basic expectation that translators “show their working” in the footnotes? The following observations aim to bring these issues into view more clearly.
My first examples are drawn from The Message of the Qurʾān by Muhammad Asad (d. 1992), precisely because he displays a remarkable level of transparency concerning his sources and translation choices. This is alongside the overall quality and erudition of his work; although he did not graduate from an Islamic seminary or university, his deep learning and expertise cannot be denied.[12] In this light, the slips in reading tafsīr are all the more significant. I will restrict my comments to a few of Asad’s citations of the classical commentator Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210). As translator of portions of al-Rāzī’s Great Exegesis, I am always keen to observe how others are reading him; for some reason, this work is frequently subject to misunderstandings. Consider the following set of explanations, taken from my forthcoming translation of al-Rāzī’s commentary on Sūrat Al-Kahf (The Cave), for the elliptical expression ‘kadhālika’ (thus) in 18:91, in the midst of the story of Dhū al-Qarnayn’s journeys:
A. Thus, did Dhū al-Qarnayn act: he traveled these courses and reached these places; and Allah knew his suitability for dominion and independent authority when He granted him all that.
B. Thus, did Allah make the condition of those people just as He described to His Messenger (on whom be peace) in this Revelation.
C. Thus, did he act towards the people of the East as he did with the people of the West: he judged similarly in terms of punishing the wrongdoers and showing benevolence to the believers.
D. The word ‘kadhālika’ may be an independent sentence: ‘Thus it was,’ i.e., those people were just as Dhū l-Qarnayn found them; and Allah knew in advance that it was so.[13]
Asad provides the following translation (square brackets are his): “thus [We had made them, and thus he left them]; and We did encompass with Our knowledge all that he had in mind.”[14] His footnote to the parenthesis states that “This is Rāzī’s interpretation of the isolated expression kadhālika” – even though that exegete listed four views, and none of them corresponds to what Asad has written concerning how Dhū al-Qarnayn left them. Presumably, this is how he has understood the fourth opinion, for which al-Rāzī does not indicate any preference. It is beside the point to ask whether or not Asad’s translation here is valid in its own right, or how serious or trivial the error might be. What concerns us is that it is based upon a direct attribution to an exegesis, where the relevant explanation cannot be found. If a straightforward point like this can be misread or misunderstood, it raises questions about more complex issues in tafsīr.
And so, to our next example, which concerns a more controversial issue. In al-Nisāʾ 4:24, Asad advances an unusual gloss for the term ‘mā malakat aymānukum’, seen here with his original parenthesis: “And [forbidden to you are] all married women other than those whom you rightfully possess [through wedlock].”[15] He claims in a lengthy footnote that al-Rāzī “points out that the reference to ‘all married women’ (al-muḥṣanāt min an-nisāʾ), coming as it does after the enumeration of prohibited degrees of relationship, is meant to stress the prohibition of sexual relations with any woman other than one’s lawful wife.”[16] Again, these claims can be assessed on their own merits, but our immediate concern is whether or not this represents the cited authority accurately. In his fourth enquiry (masʾalah) under this verse, al-Rāzī describes how the term ‘al-muḥṣanāt’ has been explained either as ‘married women’ or ‘free women’, and provides two possible meanings of the exception ‘mā malakat aymānukum’ in each case. He concludes by stating clearly his preference (‘huwa al-mukhtār’) for the first view, namely that it means that a married woman who is enslaved becomes lawful to her master. In support, he quotes 23:6 (‘azwājihim aw mā malakat aymānuhum’), in which the two categories – wives and concubines – are more clearly demarcated, adding that “the present verse must certainly be explained in terms of that one, since explaining Allah’s speech through Allah’s speech is the most assured route to verity.”[17] In short, Asad has clearly misrepresented al-Rāzī’s position and misconstrued his discussion.
Our third example concerns verse 45 from Sūrat Āl ʿImrān (The House of Amram), in which Asad provides an unusual translation without attributing it to any source. He may have taken it from the influential translator and leading figure of the Lahore branch of the Ahmadiyya movement, Muhammad Ali (d. 1951), whom I quote here with original parenthesis: “O Mary, surely Allāh gives thee good news with a word from Him (of one) whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary.”[18] It is immediately obvious that this differs from the commonplace interpretation and translation, in which the Word is the content of that good news, not its conduit; the Word is then identified as being the Messiah Jesus – hence there is no need for that parenthetical insertion. Ali struggled with the masculine pronoun in ‘ismuhū’ (his name) referring back to the feminine ‘kalimah’, but this is straightforward since a male person was being described by that term, as attested elsewhere in the Qur’an (4:171).[19] In his detailed footnote, Ali quotes al-Rāzī’s explanation that Jesus (on whom be peace) was called ‘a word’ because his coming fulfilled earlier prophecies.[20] He then claims wrongly that “this explanation shows that kalimah really applies to the prophecy.”[21] It is noteworthy that Ali had, just prior in 3:39, translated the equivalent phrase “yubashshiruka bi-Yaḥyā” as “gives thee the good news of John” (see also Maryam 19:7).[22] The consistent usage of this verb in the Qur’an indicates that the genitive after the particle bāʾ is the thing being announced (al-mubashshar bihi).
