This Annex is provided to present a selected list of English translations of the Qur’an that are widely referenced in academic research, particularly in the fields of Qur’anic studies, tafsir, linguistics, and contemporary Islamic studies. These translations reflect sustained scholarly efforts to convey the meanings of the Qur’anic text to a global readership beyond the Arabic-speaking world [10]. The translations listed here represent both classical and contemporary works, produced within diverse theological, linguistic, and methodological frameworks. Such diversity inevitably influences lexical choices, interpretive nuances, and translation strategies, making it essential for researchers to be aware of the specific translation sources employed in their analyses.

It should be emphasized that this list is not exhaustive, nor does it claim to represent all available English translations of the Qur’an. Rather, it is intended as a representative and accessible reference for commonly cited translations, particularly those available through reliable online platforms [11]. Readers and researchers are encouraged to consult additional translations where relevant to their research objectives and analytical frameworks [12]. By including this Annex, the study aims to enhance transparency regarding the Qur’anic translation sources referenced, while supporting methodological clarity, scholarly rigor, and reproducibility in research involving English renderings of the Qur’an. This list is not exhaustive.

The Arabic language is one of the richest languages in the world in terms of vocabulary with more than 12 million words. This number is compared to 600,000 words in the English language.

This means it is not possible to have a one-to-one mapping between Arabic vocabulary and English vocabulary. This leads to a potential loss of meaning of the translated text from Arabic to English. This issue is very frequent in Qur’an translation from Arabic to English [13]. For example, the “Basmala” “بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ” is a common sentence in Qur’an, meaning supplication for God’s mercy. It’s recited at the beginning of each verse, with the exception of the 9^th chapter At-Tawbah because it deals with the topic of war and punishment, which may not be suitable to begin with the invocation of mercy [14]. It is also part of the Qur’an in the 27^th chapter An-Naml (النمل‎), Ayah 30 “إِنَّهُۥ مِن سُلَيۡمَٰنَ وَإِنَّهُۥ بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ”, translated to “Indeed, it is from Solomon, and indeed, it is [i.e., reads]: 'In the name of Allāh, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful’” [6]. It is also frequently used at the beginning of multiple ordinary activities such as starting a speech. Below some of its translation to English:

Another example is that both Arabic words of “القبور” and “الاجداث” translate to English as tombs or grave. In the Qur’an the word “القبور” is associated with a state of stillness and tranquility while “الاجداث” is associated with a dynamic state of resurrection that comprises all who die including those not buried in a traditional grave [15]. Similar situation occurs between the words “المودة” and “البر” that are both used in the Qur’an [16]. They look to be synonyms when they are translated to English, but there is an underlying semantic difference [17]. Affection (المودة) has a wholeheartedly component, and righteousness “البر” is only doing good to others regardless of love or hatred.

Further instance is the spelling and its relation to the symbolic and nuanced meaning within the Qur’an text. For example “Ta” in Arabic can be open or closed. Rahma can ends with a closed Ta (رحمة) and represents potential mercy that is not yet fully revealed while (رحمت) with open Ta connotes a fulfilled mercy [18]. The difference in meaning is not shown in the word by word translation where both formats are translated to “Mercy” as shown in the example below.

From the 7^th chapter Al-Arāf, Ayah 56: “وَلَا تُفْسِدُوْا فِى الْاَرْضِ بَعْدَ اِصْلَاحِهَا وَادْعُوْهُ خَوْفًا وَّطَمَعًاۗ اِنَّ رَحْمَتَ اللّٰهِ قَرِيْبٌ مِّنَ الْمُحْسِنِيْنَ”, this verse is translated in Saheeh International by: “And cause not corruption upon the earth after its reformation. And invoke Him in fear and aspiration. Indeed, the mercy of Allāh is near to the doers of good”. From the fourth chapter An-Nisāʾ, Ayah 96: “دَرَجٰتٍ مِّنْهُ وَمَغْفِرَةً وَّرَحْمَةًۗ وَكَانَ اللّٰهُ غَفُوْرًا رَّحِيْمًا”, this verse is translated in Saheeh International by: “Degrees [of high position] from Him and forgiveness and mercy. And Allāh is ever Forgiving and Merciful [19].” Another example is “نعمت“ vs ” نعمة”. The one with open “Ta” indicates specific blessings while the closed one symbolizes general blessings.

