The Qurʾān Translated

THE QURʾĀN TRANSLATED, by Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (English translation by Shahzad Saleem). Mumbai, India: Al-Mawrid, 2022. 915pp. ISBN: 998-9696810322.

Reviewed by: Abdur Raheem Kidwai, Aligarh Muslim University, India

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (b.1953), a Pakistani writer on Islam/the Qurʾān in Urdu, stoked controversy and sectarian divide due to his rejection of Hadith as a major source of legislation in Islam. A spate of writings has appeared in Urdu attacking his outrageous utterances against the commands of the Sharīʿah and the Prophet’s authority. In all fairness, however, the present English translation does not include abundant controversial statements.

Since there is no dearth of English translations of the Qurʾān, there has to be a very strong justification for a new one. Both the author and his disciple-cum- translator provide no convincing rationale behind this venture . The author makes a tall and hollow claim, ‘it is the first translation in history in which the coherence of the Qurʾān becomes evident from its translation’ (p.9). Most of the existing English translations have already captured, in varying degrees, this remarkable feature of the Qurʾān, whether it is the translation of Arberry, Abdullah Yusuf Ali or Pickthall . Neither Ghamidi nor his translator elaborate on the translation strategy they used in this work. Moreover, one should bear