This example allows us to broach the topic of what I term ‘pre-determined exegetical translation’ (PET), in which a translator follows a particular exegete to construct a translation of the Qur’an. The domain in which this is most to be expected is in translations of tafsīr works, in which the Qur’an translation should necessarily accord with the understanding and explanation of the mufassir.[23] Let us consider the case of the modern literary commentary Fī ẓilāl al-Qurʾān by Sayyid Quṭb (d. 1966), the translation of which was completed by Adil Salahi, In the Shade of the Qur’an. Subsequently, the Qur’an translation featured within these volumes was published separately as Salahi’s translation of the Qur’an.[24] In Qur’an 3:45, Salahi, like Asad before him, uses the expression “through a word from Him” and in brackets “[of a son].” However, in its original setting, this translation is completely at odds with the explanation provided in the commentary. As Salahi himself translates Quṭb as saying, “In the construction of the sentence, the name ‘the Christ’ is a substitute for the term ‘a word’. Yet, he is indeed the ‘Word’,” a point which Quṭb goes on to explain.[25]
While not all translators of exegesis are necessarily conscious of their duty concerning translating the Qur’an, and some may simply incorporate an existing translation, there is at least one project in which an explicit attempt has been made to translate the Qur’an according to a specific classical exegesis. Gibril Haddad’s translation of Anwār al-Tanzīl (The Lights of Revelation) by Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Bayḍāwī (d. 685/1286), of which the first volume has so far been published, includes what he calls “A Baydawian Rendering in English.” Unfortunately, Haddad does not elaborate on his methodology as a Qur’an translator beyond describing it as “prudent literalism” and citing a few translators whose works informed his own.[26]
There are two fundamental challenges affecting the process of crafting a “Baydawian” Qur’an translation: under-determination and polyvalence. The first concerns the fact that al-Bayḍāwī, like any exegete, glosses some words but not others, and does not express every aspect of his understanding of the text. What would he think of Haddad’s rendering of the divine name Allāh as “the One God”, given that al-Bayḍāwī did not explain it as meaning al-ilāh al-wāḥid?[27] The second challenge concerns the fact that this exegesis, like many others in the Muslim scholarly tradition, often provides several possible meanings without expressing a preference for one of them. In that case, which of them should be selected for the “Baydawian Rendering,” given that the linear book format makes this choice almost inevitable?[28] Despite these issues, it should be appreciated that an attempt has been made to make the translation do the initial work of conveying the meaning as understood by the exegete, and then the more detailed commentary expands upon it.[29]
There are several earlier translations of sections from al-Bayḍāwī’s exegesis; we will select one passage to illustrate the fact that misreadings occur likewise in the genre of tafsīr translation.[30] This only strengthens our point that there is a skill involved in accessing those sources, and the clarity of tafsīr to the Qur’an translator should not be taken for granted. The 1957 translation of al-Bayḍāwī’s commentary on Sūrat Yūsuf (Joseph) by Eric Bishop and Mohamed Kaddal of the University of Glasgow is, as the Oxford academic A.F.L. Beeston put it, “in many places quite unintelligible in English”; more to the point, “the translators have occasionally seriously misunderstood Baiḍāwī.”[31] Let us consider the example of 12:19, where Bishop and Kaddal have written, concerning the water scout who discovers young Joseph (on whom be peace) in the well: “He called out ‘Good News’ as an announcement to himself or his company, as if he said, ‘Come, this is your opportunity’.”[32]
This is erroneous because al-Bayḍāwī and other exegetes explain the expression yā bushrā (“O good news”) as a direct address to this abstract concept; it is as though “good news” is being called to be present.[33] It is not the water scout’s company who are being told to “come.” Unfortunately, while Beeston’s translation of the chapter is vastly superior to that of Bishop and Kaddal, in this verse he fell into much the same error (parentheses his): “He cried out ‘Good luck’, either as congratulation to himself (or to his folk,) as much as to say, ‘Come along, here is your opportunity’.” This is not an ‘opportunity’ so much as it is the ‘moment’ for the abstract concept of good news to be manifest. The fact that Beeston has misread this becomes clearer from his footnote: “The feminine forms here refer to the feminine word nafsihi.”[34] He means the feminine suffixes in ‘taʿālay’ and ‘awānuki’, which are actually due to the word ‘bushrā’. The water scout was not calling himself!
The previous section emphasized the need for translators working individually, or as part of a coordinated project, to attain the skills necessary to access exegesis and incorporate its insights into translations of the Qur’an. We also encountered some of the conceptual issues connected to the use of tafsīr in translation, particularly those of under-determination and polyvalence. In this section, I outline the key considerations in using exegesis to guide a translation project, while addressing some misconceptions that may have affected earlier projects. Here is a summary of my propositions, before we elaborate with some examples.
A. Translate the Qur’an itself (looking at its meanings), not an intermediary text.
B. The more detailed an exegesis is on linguistic matters, the more useful it is for a translator.
C. A translator must possess the training to follow these exegetical “dos and don’ts.”
We must first make clear that there is nothing to be gained by instructing a translator to ignore the Quranic text itself and translate a commentary instead. In principle, this is only distancing them from the original task.[35] If they are capable of translating that explanatory text, then what would prevent them from translating the Qur’an directly?[36] It is obvious enough that all translation is based on analyzing the meaning of the source text, so the concept of “translation of the meanings” is a tautology.[37] No single explanation of the Qur’an can claim to be “the meaning” of the Qur’an, but it serves two functions: to clarify and specify meanings. Clarification is where a vocabulary item is relatively obscure to a modern Arabic speaker, and a near-synonym is provided to indicate what that Quranic word means.[38] Specification is where the Quranic word has several possibilities, which may all be attested in the tafsīr tradition, but the translator is being asked to adopt one of those meanings to the exclusion of the others. For institutions designing translation projects, there are two reasons to specify meanings for their translators: (a) to adhere to a particular position, e.g., in doctrinal matters; (b) to ensure consistency as the Qur’an is being translated into multiple languages.
The second point is that, for an exegesis to serve as a guide to translation, it must contain sufficient linguistic detail.[39] While it is desirable for the commentary to be concise enough that the translator can access the relevant points quickly and understand them clearly, the tafsīr ijmālī style – a paraphrase of the Quranic wording with a few additional points – lacks some necessary information. Aside from prior qualifications, there are two main things which a Qur’an translator needs to perform their task: (a) the meaning of any words which require clarification or specification; (b) the syntactical analysis (iʿrāb) of the verse and its sentences. Without these, the translation is under-determined, which means that the translator will exercise free choice in these matters. If the whole purpose of creating a guide commentary is to ensure adherence and consistency, why go to such effort if these results are not guaranteed? A separate point is whether there is ongoing communication, or the translators are left to work independently – in this case, quality review before publishing is particularly important.
Let us return to the aforementioned challenge of polyvalence. A translator looking at a Quranic verse would first ask him/herself: “How could I understand this?” If they are independently using tafsīr, they should then consider “What are the accepted ways of understanding this?” However, in a guided project, or one based upon a specific exegete, the question becomes: “How did this exegete understand it, and how am I being asked to understand it?” With this purpose of a guide exegesis in mind, there is one more element which will minimize the problem of under-determination: namely, to contrast the desired interpretation with other possibilities which are being ruled out or cast aside.[40] I describe this as a “Do and Don’t” format, which can also prevent common errors. In short, the translator is told to translate in a certain way as opposed to that other way, as it is said that “things are known by their opposites.” While this kind of detailed format may seem impossible to achieve at scale, the case study at the end of this paper will point the way to a solution.