Natural languages have lifecycles. They lose and add features over time. In particular, they experience the semantic shift phenomena due to the evolution of words usage through space and time. The translation of an old text should take into account the semantic change over time [20]. This task is even more complex in the context of the Qur’an since the Qur’an was revealed 14 centuries ago [21]. Qur’an was revealed in the Arabic language and some meanings and words have become strange and rarely used by contemporary generations. This makes its understanding sometimes challenging even for native Arabic speakers. The semantic shift of the Qur’an words is well documented, especially with a focus on the difference in the meanings of some words in the Qur’an between pre-Islamic and Islamic times [22]. The most important initiative in this regards is the project of the historical semantic encyclopedia of the words of the Holy Qur’an in Turkey [23]. This project, funded by the Turkish government, is led by Dr. Şehmus Demir, along with nearly four hundred researchers [24]. They list more than 1,700 word roots mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, and list their full meanings in all Semitic languages, if they exist in them. Examples of the semantic shift cases extracted from talks in social media by Dr Şehmus Demir are:

Another recent reference worth to mention is the book "هويات قرآنية" that stands for “Qur’an identities” by Dr Abdul Rahman Chamseddine. This work, published in 2023, provides a thorough historical analysis of key terms in the Qur’an.

It is a fact that the Arabic language has an extraordinary capability to evolve thanks to its vocabulary and extension capabilities. This is a good thing to be able to cope with new objects (e.g. car) or new concepts (e.g. globalization). The issue is that this capability can also restrict the meaning of certain words that may impact negatively the Qur’an understanding even for native Arabic speakers [27]. This is mainly true when the words or the expressions experienced semantic shift. Also the Arabic is practically only spoken through various dialects, very often mixed with western languages [28]. This is to say that an effort should be made for people with Arabic as mother tongue to cope with the linguistic issues they face when dealing with the Qur’an understanding.

Translation as rhetorical act is a sophisticated task since it aims at using strategies to make the translation not just correct but also effective, meaningful and impactful. The challenges are multiple due to linguistic and cultural differences [29]. They may result in a loss of meaning and rhetorical effect. For example, in the Qur’an, the past tense form is used to indicate that the associated future event is certain to occur [30]. This rhetorical device of talking about a future event like resurrection using the past tense is more impactful [31]. This is called the assurance of realization or “تحقق الوقوع” in Arabic rhetoric. This can be seen in the 39^th chapter Az-Zumar or the Groups, Ayah 68 “وَنُفِخَ فِي الصُّورِ فَصَعِقَ مَن فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَن فِي الْأَرْضِ إِلَّا مَن شَاءَ اللَّهُ ۖ ثُمَّ نُفِخَ فِيهِ أُخْرَىٰ فَإِذَا هُمْ قِيَامٌ يَنظُرُونَ”. The past sentence is used for the action of blowing the horn “نُفِخَ”. This doesn’t mean that the action occurred in the past but it connotes its certainty of happening in the future. In this case translations to English use the future tense.

Another example is the swearing format used in the Qur’an. The swearing comes always with the negation “لا" or “No” as a way to emphasize the object of the swearing [32]. This way of swearing is an act of praise and honoring. This is illustrated in the 90^th chapter Al-Balad, The City, Ayah 1 “لَاۤ أُقۡسِمُ بِهَـٰذَا ٱلۡبَلَدِ”, translated in Saheeh International to “I swear by this city, Makkah”. The translation doesn’t reflect this rhetorical fact.

