Fazlollah Nikayin, The Quran; The First Poetic Translation (2000)
Well then, is there a way for people who are not well-versed in Arabic ever to have a taste of the divine original that Pickthal and many others have so highly praised?
"I wish a translator could do justice to those marvellously terse sentences in the original",8 says Yousuf Ali, and Prof. Irving comments"... translations which evoke no reverence or beauty in the minds of the listeners... Later on some poetic spirit may bring us the noble paraphrase that we likewise need."9
My new translation of the Holy Quran, in the absence of an Arabic-speaking, Muslim FitzGerald,10 is therefore a most humble effort intended, if God will, to carry over, into the English language some of the beauty and sublimity, elegance and eloquence and the enchanting force of the original, to echo those captivating, little nuances, which in the Quran, are always lying between prose and poetry, and to let non-Muslims acquaint themselves with a Book that is to Muslims both scripture and literature at the same time.
Throughout my ten year labour of love, I have paid utmost attention not to deviate an iota from the 'meaning' by constant consultation with the most noted and authentic exegeses in Arabic and Persian, and I have not allowed any 'sectarian' interpretations whatsoever to creep into my translation: I always let the Book itself inspire me, only and finally.
8. Yousuf Ali, the Holy Quran, King Fahd Printing Complex, Medina, 1990; footnote 5866.
9. T.B. Irving, the Quran, Amana Books, Vermont, 1985.
10. FitzGerald, Edward (1809-83), English poet who translated some of the poems of Omar Khayyam; his brilliant translation is, however, a free paraphrase of the original, a style not permissible in the translation of holy texts.