Consider the examples cited above. Al-Rāzī’s four possible interpretations of kadhālika in 18:91 could be quoted in Arabic, and the translator was instructed to use one in particular. That way, they will not mistakenly follow one of the other possibilities. Under 3:45, it could be stated that the bāʾ in “bi-kalimah” is for attachment (ilṣāq) and transitivity (taʿdiyah), not instrumentalization (istiʿānah).[41] Another brief way of clarifying the point is to gloss the kalimah as a reference to the child.[42] Needless to say, the success of this approach depends upon selecting translators who possess sufficient knowledge of the Arabic language and their target language, such that they can perceive the subtle distinctions between these possibilities and select the wording which best reflects the chosen interpretation in the guide exegesis.
With the above points in mind, let us turn to a brief evaluation of the exegetical translation projects which I call “The Three M’s”: the Egyptian al-Muntakhab fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, the official Saudi Al-Tafsīr al-muyassar lil-Qurʾān al-karīm, and the more recent, non-state project from Saudi Arabia al-Mukhtaṣar fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm. Each of these concise Arabic commentaries was intended to be translated as an intermediary, and to fill the space of a Qur’an translation instead of being published alongside a translation as additional commentary. In all cases, the text contains non-linguistic details drawn from exegetical sources, which are incorporated without parentheses. Their defining feature is the paraphrastic approach through which these works function in Arabic, much like a translation, hence their popularity among Arabic-speaking publics. They lack the technical features of exegesis, including the linguistic apparatus that is crucial to a translator.
The first of these projects was conceived in the wake of fierce debates in Egypt over Qur’an translation; eventually, the Sheikhdom of al-Azhar announced its intention for a specialist committee to produce a simplified Arabic commentary, which would then be translated by further specialist committees.[43] The Muntakhab (“Select Commentary”) was published as early as 1961, but the first translation, which was into English, was only to appear in 1993. Stefan Wild has highlighted the problems in the conception and execution of this first edition, which was undertaken by a physician named Abdel Khalek Himmat. One example should suffice: the opening of the Fātiḥah was given (apparently inspired by Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well) as “Bosoms peep forth and answer thanks to God, the Creator of the universe”![44] This absurd rendering was not prevented by the guide exegesis, nor was it caught and corrected by the reviewers and the Islamic Research Academy before publication. There is much to reflect on in this fact. However, the matter was resolved by a second committee led by the Azharite professor Muḥammad Maḥmūd Ghālī, and a corrected English Muntakhab was published in 2006 (“Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds”).[45] The work has been issued in numerous languages, most recently in Hebrew in 2022.
The King Fahd Complex in Madinah is responsible for the KSA’s projects to distribute the Qur’an and its translations in a wide range of languages. Their approach in some languages has been to adapt existing translations: in English, they experimented with Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s[46] before turning to that by Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali. They have since published their Muyassar (“Simplified Commentary”), another committee production which is widely distributed in the Arabic language and has begun to serve its purpose as the basis for translation into other languages. As Mykhaylo Yakubovych has documented concerning outputs in the Tajik, Swahili, Ukrainian, and English languages, the same problem of under-determination affects this project. For example, the verb makkana is generally reproduced in the commentary, but in 7:10 it is glossed as “jaʿalnāhā qarāran la-kum”, describing how people have been granted the earth as a home. It would have been appropriate to indicate the divergent meaning in 18:81, where it describes the power granted to Dhū al-Qarnayn; nevertheless, the Tajik translation successfully differentiates these meanings.[47] This shows the importance of competent translators who appreciate the Quranic text in its own right, and that the guide exegesis, in addition to being insufficient at times, may be unnecessary at others.
The most recent of these projects is the Mukhtaṣar (“Concise Commentary”) undertaken by another committee under the auspices of the Riyadh-based Tafsir Center for Qur’anic Studies. The introduction states that the commentary was specifically designed to be “suitable as the basis for translation to other global languages, avoiding the errors and impediments which have afflicted many earlier published translations of the meanings of the Qur’an”[48] – which implies that the translation of this intermediary text is intended to be used just as direct translations of the Qur’an have been. However, much like its two predecessors, the Mukhtaṣar contains additional phrases not marked by parentheses; the resultant translations are, therefore, somewhat disorienting to the English (etc.) reader who cannot discern which words are present in the Qur’an, and which are extra information and matters of interpretation.[49] Again, the logic of the Arabic publication does not carry over automatically to a foreign audience, which is fairly accustomed to Qur’an translations, some of which contain more details in their footnotes than this purported tafsīr work.
Let us illustrate how these texts function, both in their own right and as the basis for English translations, by selecting one of the shortest chapters, Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (Q 112, Purity of Faith). In the following table, the “Three M’s” are presented in Arabic alongside their published translations, to assess their efficacy as guide translations. I share some observations below, followed by a demonstration of the alternative approach I have outlined in the preceding section.
Table 1: Concise Exegeses and their Translations
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Al-Muntakhab (2nd ed. 2006) 1. Say O Muhammad: “He is Allah and He is One,” 2. “He is Infinite, Absolute, and all creatures, spiritual, animate and inanimate, are in need of Him while He is in need of no one,” 3. “He did not beget nor was He begotten,” 4. “And like unto Him there is none.” |
المنتخب
في تفسير
القرآن
الكريم
|
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Al-Muyassar [50] 1. [He is] Allāh, Who is perfect in attributes of honor, distinction and greatness; He Whom mankind seeks out to fulfill their needs and desires. 2. He neither has a son, nor a father, nor a wife. 3. Nor is there any comparison to Him or match from among His creation, not in His Names, nor in His Attributes, nor in His Actions. Blessed, Exalted and Sanctified is He.” |
التفسير
الميسر
للقرآن
الكريم الله وحده المقصود في قضاء الحوائج والرغائب. ليس له ولد ولا والد ولا صاحبة. ولم يكن له مماثلا ولا مشابهًا أحد من خلقه، لا في أسمائه ولا في صفاته، ولا في أفعاله، تبارك وتعالى وتقدَّس. |
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Al-Mukhtaṣar (1st ed. 2020) 1. He is the master to whom belongs all sovereignty and perfect, beautiful qualities. The one to whom all creation turn to. 2. The one who did not give birth to anyone, nor did anyone give birth to Him. So He has no offspring - may He be glorified - nor any parent. 3. Nor does He have any equal from His creation. |
المختصر في
تفسير
القرآن
الكريم هو السيد الذي انتهى إليه السؤدد في صفات الكمال والجمال، الذي تصمد إليه الخلائق. الذي لم يـلد أحدا، ولم يـلده أحد، فـلا ولد له - سبـحانـه - ولا والد. ولم يـكن له مماثـل فـي خلقـه. |
It is immediately clear that the three paraphrastic commentaries resemble each other to a large degree, which is due in part to later committees making use of the earlier publications. In verse 1, all have specified that the person being told to “Say” is the Prophet (on whom be peace): a point which could be deemed obvious.[51] The Muntakhab goes further by referring to the revelatory context (sabab al-nuzūl) within the text. What is missing here is any clarification of the syntax of “Huwa Allāhu aḥadun”: the translators (along with the vast majority of Qur’an translators to English) have assumed that the pronoun is the nominal subject (mubtadaʾ), with the divine name Allah as its predicate (khabar); then the word meaning “one” is a second predicate. This is an acceptable reading, but not the most accepted among the exegetes, as we will discuss below. The issue here is that the Arabic paraphrases above do not make it clear either way.