Another aspect is that the translation should use respectful words when these words are linked to Allah SWT. For example, the phrase "غَيْرِ ٱلۡمَغۡضُوبِ عَلَيۡهِمۡ وَلَا ٱلضَّاۤلِّينَ" in the last verse of the opening of the Qur’an, is translated in Saheeh International [4] as "Not of those who have earned Your anger or of those who are astray [33]." The use of the word “anger” is not appropriate in this translation as it is a human and physical emotion manifested by abrupt reaction and sometimes with a desire to retaliate [34]. Condemnation or Indignation is more appropriate as its scope involves violation of moral principles. This is conveyed by the translation in the Majestic Qur’an [7] “not those who are condemned nor the misguided ones”.

Polysemous words are words that can carry multiple meanings. The spatio-temporal context needs to be taken into account to choose the right interpretation. The issue here is even an average native Arabic speaker will not contextualize the word meaning and choose the right interpretation. As an example, the word “ٱلۡخَيۡرِ” in Ayah 8 of the 100^th chapter Al-Adiyat “ٱلۡعَٰدِيَٰتِ” , ” وَإِنَّهُۥ لِحُبِّ ٱلۡخَيۡرِ لَشَدِيدٌ”, is translated to “And indeed he is, in love of wealth, intense”. An average Arabic speaker (at least from North Africa) would interpret the word “ٱلۡخَيۡرِ” by good deeds instead of its other meaning of a lot of wealth. Another similar case is in the second chapter AL Baqara Ayah 180:

“كُتِبَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ إِذَا حَضَرَ أَحَدَكُمُ ٱلۡمَوۡتُ إِن تَرَكَ خَيۡرًا ٱلۡوَصِيَّةُ لِلۡوَٰلِدَيۡنِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبِينَ بِٱلۡمَعۡرُوفِۖ حَقًّا عَلَى ٱلۡمُتَّقِينَ”, which is translated to “Prescribed for you when death approaches [any] one of you if he leaves wealth [is that he should make] a bequest for the parents and near relatives according to what is acceptable - a duty upon the righteous”. Another example is in the 101^st chapter Al-Qariah ( القارعة) or “Calamity”. The Ayah 10 “فَأُمُّهُۥ هَاوِيَةٞ” is properly translated to “His refuge will be an abyss. The word ” أمّ” means most of the time “mother” and it has other meanings [35]. In the context of this Ayah it means refuge. This meaning is obvious given the context since the Ayah 12 “نَارٌ حَامِيَةُۢ” that is translated to “It is a Fire, intensely hot”. Unfortunately in this case most average native Arabic speakers will misinterpret the Ayah 10 with the common use of ” أمّ” as mother.

Chapter A-Tariq (الطارق) is the 86^th chapter of the Qur’an. The chapter title in English in most of the translations are “The Night-comer”, “The Night Star”, “The Bright Star”, “The Morning Star” reflecting its several meanings in the Arabic language. However, the literal translation is "Knocker" or "Striker". This meaning stems from the Arabic root "taraqa" (طَرَقَ), which means "to knock" or "to strike". This translation seems to be more reasonable in this case since it is described in Ayah 3 as “ٱلثَّاقِبُ ٱلنَّجۡمُ” which means “The Piercing Star” or “The Bright Star”.  It indicates that this star emits a penetrating light through the sky. Note that this might refer to the pulsar stars that emit electromagnetic waves which when being frequency modulated as sound to be listenable to human ears, they demonstrate the knocking effect. In this case the context of modern science seems more appropriate to select the right interpretation and translation from Arabic [36]. Note that there is a knowledge field related to the scientific miracles in the Qur’an.

