ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Qur'an and Its Translators Chapter 2 The Centre for the Translation or the Qur'an This centre which has been established in recent years by the Awqaf and Charities Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the city of Qum is in the process of preparing a comprehensive study of the problems involved in the translation of the Qur'an and the frequent errors of translation and interpretation made by translators.

Its longp-term goal is to publish reliable translations of the Holy Qur'an in various languages of the world beginning with some of the major modern languages. Presently it is engaged in collecting all the existing translations of the Qur'an in various languages. Until now it has collected more than 200 translations and editions in nearly 50 languages.

It has issued a call for the cooperation and assistance in this project of all interested scholars and institutions throughout the world so that a unique world collection of the translations of the Qur'an, complete and partial, accessible to scholars and researchers throughout the world, could be established. It has also plans to make the translations available on computer diskettes so as to make them available to researchers and scholars for future work.

The Centre has also called upon Qur'anic scholars and experts throughout the world to assist it in the task of precise evaluation of the existing translations in different languages. The Awqaf Organization has also established a major publishing house in the city of Qum with considerable printing facilities, with an annual capacity of printing about 3 million copies, for the purpose of making the Qur'an and its translations available to Muslim communities throughout the world.

The field of Qur'anic studies is a vast discipline that is constantly expanding. Every year there appear numerous works dealing with diverse aspects of the Qur'an and some of the earlier works become available for the first time in print. Apart from scores of articles in various journals and theses that are written (see the Qur'anic bibliography of 'Abd alp- Jabbar alp-Rafa'i, Mu'jam alp- dirasat alp-Qur'aniyyah [Qum: Markazp-e Farhang wa Ma'arifp-e Qur'an 1372 H.