Rating: 
Summary: Not a Muslim, but certainly an admirer of the Qur'an
Review: I am, as my title says, not a Muslim. Actually, I am a Wiccan. But I find in the Qur'an, more so than in any other holy script, a call for us to care for ourselves and others equally.Many believe that the Qur'an is the source of the hatred that some Muslims have for the West. I do not feel this is true. The text calls, not for the (lesser) ... (holy war) on the Western world, as it is currently being practiced by some misguided folks, but to cleanse one's own heart of hatred and impurity first. ... Every passage I have read calls for love. Love of Allah, and love of your fellow man. How can people turn such a loving book into their (proclaimed) guidebook for hatred? There are things I will never understand. That, perhaps, is first amongst them. Again I say, I am not a Muslim; I am a Witch. But nonetheless, I think, were the Qur'an practiced as the law of our land, this would be a great nation....
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre as literature
Review: I bought this book as literature and out of curiosity. It was very repetitive and lacked cohesion in some areas. As far as its accuracy in history I have my doubts but I will leave that up to the scholars. I found nothing profound or all that interesting and some passages even disturbing.
Read the eastern or western fictional classics and you will get more out of them.
Rating:
Summary: My first introduction to Islam
Review: If one believes in existance of God (Allah: proper noun for God in Arabic), then surely he did not leave mankind (with so much capacity for intellectual or savage acts) without a manual for treading through this life. Therefore, readings in Divine revelation has to be approached with a sense of humility. Qur'an is that revelation (code for living) that is the last revelation to mankind since Taurah, Talmood, Psalms, and Bible. Qur'an is also a revelation that came in stages via Angel Gabriel to Prophet Muhammed to deal with the situations he faced with pagan Arabs of the time. It is an elliptic revelation, therefore, one has to read this translation in conjunction with another explanation, such as, The Message and Meanings of the Qur'an, by Khurram Murad, The Islamic Foundation, Leicester, UK. Nonetheless, this is a great transliteration that Westerners can relate to, as it makes references to other ideologies/philosophies.
Rating: 
Summary: The best book in the world?
Review: If you're considering purchase of this book, you are either 1)a Muslim, 2)someone who wants to understand a perceived enemy, or 3)just curious. Well, here it is, the Qur'an: what Muslims will tell you is the best, truest, most lyrical, most inspiring book in the world. It is, we are told by Muslims and by the Qur'an itself, so good that it is an an absolute miracle, and that no person or spiritual entity [Angel or Jinn (Jinn are spirit beings created from a smokeless flame of fire)] could produce even one chapter that was as good as the Qur'an. There are some problems that non-Muslims will have with this claim. For example, one of the chapters (Surah 72) consists (except for the intro sentence) entirely of a conversation among Jinn, the inclusion of which disproves the Qur'an's claim with its own words. Also, the Qur'an thinks the Christian Trinity is made up of Father, Son and Mary. The Qur'an has a Samaritan help Aaron make his golden calf (while Moses is getting the 10 Commandments) 800 years before Samaria even existed. The Qur'an talks about Jesus, but while he is called the Messiah, the Qur'an strips him of his crucifixion and resurrection, and Mohammed declared on several occasions that believing in Jesus divinity is the greatest possible sin. I gave it 3 stars because it is what it is, which should account for something, I guess.
Rating:
Summary: Polygamy and exploitation of slaves
Review: Many Westerners are aware of the grant of the right of polygamy to men by the Koran, few are aware that in the same text, the Koran grants male Muslims the "right" to sexually exploit all the female slaves that they own. Add up polygamy, unfettered right of males to divorce and remarry and the right to own and sexually exploit female slaves and the result is that the Koran grants virtually complete sexual license to men.
Readers of this text should see Robert Segal, Islam's Black Slaves for the story fo the 11 million Black Africans taken captive by the Ummayad, Abassid and Ottoman empires. Authorization for this abuse of humanity is directly attributable to the Koran and to Mohammed's example.
Rating:
Summary: My Truth
Review: The Qur'an brought me closer to the mystical nature of human kind, and Abdullah Yousef Ali did a wonderful job in shedding light on the mystic and poetic nature of Islam. Only those who are natural, who love this Earth and are also willing to believe in miracles will see the true nature of this book.