Further, it is seen that the word aḥad has been glossed quite extensively, and this is retained in the Muyassar translation: but is it truly the case that “alone in possessing Divinity, Lordship and Divine Names and Attributes” is a translation of the word, rather than an exegesis (drawing upon Taymīyan theological categories)? Similar can be said about the name al-Ṣamad in verse 2, which is difficult to encapsulate in a single English word; but a reader of these translations could hardly perceive that the verse itself comprises just two Arabic words! Note also that the Arabic paraphrase “Allāhu al-maqṣūd” in the Muyassar was not clear enough for the translator, who assumed that the divine name here is a predicate to an implied pronoun: “[He is] Allāh”; in contrast, the detailed works of exegesis seem to agree that the divine name here is the subject.
I will allow these brief points to stand in place of more extensive analysis within this sūrah and beyond. We have established that, while these paraphrastic commentaries provide a great service to Arabic readers by clarifying Quranic vocabulary and elucidating some of its phrasing, they are not fulfilling their purpose as facilitation (taysīr) for translators. Here I am disagreeing slightly with a remark made by a respected professor during a meeting, in which I was present, with the religious ministry of a Muslim state currently planning a major translation project. He said that “Anyone who needs this kind of muyassar commentary should not be asked to translate the Qur’an!” While that statement is true, it should be kept in mind that the purpose is not simply to help translators understand the Qur’an, which they can do by referring to any tafsīr they wish. Rather, the purpose is to specify their translation choices, which is best achieved through “instructive exegesis” as we will now discuss.
The basic description of this category of exegesis is any tafsīr that provides instructions to a translator in terms of how the words and structures of the Quranic text are to be understood and translated. This could be said concerning many works which existed before the age of translation, since they contain the necessary information; however, this would often require sifting through details irrelevant to translation, and facing the issue of polyvalence discussed previously. Therefore, modern translation projects could construct guide exegesis by extracting favored interpretations from one of these encyclopedic works, and this would be made easier if there is a prior stage (that needs only be done once for all such projects in the future), which I call the “master-guide” approach.
Al-Ālūsī’s (d. 1854) Rūḥ al-Maʿānī is arguably the most comprehensive of all tafsīr works.[52] Any translator with the necessary training to benefit from it would do well to take it as a constant companion. This exegetical encyclopedia provides necessary details, accompanied by discussions of alternative views and debates, both linguistic and otherwise. A translator can check his reading of the text, and may even select an option which al-Ālūsī alludes to or criticizes, but he should be extremely cautious if that view is dismissed by the author and/or his predecessors.[53] That being said, the very fact of gathering so many interpretations, in addition to its complexity and extraneous details, prevents Rūḥ al-Maʿānī from fulfilling the role of guide exegesis as described above. It may be argued, instead, that this work is ideal for “master-guide exegesis”: a bank of exegetical options (awjuh, sing. wajh) which any institution can use to create a tailored guide exegesis. In this way, all such bespoke commentaries fall clearly within the tafsīr tradition, and the pedigree of each interpretive choice can be investigated.
To illustrate, I have summarized the key points from al-Ālūsī’s commentary on al-Ikhlāṣ, which spans 24 pages in the Risālah edition (after 13 pages on introductory matters).[54] By restricting the comments to those of direct importance to a translator, it can be seen that the Arabic text is reasonably concise, albeit not nearly as concise as the paraphrastic commentaries above. Importantly, the master guide’s exegesis includes points of divergence and multiple possibilities in translation. I have complemented this with a set of English translations in the left-hand column. Since this polyvalent guide translation further clarifies what each of the options means and how it would be translated distinctly from the others, it would be of enormous help to any translator who knows English as well as Arabic.
Table 2: al-Ālūsī as Master-Guide
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(1) Say: The fact is: Allah is One.
Say: He is Allah, (He is) One. Say: He, Allah, is One. |
المَشْهُورُ أنَّ (هو) ضَمِيرُ الشَّأْنِ ومَحَلُّهُ الرَّفْعُ عَلى الِابْتِداءِ، خَبَرُهُ الجُمْلَةُ بَعْدَهُ ... والسِّرُّ في تَصْدِيرِها بِهِ التَّنْبِيهُ مِن أوَّلِ الأمْرِ عَلى فَخامَةِ مَضْمُونِها مَعَ ما فِيهِ مِن زِيادَةِ التَّحْقِيقِ والتَّقْرِيرِ… وجَوَّزُوا أنْ يَكُونَ هو ضَمِيرَ المَسْؤُولِ عَنْهُ أوِ المَطْلُوبِ صِفَتُهُ أوْ نِسْبَتُهُ… و(هُو)َ عَلَيْهِ مُبْتَدَأٌ، والِاسْمُ الجَلِيلُ خَبَرُهُ، و(أحَدٌ) خَبَرٌ بَعْدَ خَبَرٍ؛ وأجازَ الزَّمَخْشَرِيُّ أنْ يَكُونَ بَدَلًا مِنَ الِاسْمِ الجَلِيلِ... وأنْ يَكُونَ خَبَرَ مُبْتَدَأٍ مَحْذُوفٍ أيْ هو أحَدٌ. وأجازَ أبُو البَقاءِ أنْ يَكُونَ الِاسْمُ الأعْظَمُ بَدَلًا مِن (هُوَ) و(أحَدٌ) خَبَرُهُ. |
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(2) Allāh is the Ṣamad (Supreme Necessity).
