Farid closed the book. "We have not made a beautiful Quran. We have made a faithful skeleton. Let the poets dress it in silk. But let the seeker first touch the bone."
In the dim light of his study, surrounded by leather-bound lexicons and stacks of parchment, old Farid embarked on a task that had been whispered about in scholarly circles for decades: a word-for-word English translation of the Quran. word to word translation of quran in english
For three years they worked.
"See here," he said. Most translations say: 'All praise is due to Allah.' "But the Arabic says: AlHamdu Lillahi. AlHamdu = The praise (all of it, every kind, exclusive). Lillahi = For/belongs to Allah (alone)." Farid closed the book