Why this umpteenth edition of Professor M. Hamidullah's translation of the Quran, after those produced by numerous publishing houses in France and other countries? The question deserves to be asked for a very important reason: the fact that most have taken liberties in translating certain terms, thus forcing their meaning in relation to those used by the professor in his own. We will give some examples that justify our argument.

The first edition of his translation dates from 1956, published by CFL (Club français du Livre); several other revised, corrected and expanded versions followed. This colossal and unprecedented work (the first translation of the Koran into French by a Muslim) was awaited by the French-speaking Muslim community. It is characterized by a literal translation, giving the impression of unreadable text. This deliberate choice of the translator was compensated by hundreds of comments allowing judicious and appropriate access to the meaning of the verses, a contextualization (putting into context) of the words and a comparative analysis with Jewish and Christian texts.

Many French-speaking Muslims have read translations of the Quran wrongly attributed to Professor Hamidullah, when in fact they are the work of people working in the King Fahd compound in Medina (Saudi Arabia), who simply to modify the translation of Professor M. Hamidullah without his consent, which constitutes an infringement of his intellectual property. Most changes are minor, such as changing the word God to Allah, but some are serious in that they affect the meaning of certain verses, such as in Surah Mohammed 47, verse 35:

Translation by Professor M. Hamidullah: “Do not weaken, then, but call for peace while you have the upper hand. God is with you. He will not harm your works.”

Translation of the complex of King Fahd: “So do not weaken and do not call for peace while you are the highest, Allah is with you, and He will never defraud you (of the merit) of your works .”

The professor was opposed to any modification of his work, which is the least he could do. Having noticed modifications in the English translation of the Quran by 'Abdallah Yusuf Ali, he expressed, in a solemn and visionary manner in a letter addressed to King Fahd even before the latter altered his life's work, his opposition to this approach :

“I have just read in some newspapers that in republishing the English translation of 'Abdullah Yusuf 'Ali, the scholars of Saudi Arabia have sometimes changed terms used by this scholar. Changing the terms of an author during his life and with his permission, there is nothing against it, but changing the terms used by an author already dead, without knowing his opinion and his explanation is nothing other than falsifying history . It would even be said that instead of knowing Yusuf 'Ali's "defect", if any, we would make people believe that he had not made such errors. Certainly, we can add footnotes to Yusuf 'Ali's translation to say that we are proposing such modifications to the terms of the original, but never delete the original text and write something else. “(Le Musulman, Quarterly review published by the Islamic Students of France, numbers 5 and 6, winter 1989).

For our part, we believe that the most harmful thing in these Korans modified and distributed on a large scale for several years in France and in French-speaking countries is the deletion of the thousands of notes and comments by Professor M. Hamidullah, which are extremely rich. invaluable theologically, linguistically and historically. To our knowledge, this great scholar, who spoke 32 languages, was the only translator and commentator of the Koran who knew most of the languages of the territories where most of the ancient and new religions flourished.

May God reward Professor M. Hamidullah for all the works he bequeathed to us, and all those who helped him!