URDU translations of Quran began quite late as compared to Quran’s translations into European languages: Robert of Ketton, also known as Rodbertus Ketenensis, translated Quran into Latin in 1143, says Punjab University’s 23-volume Urdu Encyclopaedia of Islam. The Library of the Arsenal, Paris, holds a manuscript of this Latin translation. Published from Basle in 1543, it is full of errors and bias, wrote Prof A. J. Arberry in his intro to The Koran Interpreted.
In 1647, Andre du Ryer translated Quran into French. It is the earliest known French translation and two years later Alexander Ross translated it from French into English. But these translations, and some others in European languages, were not free from bias and, as put by Urdu Encyclopaedia of Islam, many western scholars, including Gibbon and Carlyle, had formed their views on Islam on the basis of these translations. Aside from a few lapses, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s English translation of Quran is considered much better. As for French translations of Quran, scholars speak highly of Muhammad Hameedullah’s translation.
As compared to western languages, the earliest manuscripts of Quran’s Urdu translations do not date back beyond the onset of the 18th century or, at the most, the end of the 17th century.
One of the reasons why Quran’s translations in European languages were rendered earlier than Urdu is that these languages are much older than Urdu. Quran’s translations into Latin, French and English had been carried out before Urdu’s standard dialect began to take shape. In the beginning, some surahs (chapters) of Quran or their portions thereof were translated into Urdu and the earliest such partial translation is in a language dubbed as “old, Dakkani Urdu”.
According to Dr Sualeha Abdul Hakeem Sharafuddin, a manuscript in four volumes is housed at Kutub Khana-i-Aasfiya (State Central Library, Hyderabad, India), which was handwritten in 1087 Hijri, or 1687-88 AD. This is a tafseer (exegesis) with translation. Though Moulvi Abdul Haq had doubts about its year of calligraphy, Dr Sualeha in her book Quran-i-Hakeem Ke Urdu Tarajim’ (Qadeemi Kutub Khana, Karachi, year not mentioned) has proved that it is as old as 1687-88.
When it comes to the earliest Urdu translation of Quran in its entirety, it is Shah Abdul Qadir’s Mauzah-i-Quran, penned in 1205 Hijri, or 1790-91 AD. But it took quite some time to appear in print and was first published in 1829.
A large number of bibliographies of translations of Quran into different languages have been published and can be searched online as well. Islamabad’s National Language Authority, now National Language Promotion Department (NLPD), had published in 1987 a bibliography of Urdu’s published Quranic translations. Titled Quran-i-Kareem Ke Urdu Tarajim’ and compiled by Dr Ahmed Khan, it had listed 1,011 Urdu translations of Quran and included translations of both the entire Quran and parts thereof.
Dr Ahmed Khan had worked hard to compile that list. But it was a bibliography of published Urdu translations only and about 200 Urdu translations of Quran, either in toto or in part, have remained unpublished so far for one reason or the other. Now Dr Ahmed Khan has come up with another bibliography, in fact the second part of his work. It lists manuscripts of Quran’s Urdu translations that are treasured in different libraries or museums around the world and most of them have remained unpublished. It also mentions some manuscripts of the works that have been published.
This second part has three sections and each has a descriptive note that gives essential data on the manuscript, for instance, name of the translator, year when calligraphy completed, name of the calligrapher, place where calligraphy was done, first and last lines of the manuscript, the script or font (such as naskh or nasta’leeq), the physical state of the manuscript, the name of library, archive or museum where the manuscript is held and the source from where these pieces of information have been gathered.
The first section lists the manuscripts of Urdu translations of Quran that are held in Pakistan. It has 74 entries. The second section gives details of 119 manuscripts in Indian repositories and the last has named 16 manuscripts of Urdu translations of Quran that are in Egypt, Iran and the UK. Some of the manuscripts preserved in the UK are in fact mentioned in the catalogue of Urdu books in the India Office Library, prepared by famous scholar J.F. Blumhardt.
The NLPD has also reprinted the first volume of the bibliography that has been out of print for quite long. Dr Ahmed Khan had been engaged with researching and cataloguing of Arabic manuscripts for about half a century and he intends to revise and update the present two volumes.
Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2023
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