USA: 'Muslim reformation' and new Koran translation

[Damien Hall]

There was an interesting piece on the BBC Newshour this morning (Monday 3 March
2008) about a 'reformation' which many American Muslim women would like to see,
in which women can lead prayers, among other things.  In particular, one section
of the piece is on a new English translation of the Koran, done by a New York
Muslim woman, Dr Laleh Bakhtiar.  As far as I understand it, new translations /
linguistic analysis aren't usually done because of the sacred nature of the
text, so it's interesting that she's done this at all.  The piece also says
some fascinating things about the translation:  it uses the word 'God', not
'Allah', among other things.

The programme is online now (Monday morning EST) at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/newshour.shtml

The section on the 'reformation' is from 20'10" to 28'40";  within it, the
interview with Dr Bakhtiar begins at about 24'40" and goes on until about
26'00".

The website says that the online broadcast is updated twice a day, so I'm not
sure how long this programme will stay there;  also, I'm not sure whether old
programmes are archived anywhere online.  But there's more information on the
new translation available elsewhere online, since it's not brand-new:  do a
search of

translation koran america

and some news-stories will appear.

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania