Undisciplined, Untutored and Unreasonable Readings of the Revealed Text

The Wise Qur’an: A New Translation. By Assad Nimer Busool. Xlibris Corporation, 2011. Pp. 798. ISBN: 9781453525258.

The Glorious Qur’an: English Translation of ‘Irfanul-Qur’an. By Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. London, Minhaj-ul-Qur’an Publications, 2011. Pp. 1102. ISBN: 9871908229007.

The Qur’an: Translated to English. By Talal Itani, Dallas, US, Clear Quran, 2012. Pp. 275. ISBN: 97814679487466.

Until 1980s the domain of the English translations of the Qur’an was almost the preserve of the Ulema. It was then unthinkable that someone not trained well in the traditional, classical Islamic scholarship would or could try his/her hand at rendering the original Arabic Qur’an into English. However, of late some new translations have been produced by such Muslim writers who are not religious scholars, heads of Muslim seminaries or religious groups. Instances in point are the translations by Syed Vickar Ahamed (2005), Laleh Bakhtiar (2007), and Edip Yuksel et al (2007).