Allāh is the Ṣamad: He did not… Allāh the Ṣamad did not… X |
﴿اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ﴾ مُبْتَدَأٌ وخَبَرٌ. وعَنْ طائِفَةٍ مِنهم أُبَيُّ بْنُ كَعْبٍ والرَّبِيعُ بْنُ أنَسٍ أنَّهُ الَّذِي لَمْ يَلِدْ ولَمْ يُولَدْ كَأنَّهم جَعَلُوا ما بَعْدَهُ تَفْسِيرًا له. وقِيلَ: ﴿الصَّمَدُ﴾ نَعْتٌ والخَبَرُ ما بَعْدَهُ ولَيْسَ بِشَيْءٍ. …المُعَوَّلُ عَلَيْهِ تَفْسِيره بِالسَّيِّدِ الَّذِي يَصْمُدُ إلَيْهِ الخَلْقُ في الحَوائِجِ والمَطالِبِ، وتَفْسِيرُهُ بِالَّذِي لا جَوْفَ لَهُ وما عَداهُما إمّا راجِعٌ إلَيْهِما أوْ هو مِمّا لا تُساعِدُ عَلَيْهِ اللُّغَةُ… |
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(3) He has not begotten He does not beget and He was not begotten, |
يَجُوزُ أنْ يَكُونَ المُرادُ اسْتِمْرارَ النَّفْيِ، وعَبَّرَ بِالماضِي لِمُشاكَلَةِ قَوْلِهِ تَعالى: ﴿ولَمْ يُولَدْ﴾ وهو لا بُدَّ أنْ يَكُونَ بِصِيغَةِ الماضِي… |
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(4) And there has never been to Him any equal. |
﴿ولَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ كُفُوًا أحَدٌ﴾ أيْ: لَمْ يُكافِئْهُ أحَدٌ ولَمْ يُماثِلْهُ ولَمْ يُشاكِلْهُ مِن صاحِبَةٍ وغَيْرِها (لَهُ) صِلَةُ (كُفُوًا) عَلى ما ذَهَبَ إلَيْهِ المُبَرِّدُ وغَيْرُهُ، والأصْلُ أنْ يُؤَخَّرَ إلّا أنَّهُ قُدِّمَ لِلِاهْتِمامِ… |
Let us compare what is provided here under verse 1 with what we saw previously with “the Three M’s”. Al-Ālūsī expresses a clear preference for reading huwa as the pronoun of situation (ḍamīr al-shaʾn),[55] while mentioning other views.[56] A guide exegesis based on this could select a different opinion as preponderant (rājiḥ), but – crucially – listing the depreciated (marjūḥ) alternatives allows the translator to ensure adherence to the guide. This is particularly important when there is a reading that has existed in tradition but has been criticized by the experts as untenable: this applies to the view that al-Ṣamad is adjectival (naʿt), which al-Ālūsī dismisses as “laysa bi-shayʾ” – hence it is marked in the translation with “X”. Any guide exegesis which seeks to improve the accuracy of English Qur’an translations must also correct and rule out the common errors that translators have fallen into concerning the syntax of the Arabic text.
In the above presentation, I left certain terms in transliteration, particularly al-Ṣamad, in order to allow the focus to be on the various sentence structures. As for the meanings of such terms, these can be specified through the creation of a translator’s lexicon. This may be based upon a particular exegete, which involves sourcing his explanations under whichever verse they may appear (typically the first occurrence of the word). It is also essential at this point to factor in the various meanings (wujūh) that a single word has in different Quranic passages and contexts.[57]
We previously saw the example of Haddad’s translation based on al-Bayḍāwī’s exegesis. There is great potential for other such projects, which may or may not accompany translations of the exegetical texts themselves. We could see a Ṭabarian translation, and a Rāzian translation, for example, made easy by the above master-guide exegesis from al-Ālūsī, since the relevant options will almost always be found within its scope. With the incorporation of explanatory notes, such projects could extend the purpose of translation beyond its most introductory level to provide keen students of the Qur’an (not to mention specialists) with insights from Islamic history’s greatest minds.
One such project is being undertaken under my leadership at the Ibn ʿAshur Centre for Quranic Studies, based in the UK.[58] To produce a summarized presentation of the magisterial Tafsīr al-Taḥrīr wa-al-Tanwīr by the Tunisian scholar Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀshūr (d. 1973), the project proceeds from an analysis of the range of options captured in al-Ālūsī’s commentary of a century earlier. Then the specific exegetical choices of Ibn ʿĀshūr are crafted into a translation that reflects, as far as possible, his explanations of the terminology and rhetorical features of Quranic discourse. An example is the choice to translate the name Allāh as “God”: while this is certainly not specified by Ibn ʿĀshūr, it is argued that it follows from his explanation of its etymology.[59]
A key feature of this project is “layering”,[60] in which explanatory text is placed around the Qur’an translation to aid the reader, but this is clearly distinguished from the core text. These extra notes, also derived from the guide exegesis (in this case al-Taḥrīr wa-al-Tanwīr), provide essential context, linkages between verses, and alternative readings. When this is provided in a digital format,[61] a reader will be able to toggle between displaying the additional layers and a translation-only mode. The following is a basic representation of this format:
Table 3: Layered Translation Based on Ibn ʿĀshūr
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In answer to them asking “Where did your Lord come from?”, Say, Prophet: The fact is: God is One God is the Supreme Necessity. He has not begotten and He was not begotten, And there has never been to Him any equal. |
Alongside this layered translation and accompanying linguistic notes, the Light of Assurance project presents the rest of Ibn ʿĀshūr’s exegetical discussions in English summary, adopting a question-and-answer style. These elements together form an effective model for projects based upon such voluminous tafsīr works, which are impractical to translate in full and would not serve any readership in that way.
This paper has highlighted two key areas that require attention in any future translation projects undertaken by individuals and/or guided by states and institutions. The first is the importance of drawing upon the rich resources of Muslim exegesis of the Qur’an, in which the translator ought to be trained. Shortcomings in personal qualifications have led to errors in reading comprehension, which we have highlighted with selected examples.
The second area is how exegesis should be utilized in such projects – we have strongly recommended that tafsīr is not adopted as an intermediary that is translated in place of the Qur’an itself. However, it can play an important role in guiding the translator and ensuring consistency across a multilingual project. A guide exegesis ought to be grammatically informative, not paraphrastic as various earlier projects have been: from the Muntakhab to the Mukhtaṣar. By selecting or creating a guide exegesis based on the criteria and illustrations provided in this paper, and by seeking out and investing in suitably qualified translators, future projects to translate the Qur’an into the languages of the world can maximize their success and contribute new levels of clarity and understanding of the Scripture.
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____. “The Digital Mufassir: Re-imagining the Tafsir of al-Alusi for a New Era,” 657-80. In Osmanlı’da İlm- i Tefsir. Ed. M. Taha Boyalık and Harun Abacı. Istanbul: İSAR Publications, 2019.
