Talk:Noble Quran (Hilali–Khan)

Can someone say something nice about this translation to balance it out a little? :-) Evercat 05:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

not really, it's an egregious translation and if it wasn't backed by Saudi money and influence it wouldn't exist because nobody would take it seriously. Umar99 (talk) 00:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Controversy section

The controversy section is well referenced and informative, but I did find one thing interesting about it. It is interesting that Khaleel Muhammad and Sheila Musaji's (I hope I spelled her name right) commentary stuck out to me when I read it. Regarding the criticism of the translation of the verses in Suratul Fatihah referring to Christians and Jews, they both expressed dismay that the justification in the footnotes was tafseer from medieval scholars such as Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir, claiming that they were not aware of the pluralism of today. Aside from the obvious fact that most Sunni Muslims take commentary of those past scholars more seriously that either Muhammad or Musaji, there is something else.
When one looks at the actual footnotes, the citation contains a hadeeth found in both Sunan al-Tirmidhi and Sunan Abi Dawood. Both of these are accepted as authentic as Sunnis, and in it Muhammad (the Muslim prophet, not Khaleel Muhammad) when asked directly about this verse said himself that it refers to the Christians and Jews. It just seems kind of interesting that both authors referred to it as simply medieval texts. If we're going to include that comment among the others that were made, should it not also be mentioned that they referred to a hadeeth directly confirming Khan's translation as a medieval text? This is certainly not a mainstream Muslim view, and per WP:UNDUE: "Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views." Though honestly the comment could be removed all together as well, as it is just one of many issues the authors brought up and not necessarily more relevant than others. MezzoMezzo (talk) 16:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

the inclusion of the "jews" and "christians" comment is a joke from the "mainstream Muslim view" and no normal Muslim would ever directly correlate the words in 1:7 to be about members of those two religions. again, if Saudi money and influence wasn't supporting this translation, it wouldn't exist. it's a farce. Umar99 (talk) 00:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be a reasonable counterpoint to include mention of the relevant hadith if it's widely regarded as authentic. Evercat (talk) 02:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm down for either mentioning the relevant hadith. Issue is, will we need a secondary source explaining that or would it be within article guidelines for us to include the hadith references directly in the article?

As for it being Saudi or a farce, this is clearly incorrect and actually kind of biased. It's not about where it's printed, it's the fact that Muhammad - whose words Muslims accept as a source for religion along with the Qur'an - said very clearly that the verse refers to Christians and Jews. If you look at the links to this translation of the Qur'an provided on the article, you can check the footnotes for yourself.

Khalil Mohammed and Khaled Abou El Fadl are notable and entitled to their own opinions (I don't know much of Sheila Musaji so I can't comment on her POV), but they're quite obviously not in line with mainstream Muslim thought - hadith take precedence over opinions for Muslims around the world. That should be included as well. MezzoMezzo (talk) 02:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You can just cite the Hadith, though I have no knowledge about what Hadith references look like. But I would write something along the lines of:

However, there is a hadith, included in the collections of [insert collectors], and regarded as [sahih, is it?], in which Muhammad himself makes this connection.<ref>[However you would normally cite hadith]</ref>

Evercat (talk) 13:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC) Roughly, the hadith is narrated by 'Adi bin Hatim who asked Muhammad who that verse was referring to, and he named the Christians and Jews specifically. It's found in Sunan Abi Dawood and Sunan al-Tirmidhi, i'll try to get more details and post them here. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

There are a few problems here:

1) You've got some editing this Wiki entry that obviously have an agenda. Polemical designs pollute Wikipedia.

2) Aside from Khalil and Musaji, you can name mainstream scholars who find the Khan-Hilali translation reprehensible at best. I feel these two figures were named in order to clandestinely paint opposition to this translation as "heterodox".

3) The example of the closing verses of al-Fatiha is a very poor one. There are many, many other examples of inaccuracies throughout the translation. I intend on adding those to this Wiki entry shortly.

4) Though it is an accepted Tafsir that "Those that incurred Thine Wrath" and "Those that were led astray" refers to the Jews and Christians. Yet, to insert it briefly in parentheses is both an insertion in the Qur'anic text, as well as horrible exegesis (if that was even the intent). The correct exegesis is that "Those that incurred Thine Wrath" specifically refers to the Jews rejecting, opposing and killing their Prophets. "Those who were led astray" is a specific reference to the Christians deifying Christ. So, even if one were to say "Well, that is the Tafsir anyways", it must be said NO IT IS NOT. That's like saying, "Insert Coin" on a vending machine means you put coins in and get a 12oz Coke, without clarifying that it must be 50 Cents. 2 British Pence won't do.

