Use it together with Arberry's translation
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The Quran is both a sacred text and a supreme work of Arabic poetry. This puts the translator in a dilemma: To convey the religious teaching, the text needs to be rendered into modern prose, which loses the poetry. To convey the poetry, one must render the text as a poem in modern language, which then tends to obscure the religious teaching. Neither approach can fully translate the original.
Abdel Haleem's translation is a masterful rendition into modern English prose. For rendition as modern English poetry, Arberry's translation for OUP is arguably the best. If you want to understand the Quran in English, your best bet IMO is to use Abdel Haleem AND Arberry.
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Revolutionary translation, very clear, straightforward and understandable
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The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics) by M.A. Abdel Haleem (translator) is simply the best version of the Qur'an available to the English speaking world today.
It uses modern English and does not attempt to copy the old English of the King James bible (which most English translations of the Qur'an attempt to copy). Furthermore, the translator (Abdel Haleem) understands that the sentence structure of Arabic and English is different and translating the text word for word will make it incomprehensible, an example would be the Arabic verse "Jannatun tajri min tahtiha al-anhaar", which if translated word for word into English would look something like this "Gardens under which rivers flow" which (once translated into English) gives the impression that the rivers are flowing underground. However in Arabic it simply means "Gardens graced with flowing rivers", even though it says "tahtiha", which literally means "under it", however because of the certain sentence structure of Arabic it simply means "Gardens graced with flowing rivers", the translator realised this and did not fall for this trap.
This translation also has the verses following in succession which preserves the smooth flow of the Arabic and does not have the verses one under the other which breaks up the flow. Morever the footnotes are only there when necessary and when the text becomes unclear to people who do not know the historical context of the verse and/or the meaning, the footnotes are also informative and will be useful for intellectuals and/or people who want to study the Quran, not just read it. The font is also perfect, not too big, not too small.
Overall a pleasure to read. This stays true to the original Arabic (even though it can in no way be as beautiful or as powerful as the Arabic Qur'an, which is divine) and is a must have for anybody interested in understanding the very pinnacle of Islam, the Qur'an and/or for anybody who is a Muslim but is put off by the other unclear and over explained other translations.
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Easy to read and understand
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This was the 2nd copy of a English translation of the Quran and I found it really easy to read and understand. I found other transslations of the Quran hard to understand as they were written in old English but this one is written in moden English so easyer for me to read and understand.
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Very Well Written Book
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I come to this book as a non-muslim but interested in knowing about the religion. Having browsed a few translations in book shops I ordered this version based on the reviews here. Not being able to compare it to any other translations all I can say it was an excellent read and the notes prior to each chapter were very useful.
If your looking for a copy of the Qur'an to read this is the one.
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The best trnslation available
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This is a book which should appeal both to English speaking Moslems, and to those who are not Moslems but have a desire to discover the truth about other religions an cultures.
There have been several tranlations, but the best aspect of this translation is the language. It is very easy to understand for those of a non-arabic background. It is very simple and uses day-to-day English.
While many of the other tranlations of the Qu'ran that have been published in the past seem to be a "pigeon" form of biblical English, the language here is fresh, vivid and immediately applicable to the modern age.
The book carries a very useful introduction section, which will be invaluable for those who have not received previous tuition in Islam. The introduction sets the scene for the different historical aspects of the main text, so enabling the reader to understand the true meaning of what is being said.
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