____. “Fights and Flights: Two Underrated ‘Alternatives’ to Dominant Readings in tafsīr.” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 24-1 (2022): 46-88.
____. “The Untranslated Qur’an: Retelling the Surah of Joseph,” 279-302. In Retranslating the Bible and the Qur’an: Historical Approaches and Current Debates. Eds. Pieter Boulogne, Marijke de Lang and Joseph Verheyden. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2024.
Sale, George. The Koran, commonly called The Alcoran of Muhammed. London: J. Wilcox, 1734.
Sheikh, Nabeel Nisar. Tarjamat wa-tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm bil-lughah al-injlīzīyyah al-musammā “The Study Quran”: dirāsah taḥlīlīyah naqdīyah muqāranah. PhD thesis. Mecca: Umm al-Qurā, 2021.
Usmani, Muhammad Taqi. The Noble Qur’an: Meanings with Explanatory Notes. London: Turath Publishing, 2020.
Markaz Tafsīr lil-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyyah. Al-Mukhtaṣar fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm. Mecca: Dār al-Mukhtaṣar, 2020, 6th ed.
____. English Translation of a Concise Commentary of the Noble Quran. Mecca: Dār al-Mukhtaṣar, 2020.
Wild, Stefan. “Muslim Translations and Translations of the Qur’an into English.” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 17-3 (2015): 158-82.
Yakubovych, Mykhaylo. The Kingdom and the Qur’an. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2024.
[1] The common expression “translation of the meanings of the Qur’an” (seen, for example, on the cover of publications of the King Fahd Complex in Madinah) implies that the Qur’an is not itself translated, but instead its meanings. Aside from the redundancy in this expression, and the fact that it unintentionally implies that the translation has successfully captured all the Qur’an’s meanings, what interests us here is the lack of a similar discomfort with the idea of “tafsīr of the Qur’an” even though it, too, deals with meanings and can never truly be as perfect as the Book itself. Indeed, I would argue that tafsīr is best conceived of as “answers to questions about meaning” so the direct ascription of tafsīr al-Qurʾān is a shorthand.
[2] A separate misconception is that a concise classical text like Tafsīr al-jalālayn is ideal for translation in full, for the general public (as it has been, twice in English). While I will argue below that this type of work is “instructive” for a translator of the Qur’an, this very feature makes much of its content meaningless for a reader unacquainted with the technicalities of Arabic grammar. The better option is to take an extended (muṭawwal) work of exegesis and abridge it in English, incorporating a tailored Qur’an translation, as we will explain in this paper.
[3] Jalāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abū Bakr al-Suyūṭī, Al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān (in Arabic), ed. Markaz al-Dirāsāt al-Qurʾānīyah (Riyadh: Mujammaʿ al-Malik Fahd li-Ṭibāʿat al-Muṣḥaf, 2005), 6: 2299.
[4] Sohaib Saeed, “Intraquranic Hermeneutics,” PhD Thesis (London: SOAS, 2018), 153.
[5] The consequences of this neglect are demonstrated by Sohaib Saeed, “The Untranslated Qur’an: Retelling the Surah of Joseph” in Pieter Boulogne, Marijke de Lang and Joseph Verheyden (eds.), Retranslating the Bible and the Qur’an (Leuven University Press, 2024). Even translators who claim to be depending upon tafsīr can be found to have gone against the consensus of the exegetes.
[6] Al-Suyūṭī, Al-Itqān, 6: 2294.
[7] Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀshūr, Tafsīr al-taḥrīr wa-al-tanwīr (in Arabic), (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2021), 1:27.
[8] Waleed Bleyhesh Al Amri, “Lower-Plane Qur’an Translation: Exegetical Inroads into Translation,” Al-Tarjamah wa-Ishkālāt al-Muṣṭalaḥ 2 (2014), 34. The examples touch on some of the core challenges in Qur’an translation, but it is not always convincing that the problem was “dependence on tafsīr” (see Q 79:14 on p. 30, and 81:17 on p. 32). Had the translators turned to appropriate tafsīr works, they would have found the linguistic information the author quotes from the likes of al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 502/1108); so it would have been appropriate to be more specific about the “certain tafsīrs which are not concerned with linguistic issues” (p. 33).
[9] The first edition of George Sale’s translation was subtitled on the cover page: “Translated into English immediately from the Original Arabic; with explanatory notes taken from the most approved commentators.” George Sale, The Koran (London: J. Wilcox, 1734).
[10] The earliest editions of what was to become the famous Noble Qur’an by Khān and al-Hilālī were marketed as: “A summarized version of Ibn Kathir, supplemented by At-Tabari with comments from Sahih al-Bukhari.” See: https://gloqur.de/quran-translation-of-the-week-102-interpretation-of-the-meanings-of-the-noble-quran-in-the-english-language-by-al-hilali-and-khan-the-story-behind-the-first-saud/
[11] Of course, translators also consult and cite other works, such as Arabic dictionaries and earlier translations.
[12] See Abdallah Elkhatib, Tarjamāt maᶜānī al-Qur’ān al-karīm ilā al-lugha al-injlīziyyah: min ᶜām 1649 ilā ᶜām 2013 (in Arabic), (Sharjah: University of Sharjah, 2014), 241; and Bruce Lawrence, The Koran in English: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 65-70. In his introduction, Asad expresses a particular regard for Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905), and it may be assumed that the Tafsīr al-manār based on the Egyptian reformist’s teachings was a source for Asad’s perspectives and even some of his citations.
[13] Cf., “amru hāʾulāʾ al-qawm kamā wajadahum Dhū al-Qarnayn.” Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Rāzī, Al-Tafsīr al-kabīr / mafātīḥ al-ghayb (in Arabic), (Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 2012), 11:174. Note that the preceding explanations also make kadhālika independent, though semantically connected to various parts of the verse before it.
[14] Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān, trans. (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1984), 453.
[15] Ibid., 180. Alongside al-Rāzī, Asad also cites “Ṭabarī in one of his alternative explanations (going back to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid, and others)”. However, that opinion would necessitate the translation “chaste women” and not “married women”. See Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān (in Arabic), (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2012), 3:2227–8.
[16] This is quoted via Asad by Chouki El Hamel with the additional, unsubstantiated claims that al-Rāzī “questioned the moral implications of such interpretations and practices” and “expressed doubts about the Hadith”. See, El Hamel, Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 25.