Let's be objective and honest here, and if you're an Islamophobe, let there be no mistake, you are very, very, very easy to identify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shiblizaman (talk • contribs) 20:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you talking to me? I chose the names I did because they were the first ones I could find with Google. The Al-Fatiha issue certainly jumps out at you straight away (why is it a poor example?) Finally, the tafsir was brought up by MezzoMezzo, who claims to be a Muslim, so I doubt he's an Islamophobe either. It would be better if you addressed whatever issues you think there are, and not start throwing accusations of "Islamophobia" around. Such paranoia will get you nowhere. Evercat (talk) 00:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Jews and Christians

The mention of Jews and Christians is obviously refering to those before Islam was introduced. Generally speaking, it is not refering to the Jews and Christians of today because the verse was created in the 7th century.--LloydKame (talk) 23:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a bit implausible. If Jews and Christians had got things wrong before Muhammad, a fortiori they've still got things wrong after Muhammad. So if it's the correct interpretation, it surely would still apply. Evercat (talk) 12:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Religious verses are usually difficult to understand by most of us but in here it is refering to Jews and Christians of pre-Islamic era, and that's because when you read the verse it is refering to people in a past tense way. The curse of Jews is specifically refering to the time when the Jews forgot about Moses and began worshipping the Golden calf.--LloydKame (talk) 01:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I am the Executive Director of Saheeh International and owner of the publishing house, Dar Abul-Qasim, which originally produced the Saheeh International translation. In the Editor's Preface of the early editions, we acknowledge The Noble Qur'an by Hilali and Khan but clearly stated that although we thought about the possibility of editing their text, we decided a more thorough procedure involving systematic research would be more conducive. Each verse was looked up in several Arabic tafseers and translated from them. Therefore, the Saheeh International translation is not a derivative work of Hilali and Khan's Noble Qur'an. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dar Abul-Qasim (talk • contribs) 10:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Umm Muhammad (Saheed International) added

I found it relevant to add a section of the translation about Umm Muhammad, because it is a derivative work of Hilali-Khan. It is only a stub feel free to add more info. --Imdkzmaa (talk) 18:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, though I think you added too much info. :-) We don't really need dimensions, number of pages, or the official blurb from the publishers, I think. Evercat (talk) 21:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that it's a derivative work. It flows considerably better. Got any proof that it's derivative? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.197.8.190 (talk) 02:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Khan is not an "Afghan Pashtun"

I have seen this everywhere and it is not true. Muhsin Khan is a Pakistani from the Punjab province of Pakistan. His ancestors migrated from Afghanistan hundreds of years ago. If you are going to call him an "Afghan Pashtun", then you have to call all Pakistanis on Wikipedia by the race they were descended from 100's of years ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.151.60 (talk) 00:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Most popular?

The intro claims

It has been reported to be the most popular and "Now the most widely disseminated Qur'an in most Islamic bookstores and Sunni mosques throughout the English-speaking world

Really? This link [1], instead speaks about:

Many local Muslims were particularly embarrassed by commentary that disparaged Jews and Christians even though neither group is mentioned in the original Arabic. "The outcry was so great. . . . People were disgusted," said Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, head of Bethesda's Minaret of Freedom Institute, an Islamic think tank. "And it wasn't just liberals. I couldn't find an American Muslim who had anything good to say about that edition. I would call it a Wahhabi Koran."

That's impopular, not "popular", more like a catastrophic derogation, than anything else. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 13:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Dream?

I removed an unsourced paragraph regarding a dream that Khan allegedly had. Whilst dreams might be interesting, they are not appropriate in the context of an encyclopedia.RookTaker (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Bibliographic details

This article should include the following bibliographic details: what year the English translation was completed (both A.H. and C.E.), what year the translation was first published, and how many editions or revisions there have been in this translation, remembering that an "edition" is not the same as a "printing" or reprinting or republication of the same edition.

This article should also mention the principal book publishers (location, name of publisher) and the known copyright status.

For MezzoMezzo

MezzoMezzo, I have undone your changes for many reasons (given below). Don't add them again until you provide answers to my questions.

