This book examines how early juridical and theological debates on the translatability of the Qur'an informed the development of Persian translations and commentaries of the Qur'an. While it is generally believed that Muslims in the eighth to twelfth centuries were disdainful of translating the Qur'an, the historical record proves to be much more nuanced.
Although the philosophy of some schools of law was that the divine nature of the Qur'an could not be conveyed in a language other than Arabic, the reality was that Persian exegetical translations were considered acceptable for use by new...