The Textual Translation for The Qur'aan The Supreme (Abdulaziz AlMubarak)

This English translation of the Qur'an by Abdulaziz F. AlMubarak was first published in Beirut in 2008 and has been revised ever since; apparently self-published and not widely popular, a 2018 edition was nevertheless found in an Islamic bookstore in Accra, Ghana. ¹

AlMubarak comes from al-Ahsa in eastern Saudi Arabia, took degrees in law and economics in Lebanon and the United States, worked for Saudi Aramco for decades and devoted himself to da'wa after retiring. ¹ By his own account, discussions with American colleagues after the attacks of 11 September 2001 led him to consult English translations, whose accuracy dismayed him, and his wife suggested he write his own. ¹

In an introduction of nearly ninety pages he holds that a translation of the Qur'an must be verbatim or a transliteration, and that all translations by meaning are unfit. ¹ He follows the Arabic word by word, transliterates Arabic terms in his own system, marks gender and number with superscript letters, and includes claims of "scientific miracles" in the notes. ¹

Johanna Pink finds the result impenetrable to readers not already familiar with the Qur'an and riddled with mistakes in English, sees it as an extreme case of a mechanistic view of language found in some modern da'wa movements, and notes that interlinear translation, an old traditional method, would serve its purpose with far less confusion. ¹

• Johanna Pink, "Qur'an translation of the week #189", The Global Qur'an, 2024. ¹