Qur'an comes from the Arabic word Iqra'=read(verb). Therefore, Qur'an=that which is read upon you. The texts in the Qur'an carry symbols and signs that fall upon believers everyday to guide them onto righteous and noble paths.
I was raised a muslim, so thankfully I didn't have to break through all the obsantites that the unbelievers spewed about Islam. I am a firm believer of the Day of Judgement, and a firm believer that Islam has unfolded the true histories of humanity's struggles on Earth from the creation of Adam and Eve up untill the last prophet Muhammed (PBUH). Unfortunately, the Bible's texts aren't accurate because they've been ill-treated after Jesus's ressurection, and they were also changed and handed down from one corrupt authority to the next.
This case isn't true for the Qura'an because the prophet recited the Qura'an once a year during the month of Ramadan with the Angel Gabriel in order to protect the verses from being distorted, and then he recited them from memory and muslims wrote it down to preserve the symbolic words of Allah. Don't be alarmed, there are thousands of muslim children today who know this book off by heart.
The Qura'an carries symbolic texts which reveal the true sacrifices and hardships that all the prophets went though to pass on God's message. Jesus is not the son of God he was only his prophet, endowed with the knowledge of healing and magic. God has his own singular nature and owns a kingdom. The Qur'an reveals that every creature on this Earth crawled out from the water except Adam and Eve who decended from the heavens. This was written almost 1400 years ago, and yet it compiles with Darwin's theory. The Qura'an also reveals that this earth will be replaced by another one, after it's purified from evil. It will be replaced by the Lord of the Worlds,Allah,which justifies that Earth is not the only World that God/Allah created. Those who are good will stay and enjoy Earth's nature to its fullest i.e. absolute bliss and happiness. But the unbelievers will be fuel for hell, because the Qura'an defines this case as the harsh reality of nature's truth.
Moreover, God chose to reveal his true holy scriptures through the Arabic language because the Arabic alphabet represents the rythmic beats of our souls. In the Qura'an God reveals that he made humans out of clay and then gave it a soul from his breath. Therefore, the name Allah came to light because the last letter 'h: haa' represents the giving of breath. The first letter 'A' represents the beginning of life, because it's the first letter in the Arabic alphabet as well as the English one. However, the letter 'L'or'lam' in Arabic remains mysterious but might symbolize pain and the giving of life. In the Qura'an singular letters are often introduced in certain verses and they carry mystical and symbolic meanings that the translator of this book tried his best to explain. Moreover, this book carries both the English translation on one side, and the Arabic on the other so it will also be interesting to admire the beautiful calligraphy of this ancient semitic language.
One of Islam's major revelations is the return of Jesus. Muslims believe that Jesus was saved by God and wasn't crucifed on the cross. Instead, the Jewish diciple that deceived him was turned by God to look like Jesus in order to deceive his enemies, because The Lord of the Worlds has mercy on his prophets and obediant servants and will never let harm come their way. True Muslims also beleive that Jesus will return soon, because the signs of the revelations have appeared. Metals will fly and speak: radios and planes; arab nomads will build towers in their deserts: the booming of the oil industry in the middle-east.
The Qura'an made me a strong symbolic interactionist. It made me understand people's thought process, so it offered me the power to catch on swiftly to what others want to say. In other words, it offered me a unique sense of wit and besides, this life is meaningless without signs and symbols. This only became possible after carefully studying the Qura'an by the aid of this translation and I also used additional texts that include the prophets teachings/'ahadith'.
As a muslim, who lives in the US, I do admit that many muslims today don't recognise the beauty and the truth that this book has to offer. Prime examples are Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. They misinterpreted the term jihad in the Qura'an because they weren't true believers. They were greedy for control and power. There are many arenas of Jihad nowadays such as the media, so they will have no excuses for what they've done.If they were true believers then they would have loved their faith enough to safeguard it from heresay and in return they would have thought of safer and effective options/mediums to make a noble difference in the world. The pen is mightier than the sword, but they weren't patient for that because Allah's love wasn't enough for them.
If you don't beleive in One God, in his Angels, his Holy Books, in Heaven and in Hell and in the Last Day of Judgement, then don't waste your time reading this book.
I definitely, most definitely, recommend this translation.
