Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)

intelligibility, clarity and naturalness of expression, so far as permitted by the constraint imposed by the method of “mirror-paraphrasing.” These adjustments are of various kinds and it is not possible to describe all of them here. They involve: making grammatical changes, such as those of tense, aspect, voice, person and number; substitution of nouns by verbs and vice versa;¹ making obligatory omissions ² and additions; and making explicit what is implicit in the source text.³ At times they involve adjustments of idiom and syntactical changes. The reader should be aware about the presence of these changes when collating the Arabic text with the translation.

2. Translation has been carried out according to what appeared to be the most probable among the interpretations mentioned by the commentators. Occasionally I have mentioned alternate interpretations in the footnotes when they appeared to be significant. Throughout the course of this translation extensive reference was made to various classical commentaries of the Qur’ān, such as those of Ṭabarī, Rāzī, Zamakhsharī, and Suyūtī among Sunnī works, and Ṭabāṭabā’ī’s al-Mīzān, Ṭabrisī’s Majma‘ al-Bayān, and Baḥrānī’s Tafsīr al-Burhān among Shī‘ī works. Some of the other works consulted are mentioned in the bibliography given at the end of this preface. Exegetical traditions of the Imams of the Prophet’s family have been given special attention due to their unparalleled importance for Qur’ānic hermeneutics. Their importance and weight will be evident to anyone who undertakes an unbiased study of their traditions and teachings. In fact, a large part of the early Sunnī hermeneutic tradition, as represented by Ibn ‘Abbās, his pupils and the succeeding generations of commentators, also derives from Imam ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib, with whom Ibn ‘Abbās was closely associated and from whom he had acquired his Qur’ānic learning, being a boy in his early teens at the time of the Prophet’s demise.

3. The treatment of Qur’ānic idioms is an important part of the policy followed in translation. Broadly speaking, they fall into three categories. There are some Arabic idioms which though unfamiliar to the English-speaking audience are not difficult to understand when translated literally. These have been rendered literally. Examples are: