Muslim Translations of the Qur'an

This article explores the forays of Alevi and Bektashi writers into the genres of Qur’anic interpretation and translation. A sizeable religious minority in Turkey, Alevi, and Bektashi authors are relative newcomers to these fields and their cultivation of contemporary Qur’anic literature resembling that of their Sunnī
counterparts is a significant development. This study examines how their treatments relate to shifting political and religious environments in Turkey and, furthermore, considers their style, sources, and arguments. It contends that interpreting and translating the Qur’an have become integral to Alevi-Bektashi participation in broader public debates over religious practice, freedom, and identity in modern Turkey.

One of some translation works on the Qur’an appears to be eccentric concedering that it reveals some important revisions to traditional translation. This translation is written by Edip Yuksel, Laith Saleh al-Shaiban, dan Martha Schulte-Nafeh entittled Qur’an: a Reformist Translation. This article attempts to question the view of the writters of Qur’an: a Reformist Translation on historicity related to the Qur’an, framed with hermeneutical theory of Gadamer. The article ends to some conclussions that on their view, the Qur’an is a self-sufficient scripture, and therefore one has no need to seek the extra-Qur’anic aspect. Eventhough he denies the importance of historicity of the Qur’an, they indeed depend on the contemporary history which triggers their will to translate the Qur’an. As they deny the horizons of the text and rely on their own contemporary horizons, their approach then belongs to subjectivist hermeneutics.

From early ages, some verses of the Holy Qur’ān were translated into Greek and Latin in order to resist
Islam or for missionary targets, later its translation was carried out in Byzantium and later in Europe. Both
in Byzantium and the West, The Qur’ān aroused interest in rejecting the Prophet's prophethood. For this
reason, studies aiming only at the translation of the Qur’ān were carried out quite late. However, many
mistakes have been made in the translations of the Qur’ān due to reasons such as malicious intent,
insufficient knowledge of Arabic, not knowing Islamic concepts and literal translation. On the other hand,
Muslims did not write the articles on the Qur’ān, but only in their own language until the 20th century,
and they did not intend to translate the Qur’ān into foreign languages in order to appeal to non-Muslim
communities. Even, the Qur’ān was translated into the languages of some Muslim societies by non-
Muslims. In this article, the effects of the mistakes in the Qur’ān translations made in the East and the
West on the negative and unrealistic understanding of Islam and, the negative image of the Prophet based
on the translations of the Qur’ān have been examined. In our study, the first translations were taken into
consideration, and the studies after the Enlightenment period, when more objective Qur’ān translations
began to be seen, were excluded from the study. The aim of the study is to explain the wrong perception
about Islam and the Prophet caused by erroneous translations of the Qur’ān, and also to draw attention to
the necessity of the translation of the Qur’ān by Muslim translators in world languages and to write works
introducing the Prophet correctly against Islamophobia, which has increased all over the world. Because
today, unfortunately translations of the Qur’ān in many languages continue to be made by non-Muslims.