Saturday, March 13, 2004

The previous post

was taken from The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, translated by Marmaduke Pickthall. Wow! That link leads to the whole book online. Specifically, this is the first ten verses of (The Kneeling) The Forty-Fifth Surah of the Qur'aan.

The book version has this explanation: "Crouching" takes its name from a word in v. 28. It belongs to the middle group of Meccan Surahs.

Update: In case you don't feel like going to it yourself, this prefatory remark by Mr. Pickthall should be read and understood:

"... The Qur'an cannot be translated. ...The book is here rendered almost literally and every effort has been made to choose befitting language. But the result is not the Glorious Qur'an, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy. It is only an attempt to present the meaning of the Qur'an-and peradventure something of the charm in English. It can never take the place of the Qur'an in Arabic, nor is it meant to do so..." [Marmaduke Pickthall, 1930]

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