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Not a Religion

Presenting

The Quran

in its

Own Words

By Aurangzaib Yousufzai

The launch of this Quran-related website does not signify another Quranic website in line with the existing ones. Most of the existing ones represent the same traditional religious stuff that has long since been rejected by the fast-awakening and intellectually-advancing Muslim world. The Quran does not preach a religion. The modern world too does not need religion. It needs the emancipation of the downtrodden working classes of humans in every corner of the globe, from the clutches of the worst kind of capitalism rampant all around. This job cannot be accomplished by a funny assortment of rituals of worship, which include praying five to seven times in 24 hours, a worst kind of self-torture in the name of fasting that squeezes your energies out of your bodies to the extent of rendering you motionless, and sporadic, lesser and major, pilgrimages to Makkah in Saudi Arabia. The need of the time is to prepare a group of men of character, in order to unleash a socio-political revolution that may humiliate and topple the elitist class of capitalists from the control of the means of sustenance, and raise and reinstate the lowest cadres of humans at the helm of affairs. The Quran guides us towards a timeless Mode of Conduct (Hudan – ھدی) for this purpose. However, the worship rituals are all that most of our religious websites preach in the name of the Quran, while the Quran has nothing to do with the nonsense of physical standing, bowing and prostrations for a few minutes every now and then being an exercise in utter futility.

A few quite reasonable Quranic websites, too, are visible on the horizon where we can find a substantial amount of reformative innovations, and an element of rationality being introduced in Quranic exegeses. They are proceeding in the right direction, but are noted to be too slow in grasping the true reality of what the Quran actually reveals. They lag behind in perceiving the aims and targets of the Quran fully. They do not investigate in the paradigm of the rift, split and division of humanity into classes (Al-Baqarah). They too have very little idea that the Quran introduces not a religion or faith, but offers a stimulus to initiate a movement that should revolutionize society to bring about a radical transformation on the socio-political front. They miss, to some extent, that it guides the lower classes of society (An-Nisaa) to rise under a leadership, and topple the elite classes (al-Mutrifeen, al-Mustakbirin) of their societies to humiliation and submission to the divine code of ethics. The Quran calls for the establishment of a kingdom of God where equality of rights, justice and fair play and respect for everyone must be the state constitution. They miss that the Quran always addresses those in responsible and leading positions of Government, and instructs them how to deal with the population units under them, taking care of their freedom, dignity and self-esteem. They still miss the target of the Quran, which instigates the leaders of men, the courageous element of society, to unleash a powerful movement to break the shackles and remove the fetters of slavery the masses are bound with by the few capitalist tyrant rulers (The Pharaohs of the time). Still the efforts of the reformist class of Quranic websites is fully acknowledged, appreciated and encouraged. They are wished a better pace of advancement, and openly offered to come, join hands and share the revolutionary venture launched herewith. All scholarly queries will be thankfully satisfied. Prejudice, cynicism, skepticism and haughty or impolite or negative criticism that may hamper the ongoing process of this crucial research work will naturally be discouraged.

This website is a positive step towards institutionalizing the most progressive academic and rational research work of Aurangzaib Yousufzai, aiming at a very bold, advanced and diversified reformative purification of the hitherto prevalent faulty, fictitious and misguiding renditions of the Quran, through a systematic process of strictly source-oriented, legal and authentic Translation of specific individual themes / issues / topics / historical episodes discussed in the Quran. Aurangzaib Yousufzai does not write his own exegesis or translation of the Quran. He simply converts the Quran into the English/Urdu languages in exactly the same spirit and essence that it actually presents in Arabic, and which was grossly distorted by the Umayyad Royal Court. He regards exegeses writing as a crime and a major sin, since the Quran itself proclaims that it is already fully explained and interpreted by its most exalted Author himself. In his translations, he strictly follows and sticks to each and every word of the Quran. He does not exceed his limits and does not transgress his boundaries by adding a single word or thought in addition to what His Universal Majesty, the Author of the Quran, has stipulated therein.

In this formidable venture of his, Aurangzaib Yousufzai takes full cognizance of the multiple equivalents of each and every Arabic word of the Quran. To expose the full extent of the meanings of every Arabic word in English/Urdu, he often resorts to including two or three equivalents simultaneously, which invariably are the derivations from the same root. His translations are word by word, but still can’t be called literal translations, as he is qualified to reveal the inner spirit of the Quranic words in their full scope of meanings, without the addition of a single word on the pretext of an explanatory input. He never ignores the key points of consistency and adherence to context. He pays full regard to the classical, literary style of the Quranic Arabic, which often displays the linguistic beauty of metaphors, symbols and idioms. He works with about a dozen world famous and most authentic Arabic lexicons, the most comprehensive of them being the much applauded Lane’s Lexicon. He keeps a full historical perspective of the rise of Islam

in view, and thus is capable of fully acknowledging the historical suggestions made by the Quran from time to time in brief where context requires. As a result of his lifelong studies in History and the Quran, and the inspirations he has acquired from the works of the most distinguished scholars of the Quran in contemporary times, he has full realization that the Quran’s destination is not the worship of God, but a socio-political revolution against the rampant exploitation in most of the human societies since the start of the Agriculture Age. His translations would reflect this basic inherent point of view of the Quran from every word he writes.

This Website offers a wealth of knowledge based on the Quran’s divine wisdom and the history of the rise of Islam. Around 100 small and moderate sized Articles, Books, Debate Stuff and Thematic Translations await your attention. This chain of Thematic Translations still continues, and he produces more Quranic Themes elaborated most rationally, from time to time. All future work will continue to be added and uploaded onto this website. The hope is that it would revolutionize the Readers' concepts to a great extent and they would start looking at the Quran and Islam from a radically altered but most rational modern perspective.