RE: Question for Muslims
May 22, 2014 at 1:41 pm
(This post was last modified: May 22, 2014 at 1:43 pm by Mudhammam.)
(May 21, 2014 at 5:11 am)Hegel Wrote:(May 19, 2014 at 6:41 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: What's the best English translation of the Quran WITH commentary available?
Considering the commentary, it all depends, whose Islam you are interested in.
Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation with commentary represents, as far as I know, at least pretty well the way majority of Sunni Muslims themselves think about their book and the way it should be interpreted.
I guess it's a kind of standard "moderate" traditionalist/conservative way of reading it, not from the more fundamentalist side of mainstream -- it might be a little too liberal for the Saudi Wahhabists... -- and certainly not "extremist", which does not mean it would not say some perhaps little troublesome things. It also has an excellent index of topics. But it is a boring reading, even for someone who has enough religious sentiments to grasp that some genuine spiritual experience is going on in there. Only, if you believe that "God is speaking to me in this book", it might become exhilarating if you want to become a Muslim... And if you don't, the book tells you many, many times, where you're going!
And yes, that http://quran.com/ is really excellent for comparative study: if all translations say the same, then, very likely that's more or less also what the original says.
Basically, I'm going to order Islamophilia by Douglas Murray but before I read the con arguments I like to get the pro side, particularly from the source of the controversy so that I can see what's being referred to myself. So for example, I recently read The Missionary Position by Hitchens but first I read No Greater Love by Mother Theresa to give her character, in her words, some context.
I put An Abridged Koran by Bill Warner on my reading list. Is that the best one for a mainstream, "moderate" commentary?
