Muslim dogma holds that the Qurʾan is a miracle, possessed of an aesthetic beauty and power of which no human is capable of creating. Translators, however, have with very few exceptions focused exclusively on the meaning of the text, with little or no effort spent to convey its more poetic aspects. Perhaps this made sense until the twentieth century, when most complete translations were done by non-Muslim Europeans who wanted to know more about Islam. For over a century, though, translations have increasingly been made by and for Muslims themselves, and yet the aesthetic element, so theologically important, still falls by the wayside. The two works here under review attempt to change that, with different strategies and different results.

M. A. R. Habib’s and Bruce B. Lawrence’s The Qurʾan: A Verse Translation, announces its strategy in the subtitle. Their aim is modest: “… the goal is nothing short of hearing a faint echo of God speaking – a task that is humanly impossible but nonetheless a responsibility” (xxxii).

The Qurʾan is meant as an oral proclamation, and to render it into continuous prose, as many translators do, is to lose many of the essential poetic aspects of the original Arabic. Habib’s and Lawrence’s proposed solution is based on the fact that in Qurʾan recitation, certain pauses between verses or within a single verse create a particular “sound and rhythm.” These effects, they suggest, “are best conveyed by the use of line breaks within and between verses, enabling greater clarity of meaning and greater emotive impact” (xxxv). They break the surahs into verses, and then those verses into separate lines as they see fit. To deal with the Qurʾan’s rhymed prose, they largely eschew end rhymes in favour of half rhymes and assonance.

On the whole, Habib and Lawrence are correct that the versification slows down the reading, and accentuates some of the structural features of the original. Many passages read well and the breaks give some impression of the Arabic Qurʾan as recited. Consider Q 93, Sūrat al-Ḍuḥā, which they discuss at great length in the introduction.

Their strategy leads to some very nice formulations. Habib and Lawrence give a lengthy explanation of how they have divided the verses according to number of beats and semantic structure. Theory and practice do not always match, however, as the shortness of the lines results in frequent enjambments (in which the sentence in a line of verse carries on to the next line). These do not always admit of a pause, and since in many cases lines terminate with commas or semicolons, it is not clear that Habib and Lawrence fully trust their own strategy.

No strategy is going to work for the entire Qurʾan, which comprises various types of genre: narrative of sorts, preaching, parables, eschatology, direct discourse. Are the more prosaic sections of the Qurʾan best treated in this way? The authors admit that the internal diversity of the Qurʾan militates against any uniform meter or rhyme, and so it demands “an aesthetic versatility, accommodating the use of, say, pentameters, tetrameters, trimeters, and free verse” (xxxviii). The introduction gives several very detailed examples of how they made their choices. On the one hand, this is wise, given that most readers approach it for its content and not its style, and might well need sensitization to the form. On the other hand, are verses that require such lengthy explanation really so poetic?

I am not entirely persuaded that varying metrical schemes will go as far as they hope in bringing Qurʾanic features to life in English, but on the whole A Verse Translation gives a reliable and coherent rendering of the text. It is easy to quibble and quarrel with specific word choices, but that is the case with any translation.

However workable the majority of their translation may be, Habib and Lawrence inadvertently raise some other questions, both literary and theological. How to strive for “something that reads like modern English verse” when the author is God? How does God fare compared to great but mundane names of “modern English verse”? Yeats said that poets have only two subjects: sex and the dead, and these have their place in the Qurʾan, though probably not in the way Yeats had in mind. God’s favorite topic, however, is Himself, and self-praise can be a hard sell in contemporary anglophone letters. Habib and Lawrence seem to assume that the reader shares their opinion on the genius and even divine nature of the Muhammadan revelation. Those who do not share this view are going to be less impressed; the aesthetic is much more powerful when you believe it is coming from God.

Sometimes a decent translation is spoiled by looking at the notes. “The Absolute” is a good solution to al-ṣamad (Q 112: 2), but one reads in the notes “literally, ‘rock,’” which is a debatable interpretation of a difficult word.Footnote ¹ Despite the vast and weighty tradition of Qurʾanic exegesis, Habib and Lawrence rarely if ever indicate any difficulties of interpretation in the brief introductions at the head of each surah or in the many endnotes.

When they write of difficulties, it is always of finding the correct English rendering, not of trying to understand the Arabic. The thorniest puzzles are passed over without comment, with what appears to be absolute confidence. Take Q 9: 29, ḥattā yuʿṭū al-jizyata ʿan yadin wa-hum ṣāghirūn. This Arthur J. Arberry rendered “until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled,”Footnote ² which is not entirely clear but then neither is the Arabic. Habib and Lawrence give us

An endnote gives us the post-Qurʾanic sense of jizya as a tax “levied on non-Muslims under Muslim rule in return for protection of their homes, property, and persons by Muslim authorities,” which is fine as far as Islam goes, but somewhat misrepresents the Qurʾan. (“Subdued” is a pretty mild rendering of ṣāghirūn; “agree” indicates a mutual accord that is not in the text; there is no consensus on the meaning of ʿan yadin, but the reader here would never know it.)