Regarding the particle kalla “كلا” in the Qur’an, it has several meanings depending on the context and can be recognized through punctuation marks. The most common usage is reprimand and repulsion. Other meanings are:

Another example is the word light “نور” that is frequently used in the Qur’an. It has multiple meanings beyond the physical one of “light”. The physical meaning of light is in 10^th chapter Yunus Ayah 5 “هُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَاءً وَالْقَمَرَ نُورًا وَقَدَّرَهُ مَنَازِلَ لِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ ۚ مَا خَلَقَ اللَّهُ ذَٰلِكَ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ ۚ يُفَصِّلُ الْآيَاتِ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ”. This ayah is translated in Saheeh International [4] to “It is He who made the sun a shining light and the moon a derived light and determined for it phases – that you may know the number of years and account [of time]. Allah has not created this except in truth. He details the signs for a people who know”. In The Noble Qur’an [3], it is translated to “It is He Who made the sun a shining thing and the moon as a light and measured out its (their) stages, that you might know the number of years and the reckoning. Allah did not create this but in truth. He explains the Ayah (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) in detail for people who have knowledge.” In the Majestic Qur’an [7], it is translated to “He gave the sun (its) radiant glow and the moon its light, He determined their phases precisely, so you might calculate the (passing) years and keep time. Allah created (this) for a purpose; so people of knowledge can understand the signs (of creation)”. The reason of discrepancies in these translations is that there is no one-to-one equivalence from Arabic to English of “ضياء” and “نور”. “ضياء” is light emitted directly from its source in the sense that the body is self luminous. “نور”is the light reflected from a source. The other meanings are:

Another example is in the 6^th chapter Al-An'am, Ayah 82: “ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَلَمْ يَلْبِسُوٓا۟ إِيمَـٰنَهُم بِظُلْمٍ أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ لَهُمُ ٱلْأَمْنُ وَهُم مُّهْتَدُونَ”. The translation of this verse in Saheeh International is: "They who believe and do not mix their belief with injustice - those will have security, and they are [rightly] guided". This Ayah confused the companions of the prophet SAW who clarified it using the 31^st chapter, Loqman Ayah 13: “إِنَّ الشِّرْكَ لَظُلْمٌ عَظِيمٌ ”, indicating that this is a polysemous situation and the word “ظلم” refers to the polytheism, and more specifically to the “association of others with God”. This makes the previous translation inappropriate. In this case the translation provided by The Majestic Qur’an [7] is more accurate: “those who believe without confusing their faith with idolatry who shall enjoy security, and it is they who are guided”.

Lastly, another challenge is the semantic difference of words-pair differing in a vowel punctuation mark such as fatha, kasra, or damma. This can be illustrated in the 18^th chapter Al-Kahf, Ayah 19, “وَكَذَٰلِكَ بَعَثْنَـٰهُمْ لِيَتَسَآءَلُوا۟ بَيْنَهُمْ ۚ قَالَ قَآئِلٌۭ مِّنْهُمْ كَمْ لَبِثْتُمْ ۖ قَالُوا۟ لَبِثْنَا يَوْمًا أَوْ بَعْضَ يَوْمٍۢ ۚ قَالُوا۟ رَبُّكُمْ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا لَبِثْتُمْ فَٱبْعَثُوٓا۟ أَحَدَكُم بِوَرِقِكُمْ هَـٰذِهِۦٓ إِلَى ٱلْمَدِينَةِ فَلْيَنظُرْ أَيُّهَآ أَزْكَىٰ طَعَامًۭا فَلْيَأْتِكُم بِرِزْقٍۢ مِّنْهُ وَلْيَتَلَطَّفْ وَلَا يُشْعِرَنَّ بِكُمْ أَحَدًا”. With the kasra under the letter “raa”, the word “وَرِق”means silver or silver coins. Without the kasra the predominant meanings are “paper” or “leaves”. This is again confusing for many average native Arabic speakers who do not grasp the difference between both words.

