1. Introduction / Suha Taji-Farouki -- 2. Qurʼan Translation and Commentary in Early Twentieth-Century Bosnia and Herzegovina: Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević (d. 1938) / Enes Karić and Suha Taji-Farouki -- 3. A Turkish Exegesis of the Early Twentieth Century: Elmalili Muhammad Hamdi Yazır (d. 1942) and his Hak Dini Kurʼan Dili Ismail Albayrak -- 4. The Urdu Qurʼanic Commentary of Muhammad Shafiʻ (d. 1976): Maʻarijuʼl-Qurʼan / Mustansir Mir -- 5. A Public-Figure Mufassir from the Malay-Indonesian World: Hamka (d. 1981) and his Tafsir al-Azhar / Anthony H. Johns and Suha Taji-Farouki -- 6. Persian Qurʼanic Networks, Modernity and the Writings of 'an Iranian Lady', Nusrat Amin Khanum 275(d. 1983) / Travis Zadeh -- 7. The Journey of an Egyptian Exegete from Hermeneutics to Humanity: ʻAisha Abd al-Rahman (Bint al-Shatiʼ) (d. 1998) and her Approach to Tafsir / Shuruq Naguib -- 8. An Islamist Tafsir in English: The Ascendant Qur'an by Muhammad al-ʻAsi (b. 1951) / Suha Taji-Farouki -- 9. Polemics and Language in Swahili Translations of the Qurʼan: Mubarak Ahmad (d. 2001), Abdullah Saleh al-Farsy (d. 1982) and Ali Muhsin al-Barwani (d. 2006) / Farouk Topan -- 10. Setting the Record Straight: Contemporary Interpretations of Q. 4:34 by German Muslims / Andreas Christmann -- 11. Twentieth-Century Qur'an Translations in the Hui Muslim Community of China and their Antecedents: A Social History 533 / Michael Dillon

Today, Arabic-speaking Muslims, in whose tongue the Qur'an was revealed, make up no more than twenty per cent of the world Muslim population. This volume explores the endeavour by Muslims using diverse languages and from different regions to explain the meanings of the Qur'an. It introduces Qur'an commentaries and translations from the twentieth century to the present day, ranging across the regions of the traditional Islamic heartlands to the new loci of global Islam. Chapters examine works in Malay, Chinese, Urdu, Swahili, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Bosnian, German, and English, each viewed in terms of the impact of modernity on the encounter with the Qur'an. This book examines defining trends in Qur'an commentary worldwide, addressing questions of authorship, message, intended readership and media of communication. It looks at the continued relevance of Qur'an commentary as an authoritative Islamic tradition in a period of growing direct individual engagement with the sacred text. It also highlights debates concerning Qur'anic meaning in translation that are pertinent for many millions of Muslims, and which look set to grow in tandem with globalisation. Situating Qur'anic commentarial texts in their cultural and national settings, the volume focuses attention on the relationship between language, culture and socio-political environment in Qur'an commentary and translation. It highlights the linkages between texts as well as the developments and debates which generated them, and to which they respond, whether associated with colonial realities, the challenges of nation building, or the search for ways to reconstruct Islamic culture in the face of new legal frameworks or societal models.