[17] Al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr, 5:264. See also his commentary on Qur’an 23:5-6, where it is taken for granted that ‘milk al-yamīn’ (right-hand possessions) refers to concubines.
[18] Maulvi Muhammad Ali, The Holy Qur’ān, containing the Arabic Text with English Translation and Commentary (Surrey, UK: The Islamic Review, 1917), 142.
[19] Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm wal-sabʿ al-mathānī (in Arabic), eds. Māhir Ḥabbūsh et al. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 2010), 4:193.
[20] Al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr, 4:250. See also al-Rāzī, The Great Exegesis Volume I: The Fātiḥa, trans. Sohaib Saeed (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2018), 19.
[21] Ali, The Holy Qur’ān, 142.
[22] Ali, The Holy Qur’ān, 139.
[23] One might select an existing Qur’an translation, but without adaptation it would be unlikely to agree with the exegete’s views consistently.
[24] The website www.islamawakened.com, which may have the widest collection of English translations aggregated per verse, includes a translation purportedly by Sayyid Quṭb! It is, in fact, Adil Salahi’s translation before it was published as The Qur’an: A Translation for the 21st Century (Markfield: Kube Publishing, 2020).
[25] Qutb, Sayyid, In the Shade of the Qur’an Vol. 2, trans. Adil Salahi (Markfield: Islamic Foundation, 2000), 85. Salahi also erred by rendering Qutb’s earlier sentence as “She receives the news in a word from God” (emphasis added), and the word “yet” has no place here: “al-masīḥ badal min al-kalimah fī al-ʿibārah wa-huwa al-kalimah fī al-ḥaqīqah (The Messiah’ is an appositive of the ‘word’ in the verbal structure, and [this implies that] he is the word in reality).
[26] Nāṣir al-Dīn ʿAbdullāh b. ʿUmar al-Bayḍāwī, The Lights of Revelation & The Secrets of Interpretation: Ḥizb I, trans. Gibril F. Haddad (Manchester: Beacon Books, 2016), 75.
[27] This is particularly incongruous in Haddad’s rendering of 2:26, which has the polytheists utter this description. If they saw the name Allah like that, they would not have rejected “There is no god but Allah”!
[28] See Al-Bayḍāwī, The Lights of Revelation, 250-55 for a variety of syntactical possibilities in Surat Al-Baqarah 2:1-2 which cannot be encompassed by a single translation.
[29] In the published volume, Haddad presented the translation up to 2:74 in advance of the commentary, supplying page numbers to the tafsīr (pp. 123–139). It can be observed that several Quranic phrases were missed from his translation, namely “they will not believe” (2:6) and “without realizing” (2:9).
[30] There are numerous other works which could have been cited in this context, as the standards in the field—with regard to both translators and publishers—are not as they should be.
[31] Al-Bayḍāwī, Baiḍāwī’s Commentary on Sūrah 12 of the Qur’ān, trans. A.F.L. Beeston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), vi.
[32] Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Bayḍāwī, The Light of Inspiration and Secret of Interpretation, tr. Eric Bishop & Mohamed Kaddal (Glasgow: Jackson, Son & Company, 1957), p. 19.
[33] Al-Bayḍāwī, Tafsīr al-Qāḍī al-Bayḍāwī wa-maʿahu Ḥāshiyat al-ʿAllāmah al-Suyūṭī, (in Arabic), ed. Māhir Ḥabbūsh (Beirut: Dār al-Lubāb and Maktabat al-Irshād, 2021), 7:466.
[34] Beeston, Baiḍāwī’s Commentary, 11 and 61. Strangely, Beeston successfully conveyed al-Bayḍāwī’s point at the comparable expression in 12:84, “yā asafā” in “Oh grief, come on, for this is thy time.” Ibid, 43. The same is true in Bishop and Kaddal, The Light of Inspiration, 49.
[35] It is worth recalling what was written by scholars in Egyptian newspapers upon Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s arrival in the country to complete what was to become The Meaning of the Koran. In his own words, “I was solemnly advised to give up my nefarious work and translate instead (of all imaginable substitutes) the commentary of Tabari! Now the commentary of Tabari is of enormous bulk…and would besides require another commentary of equal length to make its methods and mentality intelligible to English people who had never studied a Qur’an commentary.” Fremantle, Loyal Enemy (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1938), 411. Moreover, that tafsīr translation would also have necessarily included a Qur’an translation, whether in a cohesive or fragmented way.
[36] It is known that many aspects of the Qur’an and other texts, from meaning to rhetorical eloquence (balāghah), are lost in translation. It is less acknowledged that they are also lost in exegesis—particularly when it is nearly as concise as the original.
[37] Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Zurqānī, Manāhil al-ʿirfān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, (in Arabic), (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2006), 2:484.
[38] The genre of gharīb al-Qurʾān, originally concerned with the more obscure terms, expanded to incorporate Quranic vocabulary as a whole. The method of explaining with alternative Arabic terms, which goes back to the earliest authorities such as Ibn ʿAbbās, implies either that there is synonymy in the Arabic language, or that it is legitimate to explain the Qur’an with linguistic approximations; this opens the door to translations in other languages. See the introduction to Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Select Chapters of Itqān on the Language of the Qur’an, trans. Sohaib Saeed (Glasgow: Ibn ʿAshur Centre, 2023), v.
[39] See in this connection the Qur’an translator M.A.S. Abdel Haleem’s preference of al-Rāzī’s exegesis: “Razi’s work must be singled out as the most useful tool in understanding the Qur’an. He was an all-round linguist par excellence, noting and discussing linguistic questions missed by perhaps all the others, and opening up areas for discussion where others do not. He is always aware of the context and the position of the verse in the whole structure of the surah. His mind is mathematical, analytical, as he spells out the linguistic function of each verse or statement.” Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), xxxvi. See also his foreword in Saeed, The Great Exegesis Vol. I.
[40] If the exegete did not himself state a preference (tarjīḥ), someone else must do so.
[41] Cf. Saeed, Select Chapters of Itqān, 116. This example highlights the need to construct a lexicon as part of any translation project. The exegetes may leave a particular detail unstated under one verse because it was covered elsewhere (typically the first occurrence of that word or expression), or because it is so common. To find al-Ālūsī’s clarification that bishārah normally connects to the content with the bāʾ, I had to look under Qur’an 2:25, where, ironically, the particle is elided. According to him, “arāda subḥānahu ‘bi-anna la-hum’ li-taʿaddī al-bishārah bi-l-bāʾ,” by which he may intend that the verb ‘bashshara’ has a second object along the lines of aʿlama (‘to inform’), as it is a more specific type of that. Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2:48. In any case, this point about taʿdiyah should not be confused with its other sense, by which ‘dhahaba bihī’ is considered equivalent to ‘adhhaba’ (i.e. to make something go away). Works of Quranic syntax (iʿrāb) which I consulted regarding 3:45 only state that ‘bi-kalimah’ is a prepositional phrase connected to ‘yubashshir’. This limited explanation could mislead the likes of Muhammad Ali.