In numerous places, they explain, they were obliged to supplement the Qurʾanic text with additional information (as in the direct object in Q 93: 3, nor is He abhorring [you]). This is a bit odd for two reasons. First, there are countless additions that they do not signal by square brackets, so the procedure seems arbitrary and hardly necessary. Second, after all the rhetoric about the majesty and sublimity of the text, it’s surprising to learn that the Qurʾan cannot be properly understood in English without their additions. How, then, can it be understood in Arabic? Habib and Lawrence have little faith in both God and the reader, the former to make Himself understood, the latter to understand.

In many of the early-twentieth-century debates over translation, the terms tafsīr (commentary, exegesis) and tarjama (translation) were used interchangeably, and among the anti-translation arguments was the idea that any translation was but an interpretation, and it would not do to have a single interpretation stand in for the whole of the revelation. Many translations do have a particular perspective, and that of Habib and Lawrence is no exception. Sometimes this is a matter of Muslim orthodoxy, as in Q 93: 7 above, where ḍāllan is rendered as “seeking,” whereas in Q 1: 7 the same word is “gone astray.” The former verse refers to the Messenger, and according to most Muslim belief, the Prophet Muhammad cannot have been lost or astray, so translators usually put “wandering” or something like that, but “seeking” is hard to justify. In other cases, contemporary mores are at stake. Most notorious is the treatment of recalcitrant spouses in Q 4: 34, iḍribūhunna, “strike them.” I do not think that this verse can seriously be taken as a justification for wife-beating, but Habib and Lawrence’s “resort to [harmless] force” is neither poetic nor coherent.

One comes away with the impression that there is nothing in the Qurʾan to disturb the comfortable worldview of, say, most humanities professors at elite American universities.Footnote ³ There is little evidence of what made it a world-altering text. Lest anyone feel triggered by the last words of the Fātiḥa (Q 1), for example, they assure us that God’s message is a happy one:

This is doubtless meant as a counterweight to the traditional and very widespread interpretation that identifies those who have incurred wrath and those who have gone astray, as the Jews and the Christians, respectively. A very different rendering is that of The Noble Qurʾan of Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī (d. 1987) and Muhsin Khan (d. 2021), which in some editions goes so far as to incorporate the commentary into the text itself:

At first glance this appears far removed from that of Habib and Lawrence, but what the two translations have in common is the insistence on one particular interpretation of the Qurʾan to the exclusion of others, a tendency that the pre-modern exegetical tradition did not share.

In The Devotional Qurʾan, Shawkat Toorawa also takes up the challenge of bringing to English “the pervasive and cadenced rhythmic prose (termed sajʿ) that characterizes the Qurʾanic text” without losing its “semantic multidimensionality” (xvii). He succinctly argues that these features are considered essential parts of the Arabic Qurʾan, and when they are left out of translations it wrongly implies that they are unimportant. Since so many people know the text only in translation, he says, this needs correction.

The Devotional Qurʾan distinguishes itself among English translations for two reasons. First, it attempts “to provide a representative example of the Qurʾan as many Muslims know it in a devotional context” (xxvii). We all know that the Qurʾan is not a book to be read cover to cover, from beginning to end, like, say, the Bible. It is a text to be recited aloud, in prayer and in other ritual contexts. Its doctrinal and dogmatic content is, on pretty much everything except the unicity of God, in need of supplementary material. Most translations, though, present it like any other prose book to be read for its content rather than its form.

Toorawa is more faithful to Muslim experience of the text, although this means that he leaves out the majority (so if you wish to know what the Qurʾan says about wife-beating or any other topic, this is not the translation for you, but then, Muslims generally have not used the Qurʾan that way). While the authority of the Qurʾan as a whole for Muslims is never in doubt, “when one reads the entire Qurʾan in translation, it is all but impossible to discern which parts are important in the lives of practicing Muslims” (xxvi).

The Devotional Qurʾan thus includes only a selection of surahs and verses that believers encounter most frequently: mainly the shorter ones and those most prominent in ritual and recitation. These include Q 36 Yā Sīn, Q 2: 255, “The Throne Verse,” those recited daily or weekly or in Friday sermons, and finally thirteen passages glorifying God and ten of supplication. (He admits a personal and slightly arbitrary aspect to his selection, but it is based on his own experience as a Sunni Muslim of South Asian origin as well as a perusal of various well-known prayer books.)

