Sher Ali

Maulvi Sher Ali’s The Holy Quran: Arabic Text and English Translation is the standard English rendering used by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. It is a parallel-text edition, setting the Arabic alongside a relatively literal English translation, and its phrasing reflects the theological framework of the movement founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Doctrinally significant passages—those touching on prophethood, the death of Jesus, and the nature of revelation—are rendered in line with Ahmadiyya understanding, which sets it apart from translations produced within mainstream Sunni or Shia traditions.

Sher Ali completed the work in the 1930s, and it was first published in 1955. Later editions, prepared under the community’s successive leaders, added explanatory footnotes and an appendix and refined the formatting; the translation continues to be reprinted and distributed by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community worldwide.

Within its own community the translation is authoritative and valued for clarity. Readers from other traditions generally treat it as a sectarian text whose interpretive choices carry the movement’s distinctive beliefs, and so weigh it accordingly.