succeeded, within reasonable limits, in presenting a standard English
translation of the Holy Qur'an in quite a simple language, without
distorting the `surface' meaning of the Holy Qur'an. Shakir's work, with
all the potential and real linguistic and stylistic shortcomings, is handy and
honest, providing a starting point for those who are eager to learn the gist
of the Divine Message contained in the Holy Qur'an.... In my endeavors
to grasp the precise and `outer' meanings of the Message of the Qur'an, I
have found Shakir's translation adequate and satisfactory. Those in search
for the `inner' meaning of the Holy Qur'an may still find this translation
helpful as a stepping stone to loftier studies in the form of commentaries.
Otherwise, Allah is the best of the Guides.
Morton Speight's assessment (1989:24) coincides neatly:
Muhammad, nor the event of Muhammad's call to prophethood. The
essential role of the language means that what God said is inseparable
from the way (through a particular language) the thoughts are expressed.
So the meaning of the Qur'an cannot be conveyed exactly in any words
other than the original Arabic words of the Book... [although, as a matter
of necessity] the use of translations of the Qur'an is accepted as
necessary.... [Mohammed was] the passive receiver of the revelation.
The Moslem scholar Mohammad Hosayn Tabataba'i also agrees and places his views of
Arabic language squarely at the forefront of the matter (1989:100-103):
express the subjective states of human beings in the clearest and most
precise manner possible. No other language approaches Arabic in this
respect.... God's words were so indescribably beautiful and moving that
all hearts were drawn to them; with their sweet form, they sealed the lips
of the orators.... [O]nce people had fallen in love with the eloquence of
the Noble Qur'an, they would...listen to its recitation. Then they would
murmur to each other, `This speech cannot be a human creation'.
Caner and Caner (2002:84) put it most succinctly: "Only in the Arabic does the Qur'an
contain fully the words and testimony of Allah."
Gabriel, to an apparently illiterate man that render the book inspired. Moslems claim
that its aesthetics attest to its inimitable inspiration what Rippin and Knappert (1990:4)
describe (citing Arabic balagha) as "the aesthetic effectiveness of the Qur'an on some
verbal level."