The Qur’an: A New Translation
By Tarif Khalidi
Penguin Classics £25, 560 pages
FT Bookshop price: £20

There was a time when an attempt to translate the Qur’an into any language was regarded as blasphemy. As the direct word of God, revealed to the Prophet Mohammed through the archangel Gabriel, the Qur’an was considered untranslatable. No matter how capable and sincere the scholar, it was thought that no translation could capture the grandeur and beauty of the original Arabic.