Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1872 - 1953) was an Indian Islamic scholar who translated the Qur-an into English. His translation of the Qur-an is one of the most widely known and used in the English-speaking world. Ali was born in Bombay, British India to a wealthy merchant family with a Dawoodi Bohra father. As a child, Ali received a religious education and, eventually, could recite the entire Qur-an from memory. He spoke both Arabic and English fluently. He studied English literature and studied at...See more

Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1872 - 1953) was an Indian Islamic scholar who translated the Qur-an into English. His translation of the Qur-an is one of the most widely known and used in the English-speaking world. Ali was born in Bombay, British India to a wealthy merchant family with a Dawoodi Bohra father. As a child, Ali received a religious education and, eventually, could recite the entire Qur-an from memory. He spoke both Arabic and English fluently. He studied English literature and studied at several European universities, including the University of Leeds. He concentrated his efforts on the Qur-an and studied the Qur-anic commentaries beginning with those written in the early days of Islamic history. Yusuf Ali's best-known work is this book The Holy Qur-an: Text, Translation and Commentary, begun in 1934 and published in 1938 by Sh. Muhammad Ashraf Publishers in Lahore, British India (that was liberated as Pakistan in 1947). While on tour to promote his translation, Ali helped to open the Al-Rashid Mosque, the third mosque in North America, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in December 1938. See less