Sublime Quran Pocket Size Paperback – April 1, 2009

This is a heavy, substantial paperback with a gorgeous cover. More importantly, it's the first translation of the Quran done by an American Muslim woman. Context always matters, and this is a great alternative to the sometimes harsh translations written and edited by men. One example to illustrate the difference: Qurans translated by men often translate a certain verse to sanction men beating their wives, despite the fact that everything else in the greater body of Islamic teachings seems to strongly discourage anyone lifting a hand against anyone. Ever. Laleh Bakhtiar, however, uses her knowledge of classical Arabic and translates that word in that particular verse as "explain," which has the effect of making the meaning of hte verse that if a wife disagrees with her husband's position, the husband should "explain" his position to her, which makes a hell of a lot more sense than that he should "beat" her.And yet, somehow, this is controversial. Despite the fact that the word can be translated just as validly as "explain," and to say nothing of how that fits in far better with the greater message of Islam than "Hey, yeah, go ahead and beat your wives if they disagree with you, that's cool." Um, no.I'd recommend this as a solid addition to any collection of religious books. It sits on my shelf next to my copy of the Old Testament and my Muhammad Asad translation/tafsir of the Quran.

Book functions as intended.

It took me time to find this but when I did I was lucky since it is a good translation for someone whose native language is English and compares in its content to other translations as well as the tone overall it's complicated to find a translation that is the best one for me but I have compared to other translations and really felt like this one would be the best version for me to have laying around anyway so it would be as fair as I could have a translation be if a neighbor happened to pick it up or someone then I wouldn't have to worry about it so going to go for rating this one 4 or 5 I can stay confident here in case it is read by someone other than myself.

this English translation helped to understand the perspective of anothers religion.

I needed this spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Helped reconnect with my faith, cleanse my childhood trauma, and strengthen my aura. Translating often has many meanings, reading from a woman's version is much more refreshing. For Gen-Z muslims or those who are interested in general, this is a good buy. And remember, in the eyes of God you are all loved. NO MATTER WHAT. Don't buy into misogyny, cultural beliefs, media, and etc. Your culture is not your religion/faith. Your relationship with earth, animals, humans, the air, your wellbeing, and the unknown is religion. It's not restricting or filled with double-standards. The hypocrisy is from colonization and extremism, no religion/faith is ever bad. It's people who make it look bad. You are beautiful, you are strong, and you can do this!

This is my third Qur'an and by far my favorite. It is written formally, compared to other translations that strive for readability. I find this more appropriate for a religious text. The text is broken down into phrases and centered, which makes reading and understanding much easier. Also, the text is large and very readable. It makes the book bigger but the weight is well worth it.Rather than the traditional start at the beginning and go to the end approach, Laleh Bakhtiar used the "formal equivalence" technique. That means translating each word on its own, and then putting it all together. Bakhtiar found over 3,600 Arabic verbs and nouns, which translated into over 5,800 unique English equivalents. This results in a much more accurate and consistent translation.