Reason 1 - Incorrect Summaries

You twisted the criticisms that have been made of the Hilali-Khan translation. The actual quote for Dr William S. Peachy was:

"Nobody likes it except the Saudis who don’t know English, whose native language is not English". He also said: "It’s repulsive."[3]

MezzoMezzo changed this to: Dr William S. Peachy, an American professor of English at College of Medicine, King Saud University at Qasseem,[5] as well as Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, head of Bethesda's Minaret of Freedom Institute, have both claimed that the translation is not accepted by Muslims in the US

Dr Peachy did not even mention the US. He stated very clearly that nobody other than Saudis whose native language is not English like it. i.e. ALL non Saudis dislike it. Why did you change the entire context of Dr Peachy's quote?

If you are going to try and summarize a quote at least try and make it accurate. What you have done is made a wrong and inaccurate summary.

Likewise, there are a number of quotes from Muslim academics which give a damning verdict of this translation as follows:

Khaleel Mohammed has taken the translation to task for "[reading] more like a supremacist Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian polemic than a rendition of the Islamic scripture,"[1]

while Sheila Musaji complains that it "is shocking in its distortions of the message of the Qur’an and amounts to a rewrite not a translation."[6]

Robert (Farooq) D. Crane states that it is: "Perhaps the most extremist translation ever made of the Qur’an."[7]

Khaled Abou El Fadl attacks what he calls "grotesque misogyny" in the translation.[8]

This was summarised into the following:

The Hilali-Khan translation has been criticised by several prominent Western Muslim academics as well. Khaleel Mohammed,[1] Sheila Musaji,[7] Robert Crane,[8] and Khaled Abou El Fadl[9] has taken the translation to task for supposed Muslim supremacism and bigotry. They didn't just take the translation to task for "supposed Muslim supremacism and bigotry". They considered it "a distortion of the message of the Qur'an", "a re-write not a translation", "anti-Semitic, anti-Christian polemic" etc.. You have once again tried to lesson the major criticisms made by academics of this translation. Wikipedia readers are intelligent enough to make there own conclusions and don't need dodgy summaries to make up there mind for them.

Reason 2 - Deleted Source: You deleted the following quote of Dr. Ahmed Farouk Musa for no reason. You even removed his name entirely from the article. According to Dr. Ahmed Farouk Musa, The Hilali-Khan translation was being distributed by Saudi religious authorities with money from its oil-rich government and is a major cause of extremism. He stated that:

"I believe that propaganda such as the Hilali-Khan translation and other materials coming out of Saudi Arabia are one of the major root causes that feed extremist ideas among Muslims, violence against Christians and other minorities"[10] Why did you delete him and his quote?

Reason 3 - Addition of quote:

You claimed to remove text according to WP:LONGQUOTE and then weirdly added the following quote yourself: "since the translation preserves Quranic verses that tells Muslims to make peace with other religions".

Huh? How does that work? Are you only allowed to add quotes that suit your own point of view and censor quotes that don't?

Reason 4 - Some v Many

I added that "Many academics have criticised the Hilali-Khan translation". You changed this to "Some". At least 9 academics have been critical of this translation. These are:

• Dr William S. Peachy, an American professor of English at College of Medicine, King Saud University at Qasseem
• Dr. Abdel-Haleem, Arabic Professor at SOAS, London University
• Dr. A. Al-Muhandis Director of King Fahd International Centre for Translation
• Khaleel Mohammed Professor of Religion at San Diego State University
• Sheila Musaji
• Dr. Robert Dickson Crane who was the former advisor of Richard Nixon and has 50 professional articles on comparative legal systems, global strategy, and information management
• Khaled Abou El Fadl Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law
• Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, head of Bethesda's Minaret of Freedom Institute
• Dr. Ahmed Farouk Musa who is an academician at Monash University

These academics are from many different countries and backgrounds and they all criticise the translation.

The text should therefore read "Many academics have criticized the Hilali-Khan translation".

Then you write that: "On the other hand, there have been some defenses of the translation from academia." and thereby try and give the impression that both sides have a roughly equal viewpoint in acadmeia. Not a single academic scholar has defended this translation.

The only people who claimed to defend the work are:

• Fathul Bari Mat Jahya. This guy has no scholarly credentials. If you think otherwise then prove it.
• Muslim World League Journal, vol. 23.. Huh? This isn't academic at all? Who is the author? What exactly is the "defence". I just checked this on Google books and there is no defence at all.
• M.A. Sherif, The Abdullah Yusuf Ali Memorial Lecture, pg. 23. Firstly, this isn't an academic journal. Secondly, all this states is that Hilali-Khan defended there translation. What did you expect from them? An acceptance that there translation is awful? There is no need to add this obvious piece of information.

So all we have is that the translators defended their work and Fathul Bari Mat Jahya who is not an academic. How on earth does this equate to "defenses of the translation from academia".