The result, particularly in its compact and elegant format, is much closer to a book of verse than a prosaic compilation of scripture in translation. Moreover, the reader is put in the position of the worshipper, and this makes an enormous difference to how one understands the text. A common complaint of the first-time Qurʾan-in-translation reader is the frequent interruption of passages with repetitive praises of God. It inevitably wears down all but the most dogged reader. But in Toorawa’s excerpts we see the verses from the perspective of the one who recites, as opposed to that of the presumed author, and the reading experience is very different.

It is one thing to read the glorification passages as part of the entire text, as in Habib and Lawrence’s (perfectly acceptable) translation:

When one reads it in Toorawa’s rendering, in isolation, as a passage frequently used by Muslims to glorify God, the effect is different (113).

This type of devotion, believers’ primary mode of interaction with the Qurʾan, is largely lost in conventional translations; Toorawa’s book, with its selection of verses for supplication and for glorifying God, gives us a vision of the Qurʾan in Islam that anglophone readers rarely encounter, but that is more representative of Muslim experience.

The second distinguishing feature of The Devotional Qurʾan is that it goes further than any other English effort (that I know of) in accounting “for the presence of rhythm and sound within that experience” of reading the scripture (xxvii). Toorawa refers to the efforts of some predecessors to render the Arabic qualities into English, notably Tarif Khalidi’s use of differing layouts on the page to reflect the different registers of Qurʾanic discourse (“from narrative to exhortation, from homily to hymn of praise, from strict law to tender sermon, from fear and trembling to invitations to reflection”). He also notes how Arthur Arberry avoided rhyme but tried to show rhythmic sections “by rounding off each succession of rhythms with a much shorter line.” Arberry also attempted to match mood and tempo changes by “corresponding variations in [his] own rhythmical patterns” (xix-xx).

Recognizing that the Qurʾan contains various kinds of discourse, Toorawa breaks verses into stanzas or flush paragraphs, depending on the kind of text. Sometimes he centers the surah or verses on the page, or uses prose with italics and other features to indicate direct speech or nested narrative.

Habib and Lawrence use end-rhymes sparingly; Toorawa is more enthusiastic. This carries risks, as the elegance of Arabic rhymed prose, when Englished, can easily cross into Dr. Seuss territory, but Toorawa generally succeeds, giving an air of restrained exuberance.

Toorawa too is not immune to theological influences. For ḍāllan in 93: 7, where Habib and Lawrence write “seeking” rather than “erring” or “gone astray,” Toorawa has “unaware”:

For Q 109: 6, lakum dīnukum wa-liya dīn Habib and Lawrence, like almost everyone else, have

Toorawa has a more radical solution:

Similarly, in the following verse (Q 94: 1), for a-lam nashraḥ laka ṣadraka, Habib and Lawrence hew close to the literal:

Toorawa has the disarmingly informal, but perceptive,

As Toorawa explains in his introduction, part of the Qurʾan’s appeal lies precisely in that on countless words and phrases, the exegetical tradition has reached no consensus, or the consensus is that multiple meanings are intended. Among previous English translations, that of Arberry (1955) enjoys a reputation as the most sensitive to the poetic qualities of the Arabic. Arberry achieves this, however, through an English that was considered archaic even for its time, and which many students today find largely unintelligible. Much of the Qurʾan does stand apart from most Classical Arabic, so the strategy is a good one. Our age is probably more suited to Toorawa’s informality, which manages to be accessible while conveying something of the range of interpretations inherent in the text.

Contrasting the two translations brings out the commitment to the text, to going verse by verse and looking at the Arabic. It is a difficult question: do the qualities of the Arabic need to be closely reflected in the English? Does the dogma of the Qurʾanic miracle mean that the translation should mirror the original as closely as possible? Should a circumstantial clause in the Arabic be shown by a circumstantial clause in English? Or should the translator be free from the grammar and syntax? I don’t think there is any definitive response to the question. An example illustrates the strength of both approaches.

Q 67: 7-8 reads:

Takādu tamayyazu min al-ghayẓ kullamā ʾulqiya fīhā fawjun saʾalahum khazanatuhā ʾalam yaʾtikum nadhīr

Habib and Lawrence follow the Arabic closely, right down to the circumstantial clause:

Toorawa allows himself a much freer hand:

There is no “cauldron” in the original; Hell is not mentioned in these verses; nadhīr is “warner” not “Warning.” Is this too far removed from God’s words in Arabic, or does it better convey the effect of the Arabic? I would say yes to the latter question, but the answer is bound to be a personal one, and indicative of how both aesthetic and theological concerns affect our reception of Qurʾan translations.