Coranul

Coranul gives readers the sacred text of Islam in Romanian. It lets them read the Arabic text in their own tongue. Silvestru Octavian Isopescul did the translation. He also wrote the introduction. This is the fifteenth edition, in the Verde series.

Isopescul used C. Fluegel’s Arabic edition as his base. He also drew on three German versions. These were by Boysen, Ullmann and Henning. Boysen’s loose version helped him explain the text. He found Ullmann closer to the Arabic, but still loose. In his view, Henning came closest of the three.

He aimed to keep the Arabic meaning and phrasing. He kept its style where Romanian let him. But he left out the rhyme. He felt long runs of verse with matching ends would not work in Romanian. In his preface, he stresses that the translation is his own. He says he sought to avoid errors he found in Henning. His wider goal was to bring the world’s writing into Romanian.