Customer Reviews
Use it together with Arberry's translation - By: Gareth Greenwood, 31 Jul 2008 
The Quran is both a sacred text & a supreme work of Arabic poetry. This puts the translatorin a dilemma: To convey the religious teaching, the text needs to be rendered into modern prose, which loses the poetry. To convey the poetry, one must render the text as a poemin modern language, which then tends to obscure the religious teaching. Neither approach can fully translate the original.
Abdel Haleem's translation is a masterful rendition into modern English prose. For rendition as modern English poetry, Arberry's translation for OUP is arguably the best. If you want to understand the Quranin English, your best bet IMO is to use Abdel Haleem AND Arberry.
Revolutionary translation, very clear, straightforward and understandable - By: W. A. Qawar, 05 Apr 2008 The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics) by M.A. Abdel Haleem (translator) is simply the best version of the Qur'an available to the English speaking world today.
It uses modern English & does not attempt to copy the old English of the King James bible (which most English translations of the Qur'an attempt to copy). Furthermore, the translator (Abdel Haleem) understands that the sentence structure of Arabic & English is different & translating the text word for word will make it incomprehensible, an example would be the Arabic verse "Jannatun tajri min tahtiha al-anhaar", which if translated word for word into English would look something like this "Gardens under which rivers flow" which (once translated into English) gives the impression that the rivers are flowing underground. Howeverin Arabic it simply means "Gardens graced with flowing rivers", even though it says "tahtiha", which literally means "under it", however because of the certain sentence structure of Arabic it simply means "Gardens graced with flowing rivers", the translator realised this & did not fall for this trap.
This translation also has the verses followingin succession which preserves the smooth flow of the Arabic & does not have the verses one under the other which breaks up the flow. Morever the footnotes are only there when necessary & when the text becomes unclear to people who do not know the historical context of the verse and/or the meaning, the footnotes are also informative & will be useful for intellectuals and/or people who want to study the Quran, not just read it. The font is also perfect, not too big, not too small.
Overall a pleasure to read. This stays true to the original Arabic (even though it canin no way be as beautiful or as powerful as the Arabic Qur'an, which is divine) & is a must have for anybody interestedin understanding the very pinnacle of Islam, the Qur'an and/or for anybody who is a Muslim but is put off by the other unclear & over explained other translations.
Easy to read and understand - By: Esther, 01 Mar 2008 This was the 2nd copy of a English translation of the Quran & I found it really easy to read & understand. I found other transslations of the Quran hard to understand as they were writtenin old English but this one is writtenin moden English so easyer for me to read & understand.
Very Well Written Book - By: M. Wildey, 29 Oct 2007 I come to this book as a non-muslim but interestedin knowing about the religion. Having browsed a few translationsin book shops I ordered this version based on the reviews here. Not being able to compare it to any other translations all I can say it was an excellent read & the notes prior to each chapter were very useful.
If your looking for a copy of the Qur'an to read this is the one.
The best trnslation available - By: Dr. D. Fraser, 24 Sep 2007 This is a book which should appeal both to English speaking Moslems, & to those who are not Moslems but have a desire to discover the truth about other religions an cultures.
There have been several tranlations, but the best aspect of this translation is the language. It is very easy to understand for those of a non-arabic background. It is very simple & uses day-to-day English.
While many of the other tranlations of the Qu'ran that have been publishedin the past seem to be a "pigeon" form of biblical English, the language here is fresh, vivid & immediately applicable to the modern age.
The book carries a very useful introduction section, which will be invaluable for those who have not received previous tuitionin Islam. The introduction sets the scene for the different historical aspects of the main text, so enabling the reader to understand the true meaning of what is being said.
