Qur'an Translation and the Challenges of Communication: Towards a ‘Literal’ Study-Version of the Qur'an

The concerns and observations outlined in this paper are largely the result of teaching and otherwise attempting to communicate the Qur'an and its meaning to English-speaking undergraduates and others with no first-hand knowledge of the Arabic Qur'an. Among the many possible aims of Qur'an translations (e.g. conveying the music or poetic impact of the Arabic recitation, providing a captivating and pleasing text for ritual purposes [cf. The King James Bible], preserving the jafrī/mathematical dimensions of the Arabic calligraphy, etc.) one important need – especially in contexts relating to Islamic Studies – is to provide a more ‘literal’ version of the Qur'an that would help the non-Arabist reader to grasp the inner connections between the Qur'anic text itself and the multiple dimensions of its inspiration and impact in all the relevant areas of the Islamic humanities; not only in subsequent literary interpretations and elaborations (the Arabic religious and legal sciences, philosophy, cosmology, spiritua...