Kuran s prijevodom (Esad Duraković)

Kuran s prijevodom ("The Qur'an with translation") is a Bosnian rendering of the meanings of the Qur'an by Esad Duraković, completed in 2002 and published with the Arabic text in one volume by Svjetlost in Sarajevo in 2004, its only edition. ¹

Duraković, born in 1948, graduated from the University of Belgrade in 1972, worked in Belgrade and Priština and, from 1991, in Sarajevo, particularly at the Oriental Institute; he translated the Thousand and One Nights into Bosnian (1999), received the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture in 2003, and has written on the rhetoric of the Qur'an. ¹

Duraković holds that a translation is needed that puts the eloquence of the text before theological questions; he follows the Arabic's shifts of address (iltifat), which he sees as carriers of meaning. ¹ The Meccan suras are rendered in rhymed verse echoing their verse endings, the Medinan mostly in prose with some rhymed endings, in modern vocabulary and without literalism, with short notes generally in line with mainstream Sunni views. ¹

Mykhaylo Yakubovych reports that the translator Mustafa Mlivo criticised Duraković for rendering the same term in different ways in several places, and that Džemal Latić found he had achieved his aim in most respects, with inconsistencies that may mislead in places. ¹ Yakubovych notes that it drew scholarly attention without matching the reach of Besim Korkut's translation, and calls it a unique attempt in Bosnian to engage with the Qur'an's style. ¹

• Mykhaylo Yakubovych, "Qur'an translation of the week #183", The Global Qur'an, 2024. ¹