T. B. Irving, The Qur’an: The First American Version; Translated and Commentary (1985)
brothers of Cedar Rapids, and the Canadian Muslims, especially those living around Niagara Falls, I was able to accomplish this task because they have indeed helped me financially. So have my friends in Qatar and the Arabian Gulf. God will bless their efforts and kindness, their essential iḥsān and ṣadaqa — in other words, true charity.
Nevertheless this translation is not the sacred canon but merely a thread of thought plus some inspiration which appear in the pages I have been preparing. Translation is literally impossible because interpretation in another language is an on-going process, especially with a document that must be used constantly. Almost every day I learn a new rendering for a word or phrase; then I must run this new thread of meaning through other passages. The Qurʾān is a living Book. We must respect yet find a way to interpret this sacred text, and not deform its meaning. The refrain running through Chapter 54 on The Moon tells us: “We have made the Qurʾān easy to memorize; yet will anyone memorize it?” (54:22). As it claims, the Qurʾānic message is easy to learn. It is divided up so that it can be read in sittings, or read straight through (17:xii). This is clear from the canon itself.
The Qurʾān is not a missionary manual but a record of experience. It forms both a message or risāla, an “ideology” carried by a rasūl or ‘messenger’; and it is also a Book or scripture (kitāb) sent specifically via the Messenger Muhammad (rasūl Allāh or ‘God’s messenger’) — may God accept his prayers and grant him peace! However the Qurʾān does not offer minute details about everything such as is found in many other scriptures; it is an existentialist document telling about the Prophet’s experience during his mission to the Arabs and the world. It is the Noble Reading (56:iii); it is a consecrated Text.2
In this new translation, I have attempted to accomplish what the West has generally failed to do with Islam: to study it from within and in the light of its own texts. The Qurʾān is obviously the best preparation for such an attempt. Moreover this book gives the young Muslim something to hold on to in this day when most authority on moral matters is being abdicated. The doctrinal and ethical superstructure raised on the Five Pillars and other beliefs does not belong in this Introduction, which has been presented merely as a means of helping understand the message.
I have tried to find the simplest word so that the Muslim child can understand it easily, and feel strengthened thereby. It is also intended for the pious non-Muslim who is not already tied up in theology of some other sort: we must be able to discuss Islam on our own terms, terms which have been made up through our own knowledge and our own use of the English language. This present volume has been prepared in order to spread greater understanding of the Islamic religion and to present the English- speaking world with a clear rendition of the original Arabic into intelligible modern English. Even in English, the tendency with the Bible now is away from the seventeenth-century language which sounds too much like Pickthall, into the English of present-dav speakers.3
The Islamic community in the United States and Canada has in certain fashion commissioned me with this task, and I must thank my good friends of Cedar Rapids, Iowa especially for their constant encouragement in the venture, because the whole project has grown into a massive
