|
Garma
Garam More
|
Faith & Religion |
|
It has been more than half a century since the first appearance of Abdullah Yusuf Ali's superlative work, "The Holy Qur'an - Text, Translation and Commentary". Since that time, there have been innumerous reprintings and millions of copies distributed throughout the world. It is, by far, the best known, most studied, and most respected English translation of the Qur'an. It was the first monumental and authoritative work of its kind and it subsequently inspired many such similar endeavours. The eloquent poetic style of the translation and the authenticity of the extensive commentaries and explanatory notes, have, no doubt, contributed greatly to its much deserved reputation as the English translation of the Holy Qur'an, which was originally in Arabic. As a matter of fact the main scriptures revealed before the Qur'an, that is, the Old Testaament and the Gospel, came into book-form long after the days of the Prophets and that too in translation. Thus, what we now have in the form of the Bible (the Old as well as the New Testament) is translations of individuals' accounts of the of the original revelations which contain additions and deletions made by the followers of the said Prophets. On the contrary, the last revealed Book, the Qur'an, is extant in its original form. Whole of the Qur'an was written during the life time of the Prophet Muhammad himself, though on seperate pieces of palm leaves, parchments, bones etc. Moreover, there were tens of thousands of the companions of the Prophet who memorized the whole Qur'an and the Prophet himself used to recite it to the Angel Gabriel once a year and twice when he was about to die. Then the first Caliph Abu Bakr entrusted the collection of the whole Qur'an in one volume to the Prophet's scribe, Zaid Ibn Thabit. This volume was with Abu Bakr till the time of his death. Then it was with the second Caliph Umar and after him came to Hafsa, the Prophet's wife. It was from this original copy that the third Caliph Uthman prepared several other copies and sent them to different Muslim territories. The Qur'an was so meticulously preserved, because it was to be the Book of guidance for humanity for all times to come. That is why it does not address the Arabs alone, in whose language, the Arabic, it was revealed. It speaks to man as a humanbeing: A selection from the the English translation of Quran : The
First Revelation : The Clot
The
Second Revelation : The Pen
|
