An Overview of English Translations of the Holy Qur’ān by Women

Abstract

This paper focuses on women's participation in the translation of the Holy Qur’ān ‎into English. A diminutive history of Qur’ānic translations and commentaries written by ‎women in different languages has been shared. In addition to it, six women translators have ‎been selected for this study who have rendered the Holy Qur’ān into English. These six translators ‎ belong to different regions of the world. One translator is Aḥmadī ‎and others represent different sects of ‎Islam, including Sunni, Shia and Sufism. The main purpose of this study is to present some ‎biographical data of selected women translators and an overview of their Qur’ānic ‎renderings. These translators can be divided into two groups: the first group contains translators who ‎have translated the Holy Qur’ān in collaboration with other male partners. They are Amatul Raẖmân ‎Omar, Samira Ahmed, and Aisha Bewley. The second group involves women who have ‎rendered the Holy Qur’ān individually, namely Umm Muhammad, Tahereh Saffarzadeh, and ‎Laleh Bakhtiar. However, in this study, the introductions of these women and their translations have been given according to the chronological order of publication of their translations.