I still come across people whose only source for the Koran is the paperback Yusuf Ali translation they bought in 1985, unaware that there are many presentations of the accursed book now available online which provide the opportunity to contrast and compare. So this post is intended to be a wander round some of the different online presentations for the benefit of the Luddites among us.
First stop for the diligent enquirer must be the Muslim site Islam Awakened (lets hope they never find out how helpful they are to our side) which gives the literal word for word translation from the Arabic for each verse, plus fifty scholarly translations. The site shows how widely they differ, allowing readers to select their meaning according to taste. For instance, regarding the disputed concept of jihad, here is verse 47:31.
The word for word translation for the Arabic phrase “almujahideena minkum” is “those who strive among you”.
– Muhsin Khan and Muhammad al-Hilali (aka Hilali-Khan) translate it as “those who strive hard (for the Cause of Allah)”.
– Upping the bellicosity, Ali Quli Qura’i translates it as “those of you who wage jihad”.
– Aisha Bewley makes things plain with “the true fighters among you”.
– But Syed Vickar Ahamed avoids any hint of violence with the very anodyne ”those among you who do their very best”.
Two things we do know are that in the Koran the word “jihad” is overwhelmingly used in the context of war and never in the context of spiritual improvement. That idea of the greater jihad comes solely from a late and disputed hadith.
And here is verse 70:30, about who a Muslim man can have sex with, apart from his wives:
The word for word translation is “what they possess rightfully”.
– The Monotheist Group (2011 edition) translates it as ”those committed to by oath”.
– T B Irving translates it as ”those living under their control”.
– Kamal Omar translates it as ”the women who are given in guardianship of adult males as their wives under a document prepared by the Muslim state)”.
– Mohammed Sarwar, dispensing with the euphemisms, gives us simply ”slave girls”.
– And Muhammad Mahmoud Ghali gives us the familiar and chilling phrase “what their right hand possesses”.
The Hilali-Khan translation is an eye opener for anyone wishing to believe that Islam is just a religion like any other. Also known as the “Wahhabi Koran”, it was commissioned by the Saudi government and is widely disseminated throughout the western world courtesy of all those Saudi funded mosques.
Hilali and Khan make it clear that in their understanding jihad was not restricted to Mohammed’s battles in the Mecca/Medina area circa 630 AD but is very much a duty for Muslims today:
“And make ready against them all you can of power, including steeds of war (tanks, planes, missiles, artillery, etc.) to threaten the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides whom, you may not know but whom Allah does know. And whatever you shall spend in the Cause of Allah shall be repaid unto you, and you shall not be treated unjustly.” (8:60)
And, putting the matter beyond doubt, here is a footnote to verse 2:190 to be found in the paper edition (note the present tense throughout):
”Al-Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah’s Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihad Islam is established. Allah’s Word is made superior, (His Word being La ilaha illaliah which means none has the right to be worshipped but Allah), and His Religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honour is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfil this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite.”
At the other end of the spectrum is Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri’s comically deceptive version. In 2010 he produced a “no ifs or buts” fatwa condemning all terrorism as unIslamic. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch wondered why there was no attempt in it to explain why the so called terror verses do not mean what they appear to mean.
It turned out that there was no need because Tahir-ul-Qadri was working from his own translation of the Koran in which he simply interpolated comments magically taking the sting out of the jihad verses by making them always defensive. For instance, here is his version of the infamous 9:29:
(O Muslims!) Wage (also a defensive) war against those of the People of the Book (who infringed the peace treaty signed with you, and despite being in exile, provided full support to the disbelieving Meccan invaders who imposed the battle of al-Ahzab [the Confederates] on Medina, and have continued every possible conspiracy against you even now). They do not have faith in Allah and the Last Day…etc”.
Here is the excellent Skeptic’s Annotated Quran. It highlights verses according to 14 categories such as Injustice, Intolerance, Cruelty and Violence, Absurdity etc. It even has a sparsely populated category entitled Good Stuff.
A Koranic search facility like this one is useful too. As an example you could enter “fire” to find out about all the interesting things Allah intends to do to you once he gets you in Jahannam.
I originally ended this post with a plug for a great little website called Koran-At-A-Glance which ordered the suras chronologically and colour coded the best bits. Unfortunately it went out of business recently. What a shame!
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