KORAN IN ENGLISH: A Biography

From the excellent Lives of Great Religious Books series, this illustrated edition has desirable roughcut 'deckle' page edges, highly desirable in the USA, in a Princeton University Press publication. It is the untold story of how the Arabic Qur'an became the English Koran for millions of Muslims; the Koran is sacred only in Arabic, the original Arabic in which it was revealed to the prophet Mohammad in the 7th century. To many Arab and non-Arab believers alike, the book literally defies translation, yet English translations exist and are growing, both in number and in importance. Bruce Lawrence tells the remarkable story of the ongoing struggle to render the Koran's lyrical verses into English, and to make English itself an Islamic language. He revisits the life of Mohammad and the origins of the book before recounting the first translation of the book into Latin by a non-Muslim - Robert of Ketton's 12th century version paved the way for later ones in French and German, but it was not until the 18th century that George Sale's influential English version appeared. Many of these early translations, while part of a Christian agenda to 'know the enemy', often revealed grudging respect for their Abrahamic rival. Fresh English translations emerged by South Asian Muslim scholars, and this book is the first to explore the complexities of this translation saga. It also looks at cyber Korans, versions by feminist translators, and now a graphic Koran by the acclaimed visual artist Sandow Birk. 248 deckle pages, illus. including covers for various first editions and reprints.