Quran en kreole ek tex arab (Houssein Nahaboo)

This rendering of the meanings of the Qur'an into Mauritian Creole, the everyday language of Mauritius, is by Houssein Nahaboo and was published in instalments from 1983. ¹

Nahaboo (1920–2000) was a successful dentist in Curepipe and the first Mauritian awarded a fellowship in dentistry by the Royal College of Surgeons; Johanna Pink describes him as a pious man engaged in da'wa. He studied Arabic and went to Riyadh to perfect it, where he was asked to revise a well-known French translation, which he did with Mahmud Baballi, though the revision was never published. ¹

The work took five years and was published by the Islamic Students Movement and the Islamic Women's Movement in Port Louis, with the Arabic text in a facing column. ¹ He wrote it in a Creole using French spelling, to make it easier for literate readers, unlike activists who wanted a phonetic, independent Creole; it has no notes, so explanation is carried in the translation itself. ¹

Its good reception encouraged him to make English and French translations, published around 1987; the Creole one was reportedly reissued in a luxury single volume in the 2000s, though his translations are now hard to obtain. ¹

• Johanna Pink, "Qur'an translation of the week #152", The Global Qur'an, 2023. ¹