I have a group of sisters who gets together twice a week to recite the Quran and read the translations. Most of them have been averted from reading the English translations because the English was classic and most find it difficult to understand.
In my aim to gently introduce and encourage them to at least have a rough idea of what Allaah SWT is saying in the Quran, I tried to find a simple English translation of the Quran - that would not scare them away. I found on the internet, The Clear Quran, by Talal Itani.
I read his biography (About ClearQuran - About Talal Itani) - and understood that he is not an Islamic scholar - but for many years learned the Quran through various English translations. His objective was basically to translate the Quran into simpler English that would be accessible to more modern people. He explained that he did not intend to do a tafsir on it or give his understanding of it - but only to translate the words and sentences to the best of his knowledge.
I have the same thoughts and feelings about reading the various English translations of the Quran, where some translator put more words in brackets, perhaps to ease understanding - however some of them may lead a person to restrict the understanding of the Quranic ayat in only that specific way, the translator thinks. May Allaah reward ALL of their efforts of trying to let people understand a bit of the message of the Quran.
The Quran itself is a miracle and Allaah is The Most Subtle, very detailed. Every fallen leaf on this earth, is in a Clear Record. Nothing is accidental or missed out in the Quran. If it is there or not there, there is a reason, or if the words may lead to multiple intepretations - there is a hikmah. Allaah knows best.
So, back to the translation - one of the sisters tried to find out more about the translation and came across a feedback on Quora, which was quite strongly against this translation.
The feedback on quora regarding this translation - he mentioned 'serious errors' and 'going against Islamic creed and aqidah', then he went on to quote - what I believe is to him, a very good example of a 'great error' - which is 'use the shrine of Abraham as a place of prayer'. 2:125
Other translators have indicated use the place where Abraham stood, as a place of prayer, or 'where Abraham stand'.
Perhaps the person giving feedback, was affected by our common usage of the word shrine - which almost always refers to a grave. However, that is not so. If we look up the dictionary, the word shrine simply means a place regarded as holy because of it's associations with divinity or a sacred person, marked by a building or other construction.
Maybe his choice of word used in this instance, is scaring some people, but it's not utterly wrong.
That ayat does refer to a place where Abraham A.S. stood and we are asked to do 2 rakaat prayer after tawaf there, near the Kaabah.
So based on only that example, so far.. i don't see him as having greatly deviated.
Also, if we are in doubt about the translations, we can always refer back to the various translations and the arabic text or corpus, that explains the word. As he mentioned also, this is not an exegisis or tafsir - it's just a translation from the Arabic, as is. If we want to find out more - we can read the tafsir or ask a scholar.
AND on top of all that - as in ALL translations, we have to bear in mind, that it is not THE word of Allaah. This is their translations, to their understandings, in their words - of what Allaah said in Arabic.
So we always have to read any translations with a pinch of salt.
Update / Sep 2021
We are almost half way through reading the Quran and Talal Atani's translations. Perhaps because I have read other translations (Asad, Yusuf Ali, Pickthall, Sahih etc), there are some areas, although the meanings may not be too off, for choice of words, but I do get the feeling of it having less weight. A matter of personal feel.
There is one place, where the word Jin is used in Arabic, but he chose to use the word devil, and he used the word Gehenna, to translate Jahannam (Hell), which I personally will read as Jahannam or Hell, in translation. So far those are the two things that I'm not comfortable with.
We are continuing with his translation, but I sometimes have the desire that we go back to using the Sahih translations. We'll see how.
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