Anybody read the Abdullah Yusuf Ali tran …
Anybody read the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation of the Quran? I just heard (quite by accident) a portion of Surat An-Naam read by a nice-sounding British man and it gave me chills–I searched the exact English phrase and came up with this translation. Worth buying?
Maera, 
bdr, and 7 others are discussing.
muse 4:19 pm on April 25, 2008 Permalink
I always considered his English translation to be more authoritative than the rest, but that might be simply because its the most popular. Here’s a link to the whole thing in case you want to explore more before buying.
http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/SURAI.HTM
Ali Eteraz 5:00 pm on April 25, 2008 Permalink
I like Muhammad Asad but Yusuf Ali is second best.
Aziz: unrelated comment.
Can you (all contributors) make it so that the link opens in a new window/tab. Getting away from the site every time I click a link is really irritating.
baraka 7:38 pm on April 25, 2008 Permalink
I love Asad & Cleary’s translations for a more modern sound & Yusuf Ali’s is very good with grander language.
As for links, one can right-click them and open in a new tab in order to stay on the site.
aziz 8:10 pm on April 25, 2008 Permalink
great idea Ali – let me see how to do that…
willow 9:46 pm on April 25, 2008 Permalink
All I know is I like anything with -eth in it. ‘And to Him belongeth the East and the West” etc.
willow 9:48 pm on April 25, 2008 Permalink
Also: what think people of Ahmed Ali’s translation? I bought it because of the guy’s pedigree–diplomat, poet, philosopher–but I’ve been pretty disappointed. I like HM Shakir’s translation much better.
thabet 12:57 am on April 26, 2008 Permalink
Yusuf Ali was the standard translation when I was growing up, thanks to the Saudis flooding the UK with their Qurans.
If the qari you heard was Abdul Basit, the ‘British man’ reading Yusuf Ali’s translation might have been Dawud Wharnsby (who is Canadian I think). Not sure this complies with copyright, but someone has uploaded the entire Abdulbasit/Wharnsby work.
Yusuf Ali’s life is quite depressing. He was used by the British, his wife left him, children disliked him and he ended up a loner and a pauper on the streets of London. Interestingly. Yusuf Ali was the sone of a Dawoodi Bohra.
Personally, I still like Pickthall. But MAS Abdel Haleem produced a new ‘modern’ translation which I would recommend.
thabet 12:57 am on April 26, 2008 Permalink
Also, from what I remember Ghulam Sarwar did a very ‘poetic’ translation that is faithful to the Arabic.
bdr 1:54 am on April 26, 2008 Permalink
You might find these interesting:
http://www.meforum.org/article/717
http://www.quran.org.uk/articles/ieb_1st_annotated.htm
I would say Yusuf Ali is still the standard.
Also, Thabet, I’m not sure who your confusing it with, but that ‘British guy’ is definitely not Dawud Wharnsby Ali.
As a side note, A.J. Arberry I always thought had a nice translation.
Has anyone read this transation ‘The Majestic Quran’ translation by Winters and Badawi?
Ali Eteraz 11:27 am on April 26, 2008 Permalink
I believe Ahmed Ali was Ismaili. Its supposed to be a “Victorian” translation. Never read it.
aziz 1:23 pm on April 26, 2008 Permalink
Yusuf Ali was the sone of a Dawoodi Bohra.
what, really? can anyone dircet me to a bio? i am fascinated.
thabet 5:38 am on April 28, 2008 Permalink
bdr — You could be right. I have been known to get things horribly wrong.
Aziz — here is a link to a brief review of a biography of Yusuf Ali’s life.
Umm Yasmin 5:45 am on April 28, 2008 Permalink
Assalamu ‘alaykum,
I think the English voice was Gai Eaton wasn’t it?
I LOVE talking about Qur’an translations.
Yusuf Ali was the first translation I bought, so a lot of the phrases from the Qur’an I know, I know in the Yusuf Ali translation, so if I have to search for an ayat, I search YA.
For “thou” “ye” and lots of “eths” then you can’t go past Pickthall.
My favourite translation for non-Muslims, and my academic writing is Thomas Cleary’s: The Qur’an: A New Translation. It is certainly the most readable I have ever come across, but lacks a glossary and commentary footnotes.
Muhammad Asad’s notes are fantastic, but the amount of square bracketed interpolation is annoying.
I have heaps more different translations, but they’re the top ones I use.
Zack 10:11 am on April 28, 2008 Permalink
I read the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation while growing up and found the grander, older English difficult.
Willow 10:44 am on April 28, 2008 Permalink
Reading the short bio in the link Thabet posted, it seems the infamous King Fahd Quran is at least partially based on the Yusuf Ali translation, which seems either odd or ironic to me…
bdr 2:46 pm on April 28, 2008 Permalink
Another bio:
http://tinyurl.com/3ejrtk
Maera 6:20 pm on September 3, 2008 Permalink
I would recommend Muhammad Asad’s translation over Yusuf Ali’s and any others. M.Asad’s translation, although banned in Saudi Arabia – which makes up only 15% of the muslim world, is widely accepted as the best translation from Arabic into English in the world. It is much more comprehensive, as well, than any others. Yusuf Ali, although widely known due to its lack of copyright, is erroneous in many ways.
aziz 8:31 am on September 4, 2008 Permalink
This discussion spurred me to write a post at City of Brass.