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Abdullah Yusuf Ali, the translator of the Holy Qur’an into English
Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On April 14, 1872 AD, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, the translator of the holy Qur’an into English, was born in Bombay to an India merchant family. He received a religious education and went on to memorize the entire Qur'an. He learned Arabic and studied English literature during his education at several European universities, including the University of Leeds in the UK.
His best-known work is “The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary”, published in 1938 by Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf Publishers in Lahore, India (later Pakistan). Unfortunately, in the later, revised editions of this book, the author’s notes on the exclusive God-given virtues of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) – Imam Ali (AS), Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS) – have been removed by the publishers, including those pertaining to ayah 107 of Surah Saffat, where Abdullah Yusuf Ali had explicitly mentioned in his original work while explaining the term “Zibhin Azim” (Great Sacrifice) that ransomed Abraham’s offering of Ishmael.
He wrote: “This was the type of service which Imam Husain (AS) performed, many years later in 60 AH, as I have noted in a separate pamphlet.” This and similar remarks by Abdullah Yusuf Ali regarding the merits of the Ahl al-Bayt have long been erased and are not found in the distorted editions of his work that are available today.
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