A Christian reading the Qur’an
As I recall, I never really encountered the Qur’an until I was in my mid-to-late thirties. If I remember correctly, I was browsing at a local library, and stumbled on a hardcover English translation of The Holy Qur’an, most likely the popular version by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Having only read the Bible, the Qur’an was unfamiliar and a bit strange to me. The tone was different from the Bible, a bit more poetic overall.
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
I found the opening surah to be majestic, thrilling. While the language, with its “thees” and “thous,” was a bit reminiscent of King James English, it wasn’t the same. Not by a long shot. Indeed, it reminded me a bit of some scenes from C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy, in which the Calormene people seem based on a (very Eurocentric) stereotype of Muslims. Unlike Lewis’s parody of Arabic speech, however, this language was very direct. While I was familiar with language from the Hebrew Scriptures that portrayed God talking directly to His people, the speech of Allah in the Qur’an seemed even more personal, God in intimate conversation and instruction.
This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, to those who fear God…
As I glossed through the Qur’an for the first time, the headings of the surahs seemed very exotic to me: the Arabic names, of course, as well as English words and phrases like the Heifer, Gold Adornments, and the Glorious Morning Light. I discovered that many character with whom I was familiar from the Bible showed up in the Qur’an: Jesus, Mary, Jonah, and Noah, to name just a few.
In the Yusuf Ali edition that I first encountered, the unfamiliar Arabic text was side-by-side with the English translation. To my eye, unfamiliar as I was (and still am) with Arabic, the ornate script looked almost like decorations to the more familiar Latin type. I have recently begun some self-study of Arabic online, so that I can learn to pick out some words from that classic text.
Not too long after I encountered Yusuf Ali’s translation, I began to acquire more English versions: Ahmed Ali, Tarif Khalidi, Maulana Muhammad Ali, and the somewhat stilted language of Pickthall. I now have just upwards of a dozen different English translations of the meaning of the Qur’an in my library. Although I have read various passages from all of them, I have not yet accomplished the achievement of reading all the way through any one of them.
Perhaps my interaction here at The Heart of Quran will encourage and inspire me to encounter the Qur’an more completely (albeit imperfectly, in English). Perhaps I shall finally read through the entire text, to become more familiar with this (to me) unfamiliar religious monument. And in so doing, the unfamiliar may become much more familiar.
They said: “Glory to Thee of knowledge we have none save that Thou hast taught us: in truth it is Thou who art perfect in knowledge and wisdom.”
[All Qur’an quotes in this post are from Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s Meaning of the Qur’an.]
