Studies and Evaluation on the Translations of the Holy Qur'an in Bengali During the British Colonial Time in the Indian Sub-Continent

Abstract

After the revelation of the Holy Qur'an, Almighty Allah commanded human society to study and think about the Qur'an. He encouraged human society to teach, preach and spread the teachings of the Qur’an. But because the language of the Qur’an is Arabic, if non-Arabs want to learn the Qur’an, they may have to learn the Qur’an by learning the Arabic language well or they have to translate the Qur’an into their mother tongue. This study was conducted to mention those who have been trying to make the Qur'an comprehensible to about three hundred million Bengali speakers at different times. This article features the earliest Bengali translations as part of a larger study.

Many of these translators have tried to present the basic teachings of the Qur'an in an easy way for people to adhere to the basic spirit of the Qur'an. Many have succeeded in their endeavors. And some non-Muslims are also seen translating, who, rather than believing in the faith of the Qur'an, translate it to find out any weakness of the Qur'an as part of their own religious agenda. While there are many translations of the Qur’an in Bangladesh and proper cataloging of translations, the quality of translations and translators has not been evaluated in the past. Therefore, in this research, the translation work carried out in Bangladesh for the first time has been listed and evaluated.