In the case of ambiguous verses, we have the following examples in the 98^th chapter Al-Bayyinah that illustrates a complex case in Ayah 1 to 4. In Ayah 1: “لَمۡ يَكُنِ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ مِنۡ أَهۡلِ ٱلۡكِتَٰبِ وَٱلۡمُشۡرِكِينَ مُنفَكِّينَ حَتَّىٰ تَأۡتِيَهُمُ ٱلۡبَيِّنَةُ”, translated to “Those who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture and the polytheists were not to be parted [from misbelieve] until there came to them clear evidence”. In Ayah 4: “وَمَا تَفَرَّقَ ٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ ٱلۡكِتَٰبَ إِلَّا مِنۢ بَعۡدِ مَا جَآءَتۡهُمُ ٱلۡبَيِّنَةُ”, translated to “Nor did those who were given the Scripture become divided until after there had come to them clear evidence.” Imam al-Wahidi says that this verse is one of the most difficult verses in the Qur’an in terms of grammar, syntax, and interpretation [37]. Imam al-Razi compiled 15 opinions in an attempt to clarify the problem. Imam Ibn Ashur compiled them into five problematic ones. Without going in too many details, this ayah can have two meanings:

Sound symbolism is a universal linguistic phenomenon. Its study in the context of Qur’an phonology and Arabic letters is challenging. Several verses use rhyming words to create a certain effect almost impossible to translate. Sounds have attributes. The use of sounds and their harmony is an important style. The effect is great when the sounds mimic the meaning depicting sensory imagery. Note that the association between sound and meaning is a hot topic in cross modal associations research [38]. The question is how to make the translated text having as much as a possible similar effect of the Qur’an sounds. For example, the Arabic letter Qaf (ق) represents a distinctive sound in the Arabic language, characterized by its deep, guttural and explosive pronunciation. In the 101^st chapter of the Qur’an, Al-Qariah  (القارعة) means “the calamity” or “the striking one" to name the day of judgment. Another example is the 75^th chapter Al-Qiyamah (القيامة‎). The chapter title in English means “The Resurrection”. In this chapter there is a vivid imagery of the scene of death of a person from Ayah 26 to 30 where the letter Qaf is used making impossible or very difficult to translate this description.

Another example is the Arabic letter “ح” (Haa). It lacks a direct equivalent in English. The sound (حاء) is a fricative sound by narrowing the space in the pharynx and allowing air to pass. It represents a sound symbolism usually paired with mystical words like “حب”: love, “حنان”: affection, “ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ”: the kind and “ٱلرَّحِيمِ”: the caring.

Regarding the phonological component in Qur’an, the rhyme makes it highly poetic and descriptive where the sound and the meaning are correlated. The rhythm patterns are powerful and stimulate the mind. The sound patterns can be partial or total. For example the rhyme is partial in the 113^th chapter Al-Falaq or the Daybreak (ٱلْفَلَقِ), the first two verses end with “لَق”. The sound pattern fluctuates with the verse semantics. For example in the 100^th chapter Al-Adiyat or The War Horses which run swiftly (العاديات), also translated to "The Courser, The Chargers", “By the racers”. This chapter has 3 groups of verses. The first one is from 100:1 to 100:5. The verses of this group end with the letter “ا” called the “Alif”. The second group is from 100:6 to 100:8 and its verses end with “د”. The last group is from 100:9 to 100:11and its verses end with “ر”. The first group expresses an oath and the others are the answer of the oath. The second group has a context of names and the third one has a context of actions.

The rhyming can be total like in the 87th chapter of the Qur’an Al-Ala or the Most High (الأعلى), where all verses and the title as well end by the Arabic letter "ى" called “alif maqsurah" representing a long "a" sound. Another example is 104^th chapter: Al-Humazah or “The Slanderer” (ٱلهُمَزَة). In this case, all verses end by the sound of “هـ” or "ha", breathing out from the chest and project an amazing state of woefulness and adversity.