[42] As in al-Suyūṭī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, trans. Feras Hamza (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2008), 53. This precludes the other reading as “through a word.” The Muyassar and Mukhtaṣar commentaries, discussed later in this paper, do the same, with additional information about why the boy was called “a word.” The latter is translated: “O Mary, Allah gives you good news of a child who will be created without a father: merely by a word from Allah, such as ‘Be’, and he will become a child by Allah’s will. The name of this child will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary.” See English Translation of A Concise Commentary of the Noble Quran (Mecca: Dār al-Mukhtaṣar, 2020), 55. As we note below, this translation makes no distinction between the Quranic words and additional commentary.
[43] See Al-Zurqānī, Manāhil, 2:51, which reproduces a decree issued in Majallat al-Azhar 7, p. 648.
[44] Stefan Wild, “Muslim Translations and Translations of the Qur’an into English,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 17-3 (2015): 170.
[45] I have sourced the 2006 Muntakhab translation from www.islamawakened.com. Note that Ghālī et al. previously published another translation: Towards Understanding The Ever-Glorious Qur’an (Cairo: Dār al-Wafāʾ, 1997).
[46] See Saeed, “Fights and Flights: Two Underrated ‘Alternatives’ to Dominant Readings in tafsīr,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 24-1 (2022): 63, for an example of the changes made posthumously to Yusuf Ali’s translation and footnotes.
[47] See Mykhaylo Yakubovych, The Kingdom and the Qur’an (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2024), 126.
[48] Various authors, al-Mukhtaṣar fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm (6th edn. Riyadh: Tafsir Centre, 2020).
[49] I have heard from Tafsir Center that a fully revised edition of the English translation has been published in 2025. I have not reviewed this at the time of publication of this paper. However, without reviewing the core issues, the result will likely be similar.
[50] The Muyassar translation is found in the al-ʿUshr al-Akhīr publications of the independent Saudi organization known as the Communities Awareness Bureau (www.tafseer.info). See An Explanation of the Last Tenth of the Noble Qur’an, p. 88, where the English commentary is presented alongside the Saheeh International translation of the Qur’an (by American converts Emily Assami, Mary Kennedy and Amatullah Bantley).
[51] However, in some cases the addressee can be understood more broadly, and that has been suggested in this case: see al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 29:442. We may prefer a translation by which the reader is likely to grasp the most obvious reading (address to the Prophet) while maintaining the possibility that each believer is, likewise, enjoined to declare these words. One complication is the lack of distinction in English between the singular and plural “you.”
[52] See Saeed, “The Digital Mufassir: Re-imagining the Tafsir of al-Alusi for a New Era” in Osmanlı’da İlm- i Tefsir, ed. M. Taha Boyalık and Harun Abacı (Istanbul: İSAR Publications, 2019): 657-80.
[53] I will share one example from a recent publication. The beginning of 2:97 is generally translated “Say: ‘Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel’,” but a very small number have understood “man kāna ʿaduwwan” to be interrogative rather than conditional. Thus it is translated as “Ask: ‘Who is the enemy of Jibreel?’” by Musharraf Hussain in The Majestic Qur’an: A Plain English Translation (Nottingham: Invitation Publishing, 2018), 28. This reading has been noted in traditional works, but al-Ālūsī dismissed it as “the kind of thing that should never be committed (lā yanbaghī an yurtakab) when it comes to the Qur’an.” Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2:333.
[54] Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 29: 432 ff. It would be helpful for the translator to look more deeply into some of the options, and the discussion around them, to understand the linguistic nuances and hence translate effectively.
[55] See Saeed, Select Chapters of Itqān, 199. I have only located one translation which is based on ḍamīr al-shaʾn, namely Muhammad Taqi Usmani, The Noble Qur’an (London: Turath Publishing, 2020), 843. The problem of translators collectively neglecting explanations in tafsīr, and sometimes the preference of the majority of exegetes, is addressed in Saeed, “The Untranslated Qur’an.”
[56] The majority of translators have treated aḥad as an adjective to mean “The One” – they should be asked to explain how the indefinite became definite! A number have adopted some version of the second opinion, e.g. “He is God, One” in Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980), 361. An example of following the third opinion, in which Allāh is appositive (badal) to huwa is Seyyed Hossein Nasr et al, The Study Quran (New York: HarperOne, 2015), 1579, where the translation is: “He, God, is One.” Related to our earlier discussion of misreading and mistranslation of tafsīr sources, the next page quotes al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1143) as saying: “Al-Ṣamad is a verb taking the meaning of the passive participle, the One to Whom one betakes oneself (man ṣumida ilayhi) when one seeks Him.” This sentence alone contains three misread words; most seriously, they mistook faʿal (standing for the word form) for fiʿl and attributed to the master exegete the absurd view that “al-Ṣamad is a verb”! At least in such cases it can be seen clearly how the translator has (mis)read the text, but when faulty conclusions are built upon these premises, it can be much harder to trace the problem. See Nabeel Nisar Sheikh, Tarjamat wa-tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm bil-lughah al-injlīzīyah al-musammā, “The Study Quran”: dirāsah taḥlīlīyah naqdīyah muqāranah, (PhD thesis), (Mecca” Umm al-Qurā, 2021), 300.
[57] See M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, “The Role of Context in Interpreting and Translating the Qur’an,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 20-1 (2018): 47-66, and Saeed, Select Chapters of Itqān, 68 ff.
[58] See for details: www.ibnashur.com/light-of-assurance
[59] “The unique Arabic name Allāh is related to the general term ilāh (god, object of worship), but it was formed in such a way to denote His uniqueness and exclusive right to be worshiped. In English, the proper noun “God” is the closest equivalent, and its capital letter achieves a similar effect to the assimilated definite article in the Arabic name.” See the video “The Ashured: Translation (Al-Fatihah)” at https://youtu.be/ALIDw7etpv0
[60] A similar approach has previously been developed by Basil Q. Muhammad for his ongoing translation project.
[61] It is intended that this output will eventually appear at Quran.com, a leading website.