You have yet to provide a single academic who has anything good to say about this translation. You directed me to WP:UNDUE which says that: Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. One cannot even compare the clear criticisms by numerous academics from reliable sources with the so called positive reviews from dodgy sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.156.116.25 (talk) 13:15, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear sir, I'm glad you've given the detailed explanation here as you have on the article for one of the translator's of the subject of this article. As I stated there, I apologize for my previous brusequeness, though as I also mentioned there (and it goes without saying that my comments here will make more sense if my response on the other page is said first), there are some issues with you pushing a decidedly negative POV on this article. We all have our biases, of course, but the point is that one should lay them aside when working objectively. Let's take a look.

I do take issue with your cognitive dissonance regarding Edit 1; you claim that readers are intelligent enough to make their own decisions, and yet you insist on inserting a quote farm (which, per [[[WP:Quotefarm]], isn't allowed) in order to portray a solely negative light that clearly doesn't exist. So you're going to have to leave your obvious dislike of this translation aside.

That being said, you did make a good point against some of my summaries from a semantic aspect. If you have a better suggestion then implement it; until then, I will reinstate my edits because they might not be perfect, but they don't violate site policy. The quote farm you inserted does, and thus is a poorer version.

Regarding Edit 2, then it's as I stated at the other article: I saw you pushing a certain POV (perhaps unintentionally, but that's what you're doing) as well as edit warring, so I reverted your edit; I didn't pick and choose. I don't mean to start an argument, but that was the reason. Anyway, you still can't leave the section in as-is because it's still a quotefarm. I'll try to summarize it; if you disagree semantically, then write a better one, but don't insert a series of quotes again.

Regarding Edit 3, then I inserted a short quote within the lines of the text. I'll try to summarize it if it irritates you too much; if you dislike my summary, and can write a more accurate one, then I fully support that.

Regarding Edit 4, then the issue is simple: nine is nont many. Especially not in the world of academia. That issue doesn't require any further discussion. Regarding the information I added:

• Fathul Bari is referred to as "currently the CEO of the Scholar Association of Malaysia." End of discussion.
• Muslim World League is as academic as it gets; that's not up for discussion even if you pretend to not know who they are. Check the wiki article.
• Defense by the subjects of the article is absolutely relevant to maintaining a neutral point of view, and again, that isn't even up for discussion. The source was from a scholarly academic lecture; please check the whole thing.

I'm sorry that the previous discussion became heated, but you do seem to be attempting to answer a lot of questions for readers here; as you said, they don't need that from us. I'll reinstate the above mentioned edits now. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:09, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Fathul Bari

You said that: Fathul Bari is referred to as "currently the CEO of the Scholar Association of Malaysia." End of discussion.

I could find nothing on the so called Scholar Association of Malaysia. This is not academia but a self described organisation with the word scholar in it. How can he and his organisation be compared to critics such as Khaled Abou El Fadl who is the Professor of Law of the UCLA School of Law?

Muslim World League

You said that: Muslim World League is as academic as it gets; that's not up for discussion even if you pretend to not know who they are. Check the wiki article.

It is very much open to discussion. The wiki article makes no mention of academia. It states that the Muslim World League propagates the religion of Islam, encouraging Dawah and conversion of non-Muslims,[2] and promotes apologetics against criticism of Islam. The organization funds the construction of mosques, financial reliefs for Muslims afflicted by natural disasters, the distribution of copies of the Quran, and political tracts on Muslim minority groups.

How is this therefore an academic institute?

Regardless, the article reference you added makes no defence of the translation at all. As I mentioned before, Who is the author? What exactly is the "defence". I just checked this on Google books and there is no defence at all.

I maintain my point that zero academics have defended this translation, whilst many academics have trashed it.

WP:QUOTEFARM

I don't agree with your interpretation of the article you told me about (WP:QUOTEFARM). The article states that While quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia, try not to overuse them.

So quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia... and therefore can be used.

Long quotations crowd the actual article and remove attention from other information. None of the criticisms are long quotations.

A summary or paraphrase of a quotation is often better where the original wording could be improved. Consider minimizing the length of a quotation by paraphrasing, by working smaller portions of quotation into the article text, or both.

I don't believe that the summary is better in this case. It obfuscates the gravity of the criticism. I feel the reader would be better placed reading the criticisms themselves and then making their own conclusions.

Provided each use of a quotation within an article is legitimate and justified there is no need for an arbitrary limit, but quotes should not dominate the article.

There is therefore no need to remove the quotes for the criticisms or limit them as each one is legitimate. I therefore believe that the quotes should be reinstated.