Literary notes Quran's Urdu translations, published and unpublished.

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...