The Soft Leather Cover Parallel Edition: English and Arabic This contemporary, authoritative translation interprets the Quran s meaning for the English reader with unprecedented access to the Book that is the foundational source of Islam, its civilization and its peoples, who now comprise nearly one-fourth of humanity across the breadth of all the Earth s continents and who form a crucial, contiguous community at the middle of the world. Twenty years in the making, The Gracious Quran: A Modern-Phrased Interpretation of Its Meanings in English is both highly reliable and powerfully expressed. Where the Arabic of the Quran swells with important implication, that intent is conveyed in this rendering with a light hand in unobtrusive brackets, every effort having been expended to make its reading august, clear, accessible, and consistent while at the same time free of poetic pretension, philosophical complication, and lifeless literalisms. Its graceful layout and design augment the profound simplicity of the Quran s message and give some semblance of resonance to its almost hypnotic power of literary expression. The interpretation of The Gracious Quran is thoroughly guided by wide and deep experience with the civilizations of both luminous Islam and the enlightened west, while not unmindful of the light that infuses the world s brilliant traditions. Fully four decades of scholarly expertise in Quranic studies and related disciplines are in its service, and the latest advances in the art of translation conspicuously benefit it.