Arthur John Arberry

He write, 

 "To produce something which might be accepted as echoing however faintly the sublime rhetoric of the arabic Koran, I have been at pains to study the intricate and richly varied rhythms which constitute the Koran's undeniable claim to rank amongs the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind" - Arberry, A.J (1955).

The Koran: Interpreted. New York: Macmillan. pp. x

Who was Arthur John Arberry? (wiki)

Arthur John Arberry FBA was a respected British orientalist. A prolific scholar of Arabic, Persian, and Islamic studies, he was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. His translation of the Qur'an into English, The Koran Interpreted, is one of the most prominent written by a non-Muslim scholar, and widely respected amongst academics.


Formerly Head of the Department of Classics at Cairo University in Egypt, Arberry returned home to become the Assistant Librarian at the Library of the India Office. During the war he was a Postal Censor in Liverpool and was then seconded to the Ministry of Information, London which was housed in the newly constructed Senate House of the University of London. Arberry was appointed to the Chair of Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS, University of London 1944–47. He subsequently became the Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, his alma mater, from 1947 until his death in 1969.

(also notable for introducing Rumi's works to the west through his selective translations. His interpretation of Muhammad Iqbal's writings, edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar, is similarly distinguished.)