The Qur'an

In his prefatory note, Yasin T. Al-Jibouri, editor of the above English translation of the Quran, proudly states that he oversaw the publication of three English renderings of the Qur’an by Mir Ahmed Ali, Abdullah Yusuf Ali and M. H. Shakir under the aegis of Yasin Publications, USA. He felt ‘honored and privileged to publish it [M. H. Shakir’s translation] and make it available to everyone worldwide’ (p. 8). Since M. H. Shakir’s is a verbatim plagiarized version, lifted word by word from Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s earlier rendering (1934–1937), it raises serious questions about the competence of Al-Jibouri as an editor. How could he, being the editor of both the works, turn a blind eye to such a blatant plagiarism? Quoted below are ten sample passages, juxtaposing Shakir’s translation with A. Yusuf Ali’s, which unmistakably point to Shakir’s unscrupulous, unacknowledged borrowings from A. Yusuf Ali’s work: