English Translations of the Qu'ran

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Time: 6.00pm - 7.30pm
Venue: Room 1004, John Galsworthy building, Penrhyn Road campus, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE
Price: free

Please join us for the next Cultural Histories @ Kingston (CHK) event of 2018, at which Dr Matthew Birchwood (Kingston University) and Professor M.A.R. Habib (Rutgers University/Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait) will discuss two English language translations of the Qu'ran. 

Dr Matthew Birchwood is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Kingston University, London. His research interests lie in the role of Islam and the East in the literary-political discourses of the seventeenth century as well as in the drama. He is author of Staging Islam in England: Drama and Culture 1640-1685 and has written related articles treating the interconnected themes of tyranny and toleration in this context. His talk is entitled ‘"Following strange lights": the 1649 Qur'an in Revolutionary England'.

Prof M.A.R. Habib is currently Professor of English at Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait, while on sabbatical from his position as Professor of English at Rutgers University in the U.S. Professor Habib is a scholar in the areas of literary criticism, theory and philosophy. His publications include three histories of literary criticism, a study of T.S. Eliot's philosophical background, and two translations of Urdu poetry. He has recently completed two books: Hegel and the Foundations of Literary Theory (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Hegel and Empire: From Postcolonialism to Globalism (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017). Prof Habib's interests have also begun to extend to Islamic philosophy and literature, as well as Post-Colonial studies and World literature. He has been contracted by Liveright Publishing Corporation (an imprint of W.W. Norton) to translate the Qur'an into English verse, in collaboration with the distinguished Islamic scholar Bruce Lawrence.

Prof Habib will discuss this new project: 'The Qur'an in English Verse?' He suggests that "doubters have declared that the Qur'an is resolutely Arabic, and that any translation can only deliver its meaning, but not its tone and timbre in Arabic. But we are committed to producing an English translation of the Qur'an that might actually move people, awaken their feelings, create in them a definite mood, or induce a sense of the beauty and sublimity of the original - in short, a poetic translation, with its distinctive yet subtle voice. To this end we will review two Qur'anic suras that embody this approach."

All welcome. Please do join us for refreshments and stimulating discussion! 

For further information about this event:

Contact: Jane Jordan
Email: J.Jordan@kingston.ac.uk