4. The King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Qur’an

Abstract

Chapter Four, ‘The King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Qur’an: A Turning Point in the History of Qur’an Translations’, discusses a unique phenomenon in twentieth-century Muslim intellectual life: the creation of a special institution (in 1984) for the production, revision, and publication of translations. While a significant proportion of the translations published by the KFGQPC are merely revised editions of earlier works, the organisation has also produced more than fifty newly-prepared translations, some of which have become extremely influential in various parts of the Muslim world. Remaining a leading international actor in the field, the KFGQPC has become the gold standard for many Salafi readers of the translations, as well as a broad range of Sunni audiences, with its own set of regulations and requirements for its translations, in terms of both their content and formal features.