Talk:Qur'an
Peace onto you,
I am an ordinary muslim and concerned about one issue that I think is very delicate. It is about editing the Qur-an.
First, I am no scholar so please excuse my amateur writing and lack of supporting material.
('According to Muslim belief') The Quran is the word of God Al-Mighty, the essence of its last message to Humanity. Thus, it is most important. God has promised to protect it from corruption. "015.009 We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption)."
Nevertheless, muslims have immediately (and continuously) put forth effort to protect Quran from corruption, that by proceeding to the compilation of the text and by learning it by-heart (synonyme of to guard/preserve in arabic).
Wikisource's initiative to provide an online copy of the Quranic text is to my opinion a very welcome effort to let the word of God be known to many people thanks to the internet technology. However, the other side of it is that any one (intentionally or not) can edit the text and thus may corrupt the word of God.
I would like to request, if possible, to limit editing of the actual text of the Quran to trusted administrators; if not possible, at least a disclaimer clarifying the above matter.
Thank you for your time. Looking forward to it,
All thanks to God. Al-Mighty, testify that I have transmitted.
- And peace upon you.
- I understand your apprehensions with leaving the Quran so freely editable, since many people turn to sources such as ours to find texts, and would be dismayed or misled if a vandal decided to change the wording. However, Wikisource policy is only to protect pages from open editing once we are certain that they are "absolute" - something that is going to be unlikely any time soon with a text the size of the Quran.
- From a secular perspective, we would run an equal risk of saying "This is absolute" and presenting a text that still has errors in it, and at least now we are able to forewarn readers, by not allaying their natural healthy skepticism of any passages that appear "suspect". You'll notice our text even prefaces by stating that this is not accurate or sacred, as it has been translated from the original Arabic.
- From a religious perspective, the sacred Word of God was revealed in Arabic, and only the Arabic text is "absolute", and English (or otherwise) translation is naturally flawed because it has been written with the mind of Man, not God. You might be interested to read the Wikipedia article w:Translation of the Qur'an. The Arabic text of the Quran is hosted at ar:أَلْقُرآن أَلْكَرِيم, but unfortunately it also is in a state of incompleteness - which is why we cannot yet protect that work. Once that original Arabic text is faithfully transcribed to the Arabic wikisource, it will most definitely be protected from editing by all but a few trusted Arabic administrators.
- As you say, God himself has charged that he will protect the scriptures from being corrupted (as a point of interest, this is also fundamental to Christians, as God makes the same promise in Matthew 5:18) - this does not mean that God, or we, are obligated to watch every website to make sure no vandal or hacker ever damages a translation of the Quran, I have always taken it to mean that He, and we, are obligated to protect people from studying incorrectly from an incorrect or vandalised copy of the Quran. And I'm glad to say that although it will never be impossible for somebody to vandalise an online translation, that I have never seen an example of this disrespect on Wikisource - and there are many people who watch vigilantly for it, and would immediately revert it as soon as it was done. Sherurcij (talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 03:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Sources
[edit]| Information about this edition | |
|---|---|
| Source: | http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16955 |
- http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/cmt/resources/Quran/
- http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/koran/browse.html
George Sale edition
[edit]- Originally posted by Jeepday to WS:COPYVIO
The Koran: Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed; Translated Into English Immediately from the Original Arabic, with Explanatory Notes, Taken from the Most Approved Commentators. To which is Prefixed a Preliminary Discourse, by George Sale ... 6th Ed., with a Memoir of the Translator, and with ... By George Sale, Savary (Claude Etienne), Claude Étienne Savary, Richard Alfred Davenport Translated by George Sale Published by J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1871 Original from the New York Public Library Digitized Apr 14, 2008 650 pages [1]
Publish in 1871 by w:J. B. Lippincott & Co. an American publishing house founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it does not get anymore PD then that. Jeepday (talk) 23:20, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
- I cant access that Google Book, however it looks like there are similar editions on archive.org. Project Gutenberg also appears in that archive.org search, but that is because there is a comment which suggests readers instead view Project Gutenberg, which is the Sale translation! So we have another text we can put online quickly. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)