Just passing on the love,
Sara
Rating:
Summary: 23 % of the world population (2005 Guiness World Records)
Review: This book is a very beautiful and well establihed interpretation of the Koran.( There is no translation which can capture its true literary eloquence as a Universally acknowledged World standard in Classical Arabic Literature due to the comlpex root based structure of Arabic - a sister language of Jesus's own tongue - Aramaic)
Arabic is a Semetic Language (like Aramaic)
FIRST : THE ONLY SEMETIC TERM FOR GOD = AaLaH
( see Aramaic Lexicon and Concordance )
Jesus Spoke Aramic ( not English!)
He called God 'AaLaH ' - the only word for GOD in his language
Muhammad Spoke Arabic ( not English!)
He called God 'Allah ' - the only word for GOD in his language
To understand this book fully requires a fairly detailed understanding of the history (to give meaning to the context of some of the verses)as well an appreciation of the original language and style. But a minimum basic understanding may be gained from e.g. Sarwar and Toropov's 'The Koran'. Without some sort of navigation the first time reader will find some of the passages difficult to appreciate.
I recommend this transalation/interpretation as an all-round good rendition.However,there are several other (entirley different ) styles of English translation ranging from King James English to near-current day English translations. All versions give different shades of emphasis on the original Arabic text.( E.g. Aberry , Pickthall, Asad ,Haleem, G.Sale's etc...... to name a few)
There is a great British Tradition in appreciating the Koran:
1. The first ever translation from English direct From Arabic was by the London Lawyer George Sales in 1734 ( with a fabulous 'preliminary discourse' giving the History and background detail...download a free copy from www.manybooks.net !)
2. Marmaduke Pickthall - another Englishman whose translation is now a standard.
3. Arthur J Aberry - Professor of Arabic , Cambride University. Also a standard work.
4. John Penrice - An East Anglian based English Scholar of Arabic who , as far as I am aware has produced one of the best ever 'Dictionary and Glossary of the th Koran' - highly recommended for those who want to understand the original lanugauge of the 7th Century Arabia.
5. Karen Armstrong - an ex-Roman Catholic Nun ,graduate of Oxford University and author of extremely informative historical , popular text ( e.g. A History of God, Islam, a short History and Muhammad , a biography of the Prophet etc..).Her views are balanced and informative, and a good general background read to set the scene for the Koran and its proper interpretation.
6. Michael H Hart 'The 100:A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History' placed Muhammad at first place.Why ? Answer:Read for yourself. The Key of course is.. The Koran.
Finally - I think any reader who wants to read this translation ,provided he is properly prepared and informed will gain a great deal from Yusuf Ali's excellent translation of a very complex and intellectually stimulating , emotionally stirring and fabulously acclaimed Arabic Book.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Three Best Translations
Review: This seems to be one of three of the most accurate and complete translations (together with Shakir and Pickthal) based on the fact that the Islamic Monitor utilizes them because the Muslim Students' Association at University of Southern California uses these three. You can actually compare these translations at http://www.geocities.com/islamic_monitor/, which provides translations of selected texts side by side in making their points about Islam. If you are trying to learn about Islam and determine for yourself whether or not Islam is really a "religion of peace" compatible with a tolerant & free democracy, I would suggest, in addition to consulting the above link, that you also hear what ex-Muslims have to say about Islam at http://www.faithfreedom.org/ , especially if you don't have time for pouring over the entire Qur'an. This site, like the one above, points out the important relevant passages in the Qur'an that will answer your questions (see for instance the citations at http://www.faithfreedom.org/faq.htm ,Questions # 7 and # 21, and check out the photo Gallery).
Rating:
Summary: Most Authentic
Review: This translation is considered the most authentic by Muslim scholars. It is the one that is supported by the government of Saudi Arabia and is most widely read by English-speaking Muslims. A translation of the Qur'an can never fully transmit the meaning or reflect the beauty of the original text. But the reality is that many people who seek to understand the message of the Qur'an will not be able to learn Arabic. It should be kept in mind that though the Arabic word may have multiple meanings, only one of those meanings gets translated to English (imagine what would happen to one of Shakespeare's puns if it was traslated to Arabic). But for English-speakers, this is the best option (though Mohammad Asad's translation is also very respected). The caveat is that to truly understand the Qur'an, it is important to read not only the text itself, but to understand it in context of the time it was revealed. Though Muslims consider the Qur'an to be timeless, many passages relate specifically to events occuring in the prophet's life or in the young Muslim community.
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