This paper pinpoints the important role that Qur’an translations have played in forming the image of Islam past and present. This importance has remarkably increased in the aftermath of 9/11 with the unprecedented curiosity to know about Islam by reading its very revealed Book. As Thomas Cleary, a non-Muslim Qur’an translator mentions, Qur’an translations are supposed to provide “an authentic point of reference from which to examine the biased stereotypes of Islam to which Westerners are habitually exposed.” However, unfortunately, most of these translations have not fulfilled this function. They either fail to give a precise image of Islam or rather give a negative distorted one.
In the aftermath of the events of 9/11, there was a boom in the sales of Qur’an translations. For instance, according to Mustafa Maher, about six million translations were sold in Germany (as cited in Abdul Aal, February 5, 2006, p. 64). Similarly, in Israel, Muhammad Mahmoud Abu Ghadeer indicates that bookstores ran out of their Qur’an translation stock (as cited in Abdel Aal, January 29, 2006, p. 79). In this era, Qur’an translations have become far more crucial than any time before. Apart from their essentiality to non-Arabic speaking Muslims, they represent the primary source of information and the major recourse for the non-Muslims who are curious to pursue familiarity with Islam through first-hand knowledge instead of simply “imbibing received opinions and attitudes without individual thought and reflection”, as Thomas Cleary (1993) puts it (p. X). The role of such translations is gravely serious in formulating recipients’ opinion about Islam.
