THE QURAN, a book which brings glad tidings to mankind along with divine admonition, stresses the importance of man’s discovery of truth on both spiritual and intellectual planes.
Every book has its objective and the objective of the Quran is to make man aware of the Creation plan of God. That is, to tell man why God created this world; what the purpose is of settling man on earth; what is required from man in his pre-death life span, and what he is going to confront after death. The purpose of the Quran is to make man aware of this reality, thus serving to guide man on his entire journey through life into the after-life.
The main themes of the Quran are enlightenment, closeness to God, peace and spirituality. The Quran uses several terms, tawassum, tadabbur, and tafakkur, which indicate the learning of lessons through reflection, thinking and contemplation on the signs of God scattered across the world. The present translation of the Quran has been done keeping in mind these very themes.
MAULANA WAHIDUDDIN KHAN, born in 1925 at Azamgarh in India, is an Islamic spiritual scholar who is well versed in both classical Islamic learning and modern science. The mission of his life from a very early stage has been the establishment of world-wide peace. To this end he has devoted much time and effort to the development of a complete ideology of peace and non-violence based on the teachings of the Quran. In the course of his research, the Maulana came to the conclusion that the need of the hour was to present Islamic teachings in the style and language of the present day. Keeping this ideal consistently before him, he has written over 200 books on Islam. In 1983, he wrote a commentary on the Quran, the Arabic version of which was published by Darel Wafa, Cairo as al-Tadhkir al-Qawim fi Tafsir al-Quran al-Hakim. To cater to inquisitive minds and the needs of the spiritually inclined, the Maulana established at New Delhi in 2001 the Centre for Peace and Spirituality. His most recent publications are, The Ideology of Peace, God Arises and Muhammad, the Prophet for All Humanity.
FARIDA KHANAM, the daughter of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies. She is currently an associate professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University at New Delhi. She has written and translated a number of books on Islam.
THE QURAN Translated by MAULANA WAHIDUDDIN KHAN Edited by FARIDA KHANAM GOODWORD BOOKSGOODWORD’S QURAN PROJECT The Quran is the word of God and it is the duty of believers to communicate the message of the Quran to all human beings so that they may know the reality of life. To facilitate this good work, Goodword Books has produced this English translation of the Quran, so that it may be distributed on a mass scale.