Methodology of Quranic Translation by N.J Dawood in The Koran

Abstract

Work on al-Quran’s translation is not uncommon among Western orientalists. The work of the Quran’s translation is dated back as early as 10th century ago. In addition to it, this work had been immensely dominated by Christian orientalists. Until the 18th century, the Jewish community has begun joining among other Western orientalists in the Quranic studies with its translation as one of their main focus. Thus, this paper aims to study a Quranic translation’s work done by a Jewish orientalist named Nessim Joseph Dawood through his book entitled The Koran by outlining his cross references throughout his Quranic English translation. Furthermore, this research desires to give a deep analysis to original biblical sources of the translation as Nessim Joseph Dawood had claimed that the Quran is the Judeo-Christian influenced sacred book. Apart from that, Nessim Joseph Dawood is also known to have Muslim scholars in exegesis as his references of the translation. The method of the study of the research is Qualitative which relies on analytic and comparative study to reach the desired results. The result of the research finds that Nessim Joseph Dawood does refer to renowned scholars of Quranic Muslim. In addition to it, the research also points out that Nessim Joseph Dawood has biased tendency towards the Quran as he seem to have modified several verses according to his view of Islam. Besides, the research also finds that Nessim Joseph Dawood has given most of Qisas al-Qur’an and Israelites related matters from the Quran to biblical sources.