First I would love to start with the positive aspects of this book. First, the cover is pretty, very, very pretty with lots of rust covered flowers on both the front and back cover. Very nice. Then the text of the Koran looks lovely being center justified, with reasonably appropriate breaks to help the reader understand particular phrases, and if the book is read aloud during a service, these breaks help the lecturer tremendously. (There is NOTHING more painful that having to listen to someone read Scripture aloud and listing to inappropriate breaks and pauses). The font size is larger for us older folk-love that, no reading glasses. And she softens quite a few inflammatory phrases in former translations, eg, the concept of hell is changed to "terrible punishment"--Great ideas. But she doesn't soften everything, and she could do more of that, perhaps a whole lot more, the book in many translations comes of a bit too harsh and acerbic.More good phrases: 2.43 "purifying alms" : 2.89 "infidels" and "unbelievers" are now just "ungrateful ones"; 2.149 committing (acts of ) aggression is wrongOkay, now I'm going to apologize for being a mouthy challenging chick in advance, but here goes. Now for the stuff she could have softened. For example, we don't need "Satan," we don't need to say in 3.10 that the ungrateful will be "fuel for the fire," nor do we need "Godfearing"-fear is the psychological opposite of love and we should love God instead; 2.10 God puts sickness in some hearts? Come on, God does not make anyone heart's sick, we do that quite well all by ourselves; 2.39 "companions of fire"; 2.54 the One who "kills your souls"; 2.89 "curse of God"? How is that? God is supposed to be pure love and light? 2.135: don't need to trash polytheists; 2.165 God is severe in punishment? 3.174 "putting fire into bellies"; 2.714 can't one love God and do all those things anyway? 2.222 menstruation is clearly NOT an impurity. Menstruation is a blessing, etc.Further her English can be is esoteric and archaic. Tough words and terms making the text unsuitable for anyone without a graduate degree: "circumambulate" (why not just walk around something?) 2.125; viceregent (officer). I think viceregent is British. "Disputation", why not just disputes?2.21 "marry not the ones that are female polythesists" clearly unclear. does this mean they worship multiple goddesses, or that they are women worshiping multiple deities (both male and female). 2.260 what is this "twist the birds" stuff; should be "kill four birds".However, in her all consuming quest for an "accurate translation" we get some funny phrases, "our hearts are encased" 2.88 okay, is that like Kayopak?; 2.236 when divorcing a woman, make provisions for him (sic) according to his (sic) needs? Hmmm, could have rephrased that one.Now for the portions of the book that really need improvement. I have absolutely no idea where the concept came from that a translation of a book had to conform soooo closely to the "best possible English word" that it is acceptable for poor, bad or inadequate grammar to be used, but somehow Ms. Bakhtiar and the other "biggie" translators of the Koran (Yusef Ali, Pickthal, Shakir, Sale, etc.) came to that conclusion and have mangled this lovely book up. It is infuriating to the reader to have to stop constantly and think about what is really being said with such a system, and it takes soooo much longer to read the text and when one attempts to "translate" or "interpret" English in such a rigorous mathematical formula, the entire meaning falls apart, regardless, and the reader has no idea what is actually meant by the particular phrase in many, many instances, and in such a case, the reading of the book turns into a time waster. Go ahead and check out some of the Koran side by side translation websites and you will see what I mean. I'm sorry, but my brain hurts when I have to wade through bad or poor English grammar and I don't like my time being wasted by reading verses that don't make any sense and have no meaning.I'm sorry if my anger is showing through, but Ms. Bakhtiar is obvious an extremely intelligent woman, her Preface starting on page xli is written in beautifully flowing language thru page lv, and that's an entire nine pages (if you don't understand roman numeral gibberish). But her normal writing is all done quite well, so I know she can do this.But then she gets to the actual Koran and everything falls apart. For example1) 1.7 "guide us to the straight path...not ones against whom you are angry" should read "not the path of those persons You are angry with" or "not the path chosen (or followed) by persons You are angry with"2) 2.3 "the ones who perform the formal prayer" should read "the ones who perform their formal prayers" or "special prayers". (Maybe this is not a great example, but I have no idea what "the formal prayer" is, and maybe just "special prayers" or "frequent prayer" could suffice anyway).3) 2.4 "those who believe in what was sent forth to you"-what does that mean? I think she means "Scripture" but this should then read "those who believe in the Scripture which was sent before."4) 2.6 "those who are on a guidance from their Lord"-what? No one ever says "those who are on a guidance." One might be "directed by" or "guided by" another person or "their Lord," but no one is "on a guidance," at least if they are writing proper English.5) 2.11 "make not corruption in and on the earth" should read "do not engage in corruption in and on the earth". She's always "making corruption", but this is an improper phrase....and so this book continues on and on, with page after tedious page of improper English. Because the English in this book is so poor, I would not recommend it as a beginner's Koran. It is much more suited to someone that has already read a few versions of the Koran, and esp. ones with footnotes that can explain some of the esoteric nuances of the Arab stories and culture. With good footnotes the Koran makes a whole lot more sense and the stories become a whole lot more fun.So, please, please, Ms. Bahktiar, we are begging you, go back through your book and rephrase all of these clauses into something which reads in proper English and has a clear meaning. And, we your readers, really don't care if you choose a meaning to make this book readable, we all know this is a translation or an interpretation, we are just looking for your clear, well worded opinion of the Koran. No translation of an archaic text is ever going to be accomplished with a mathematical formula, and there are no litmus tests in translating and interpreting another language, so we know we are looking for you opinion and guidance. But we your reading public who love and adore Scripture, want to read something beautiful and flowing, in excellent English, which is loving and comforting. Further I would LOVE to see your footnotes about what the stories mean. Can you get us a version that is like that? Maybe even up on LuLu dot com and then leave us a note here?Your language in the preface was beautiful and flowing. Now how about continuing that throughout the book.Some other thoughts: How about some quote marks? Quote marks really help the reader to understand when someone starts and stops talking.And finally just a few comments on this being a "feminist Koran." No, it clearly is not. At some length in the initial pages, the author goes on about how some word might or might not mean "to beat" your spouse, but I mean really, who cares? Just take it out or change it to something reasonable, and make it apply to both husbands and wives, but a true feminist wouldn't even go there. The author concludes it really means to banish a wife from your bed, but how much better is that? Is it better to ask a guy "how much and how hard do you beat your wife?" or "when do you make her sleep on the couch when you're mad at her?" Both statements would be considered highly dysfunction to any modern certified therapist, and to continue or even suggest such mental abuse is completely inappropriate. Best is "work out your differences, and don't go to bed angry." That's what a true feminist would change it to. (For a truly feminist Koran, I recommend Korana of Mother Goddess).But please, Ms. Bakhtiar, do NOT get discouraged by my comments in any manner; what you did was a fine piece of work and you should feel proud of this accomplishment. Now just think about tweaking it a bit for us folk that like to read the Koran with pretty, flowing, meaningful English. What you need to do is think outside of the box and realize that just cuz a bunch of men used poor, improper English in the past to translate this book and lamely claimed they were just "trying to be highly accurate," doesn't mean you have to. I mean, you're a woman and you therefore automatically have been imbued with the capabilities and talents to far outshine them!