Lastly another challenge is the handling of Arabic diacritical marks (fatha, kasra, damma). These marks represent short vowel sounds, obey to grammatical rules and its specific pronunciations can have stylistic effects. An example is illustrated in the 48^th chapter Al-Fath, Ayah 10:

“إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يُبَايِعُونَكَ إِنَّمَا يُبَايِعُونَ ٱللَّهَ يَدُ ٱللَّهِ فَوْقَ أَيْدِيهِمْ ۚ فَمَن نَّكَثَ فَإِنَّمَا يَنكُثُ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِهِۦ ۖ وَمَنْ أَوْفَىٰ بِمَا عَٰهَدَ عَلَيْهُ ٱللَّهَ فَسَيُؤْتِيهِ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا”. This verse states: "Indeed, those who pledge allegiance to you, [O Muhammad] - they are actually pledging allegiance to Allāh. The hand of Allāh is over their hands". The word

‘عليهِ’: ‘alayhi’ usually ends with a kasra, since ‘ala’ is a preposition, and there is no ‘alayhi’ in the Holy Qur’an that does not end with a kasra except in this verse “عَلَيْهُ”, since the ha’ has a damma (the /u/ vowel sound in Arabic). The rhetorical reason for pronouncing the final pronoun ha' with a ḍamma in “عَلَيْهُ” is to provide weightier pronunciation in order to align with the theme of Allah’s supreme power and the importance of the pledge of allegiance. Hence emphasis is preferred over thinness in this situation.

The Islamic doctrine or Aqidah (عقيدة) is the core belief of the Islamic theology. It got formalized after few centuries within multiple schools of thoughts. The main ones are the Salafi aquida and the Achaari aquida. It is now centuries-old theological disagreement and disharmony. They differ in some doctrinal and interpretive aspects, especially regarding the attributes of Allah Almighty [39]. The Achaari follows an approach based on reconciling reason and texts with metaphorical devices, while the Salafi has a focus on the primary literal meaning of the texts. Obviously, this conflict has a huge impact on the exegesis (Tafsir: تفسير ) of the Qur’an verses and consequently on the different translations and interpretations. More generally, the translation might also be biased towards Sunni, Shi'a, or other Islam orthodoxy.

Recent breakthroughs in AI increased the quality of the models and create an opportunity in computational linguistics for Qur’an studies and machine translation. In particular, Multimodal AI embeddings represent data from various sources like text, images, and audio in a single unified vector space. This presents an avenue to overcome some of the Qur’an studies challenges [40]. The modalities in the context of this study are all of types: texts, images, audio and video. In the context of the Qur’an, the modalities are richer. The text itself has different modalities (sacred text, different interpretations, etc) to be used as datasets to train the model:

The core technologies to be used in this framework are LLM reasoning models. The Large Language Models (LLMs) have amazing abilities to reason over, summarize, and creatively generate data. They learn the statistical and probabilistic patterns. The LLM reasoning models are more advanced LLMs. They are able to decompose a complex problem into smaller ones with explainability and trace capabilities. However, they remain open to several technical problems. Among them is the problem of hallucinations, which consists of generating certain-looking but false information. In the context of Qur’an study field, this problem can be adverse. Techniques against hallucinations and other issues should be investigated, improved and used in order to improve the performance of the Qur’an linguistic operations with LLMs.

This framework should include a knowledge graph that represents all the relationships between the different verses and other Islamic knowledge sources as listed above. Similarly reasoning capability should be included to capture different interpretations according to the existing schools of thought and interpretation paradigms. The reasoning capability should be able to capture different interpretations with their background and benefit from explainable AI (xAI). Another important model to be developed in this framework is the Qur’an's rhetorical style transfer in order to grasp the Qur’an rhetoric as much as possible. Existing style transfer techniques will need to be improved to handle the linguistic issues and hence improve the quality of translation. Note that this task will be never perfect given the inimitable and miraculous aspect of the Qur’an text.

It is noteworthy that it is necessary to include in this framework measurements to evaluate the performance of the model in order to ensure accuracy, meet human expectations and avoid any biases or errors. Multiple metrics exist in the literature related to LLMs evaluation (e.g. BLEU, ROUGE-L, METEOR, BERTScore).