attempted instead of a literal translation and (b) Explanatory Notes have 4 been added wherever necessary.

A free explanatory translation has been adopted for two reasons: (i) A ward for word translation of the Qur’an has already been done by several worthy persons and that suffices ta serve iis purpose. (2) It cannot fulfil the object for which this work has been undertaken. As a matter of fact,” literal translation often becomes a hindrance to the full understanding of the Qur'an,

A literal translation of the Qur'an suffers from many drawbacks. It is incapable of transferring the linguistic chatm and sublime theme of the original Arabic Text into any other language: nor can it retain the continuity of the theme so as te induce one to read it as a coherent whole and derrve the same benefit from it as from a closely connected book. Vinat is why the reader who studies its literal transferring fails to appreciate the fluency and the dynamic force of the Qur'an, anda sceptic begins to doubt whether it is the same Book which challenged the world to produce the like of it,

A literal translation suffers from another defect: it does not and cannot take inte consideration the fact that the Qur'an was at first not a book but a living voice, Every student of the Qur'an knows that in the first instance it was addressed to hearers and delivered by public recitals and was not published for readers in the form of pamphlets, tracts and booklets. And it is obvious thar a literal translation cannot transfer the informal style of an oral address into the conventional style of a wricen work.

A few instances will illustrate this point. In an address an objection is often answered even without any reference to it, but ina written work, an objection is first cited and then answered, Moreover, in a written work, the background has to be explained in words: otherwise there appears to be a gap in it and it may even become unintelligible. Then m a written work, a parenthesis has sometimes to be used by way of explanation, but in an address such things are often left to the manner and suggestive action of the speaker, without showing any gap or incoherence in it. That is why even if an excellent speech is written down on paper, there appear to the casual reader many irrelevancies in it. This defect can only be removed by the adoption of free translation,