Before I begin this post, I would like to reiterate a thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. Often times when I attempt to write on this forum I become bogged down with a mixture of too much info and my own dysfunctional processes. I enjoyed everyones input and I am still sifting through the info I received. My next post might be my "profile" but I am see-sawing on this aspect.

So, to my main inquiry. I was given the Quran by a fellow student at my school (University of Minnesota) and I am wondering what is considered the "most accurate" version of the Quran? Specifically, what translators are most straight forward with their interpretation? (I hope I am framing this question correctly)

The one I was given was translated by Professor (Dr.) Syed Vickar Ahamed and approved by the Islamic Research Academy and PUSAT ISLAM. I do not want to convert to this religion. I just want the most "accurate" primary literature.

P.S. I would like to add that I have been out of the church for 5+ years (the plus comes from my doubts ever since childhood)...

You probably already know this, but it's considered "doctrine" among Muslims that all translations are flawed, and that you can only "truly" understand the Quran and its message by reading it in the original Arabic. Only in Arabic is it considered miraculous and perfect.

That said...for English, my Muslim friends recommend the 2009 Maulana Wahiduddin Khan translation titled "The Quran: Translation and Commentary with Parallel Arabic Text."

It's the one they give to English speakers, for the most part. Having the parallel Arabic text (even if you can't read it) is considered very important to them.

It's best read out loud in Klingon.

My Muslim friends attest that this is indeed the case.

A few years ago while overseas -- long story omitted -- I had a conversation with a nice teenage Afghan girl who had learned decent English but had never lived in a place that wasn't one thousand percent Muslim. She asked if she could ask me a question about the Bible, and I said I'd try. She asked me: "Isn't it true that your holy book says that the Prophet Muhammad would come as the final messenger of Allah?"

I said, no, that wasn't in there to my knowledge, which surprised her. She had been taught this by an Islamic Religion teacher in school. Needless to say, it's illegal to own or import a Bible in Afghanistan, so who can check facts like this? The Internet isn't widely available. For all I know, her religion teacher at school completely believed it and learned it from some other authority figure. Millions of them must believe it over there. It seems like it would be another reason to despise Christians -- that despite the Prophet, peace be upon him, being foretold in our own scriptures, we were and are so stiff-necked and hard-headed that we keep on resisting the truth and fighting the One True Faith.

Anyway, I think you're best served as a beginner by a very good English translation by somebody who is equally a master of Quran Arabic (unchanged since the 7th Century and considerably different from Modern Standard Arabic or the oral dialects) and English. Clearly you don't need the parallel Arabic text, which is difficult even for Arabs now to read unless they have been trained in it. Naturally, because no translation or "updated Arabic version" has any authority, and images of all kinds are haram, forbidden, Islam has made a fetish of the written words, all that's left to look at.

For your purposes as an absolute beginner I'd recommend "The Quran" translated by Professor M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, an Egyptian Islamic scholar who has lived in England for many years and is (may be retired now) a senior faculty member at the elite "School of Oriental and Asian Studies," in London. It's published by Oxford University Press and has the normal splendid OUP array of introduction and notes and background material for non-Muslim readers especially. I checked and you can buy it new on Amazon for less than seven bucks plus shipping, or all over the place.

It's an interesting book for people like us. Certain tales and legends from the Bible turn up but in what seem weirdly different adaptations, based (I suspect) on what the illiterate Prophet remembered from stories he'd been told by Christians and Jews, who were then all around his still "pagan" homeland. Also, there's no chronological aspect, as if the BoM and the D&C had been mashed up together. The early Muslims who compiled the Quran long after M's death (from memorized passages by many followers) adopted the simple strategy of beginning with the longest Surah (chapter), which is many pages long, and working back so that the shortest Surah, just a couple of paragraphs, is at the end.

It's considered a feat of great piety to memorize the entire text in its classical Arabic, something which thousands or millions of Muslim boys are doing at this moment, and Prof. Haleem was one of those who have done this over the centuries, too.

are you bad at math ?

Apparently you are more than simply bad at recognizing irony and sarcasm and deliberate overstatement.... friend.

I once asked my barber this very question and he offered to instead teach me arabic. "None of them," he said. "The Quran cannot be translated, only interpreted." After joking around, he very seriously informed me that translations often mask political/tribal agendas.

Here's a quickie reference guide to various translations:

http://www.meforum.org/717/assessing-english-translations-of-the-quran

Continued reading the Quran and the bible is a waste of time. Go through it at least once but unless you are trying to make a point, are religious, or showing hypocrisy it's all a bunch of garbage. Though, the garbage is packaged and written in ways that you can enjoy certain passages and what it says and the meaning. Though, much of it is nonsense.

I am not well versed, but I can recommend a book I just finished last week. It gives chapter (sura) and verse of the juicy passages that talk about killing infidels like me, suppressing women, etc.

What the Koran Really Says
Ibn Warraq