I don't want to turn this into a huge post about what I think of the additional brackets and footnotes that are often put into the English copies of the Quran containing so-called "necessary" extra information. But I do want to remind you that these brackets are not the word of Allah (SWT) and should not be taken as devine text. If you can't read Arabic and have to rely on the translations, I urge you to read the translations with the bracket text omitted at least once so that maybe you can draw your own conclusions from the ayat. I know that the Quran has one overall message but it has many thousands in the ayat and I do not believe that their meanings should be changed in anyway, shape or form.
The Quran is for everyone, from the simple to the extremely intelligent and from all walks of life and everyone interprets it slightly differently according to what they have been through in life, how they think etc. This is why I truly believe it's of utmost importance for everybody to be able to find their own messages and meanings in the holy words of Allah (SWT) and in His words only without being confused by brackets and "extra information".
I would also recommend those of you who cannot read Arabic, to learn if you have some spare time. There is nothing like reading the Quran in it's original language.
I know this is kind of an obvious thing to be writing about but I really feel strongly about it and I think it's an important thing to share with you all.
2 comments:
I know this is an old post but maybe someone will see this comment. I felt frustrated reading versions of the English quran with brackets because I really felt like they interrupted the flow of the reading and I just wanted to read the quran alone and make my own conclusions, not just read someone else's you know?
I just wanted to share two resources I found:
http://www.free-minds.org/quran/
this is a good English translation and it appears that the translator really put effort into keeping it as close to Arabic as possible.
http://quran.com/
you can view several English versions of the entire quran together at the same time. It is nice for cross referencing.
Assalamu alaykum sis, this is another good one www.quranexplorer.com btw,im in love with ur blog!!! keep it up plz :)
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