Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall
Muslim English writer who translated the Qur'an into English; The Meaning of the Glorious Koran is the first English translation of the Qur'an made by an English Muslim. He was also known as a novelist and took the name Muhammad after his conversion. He was born in London in 1875. He grew up in a church environment with his father, a clergyman at Chillesford, and studied classical literature, astronomy and natural history. When the family moved to London after his father's death he began his education at Harrow School. In 1890 he left school and went to France to improve his French; two years later he returned and enrolled in a boarding school. In 1894, having failed the examination for the Levant Consular Service, he went to Jerusalem to learn Eastern languages and gain entry to the foreign service. The two years he spent in the Middle East changed his outlook on life completely: he was deeply impressed by seeing the Arab lands and the last period of the Ottoman order, and he formed friendships with Arab and Turkish intellectuals as well as with Western scholars and clergy. In 1896 he returned to England, married, and went with his wife to Paris and Geneva. His first story, The Word of an Englishman , on a Middle Eastern theme and written in the village of Holton, was published in 1898; his first novel, All Fools , appeared in 1900. His real fame, however, came from his most successful novel, Said the Fisherman (1903). In 1907 he went to Egypt through official channels and then moved on to Jerusalem and Damascus. In 1908 he set out with his wife on his third journey to the Middle East; that year he greeted the proclamation of the Constitution in Istanbul with hope and reacted strongly to Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In this period, when Western attacks were increasing, he became one of the greatest defenders of the Ottoman State and the Turks. In 1909 he returned to England and, at Buxted, devoted himself to publishing his novels, stories and political articles. During the Balkan War he published The Black Crusade (1913) against the crusading alliance formed in the West; the same year he went to Istanbul, stayed about six months in Erenköy, met Unionist and Entente-party intellectuals, and found himself closer to the Unionists. He became an active member of the Anglo-Ottoman Society founded in London in January 1914; throughout the First World War he took part, with Turcophile Englishmen and Indian Muslims, in political efforts to prevent the partition of the Ottoman State. His application for a post at the Arab Bureau in Cairo was rejected because he was a friend of the Turks. In 1916, during the negotiations on dividing the Ottoman lands, he made a diplomatic attempt on behalf of Turkey. On 29 November 1917, in a speech, he announced that he was a Muslim and took the name Muhammad. As a result of the pressure his pro-Turkish activities brought upon him, he was conscripted towards the end of the war at the age of forty-three and demobilised in March 1919. For a time he served as imam of the Woking Mosque near London. In 1920, on an offer he received, he went to India, where he took on the editorship of Islamic Culture together with active duties in the Indian Khilafat Movement. When he was asked to write an article against Mahatma Gandhi he left the editorship and became principal of a high school. He went to Cairo for a few months to have his translation of the Qur'an, completed at the end of 1929, examined by the scholars of al-Azhar. He helped bring about the marriage of the son of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the daughter of Caliph Abdulmecid Efendi of the exiled Ottoman dynasty. In 1935 he retired from the Nizam's service and returned to his country. He died in London on 19 May 1936. His Poetry and Sufi Line — This slot carries not his poetry but his intellectual line. According to the source, religion and love of nature hold an important place in his thought; in the Middle East he compared religions and felt closer to Islam, which he saw as the religion most suited to nature and to man. The source says he was the first to dwell on the harmful effects of the industrial revolution on the environment and on people. In Islamic thought he takes an apologetic approach on issues such as women's rights, slavery, polygamy and fatalism. His political views did not change radically after his conversion: the English conservative wing he felt close to already favoured the integrity of the Ottoman State, and after becoming Muslim he gave that integrity even greater weight for the sake of Muslim unity. His Works — His principal work is The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (New York 1930); it was reprinted with an introduction by W. Montgomery Watt (New York 1992) and published in a revised edition by Arafat K. El-Ashi (Beltsville 1994). The translation was rendered into Urdu by Fateh Muhammad Jalandhari (Delhi 1970), and its preface into Turkish by Şinasi Siber (Ankara 1958). His other works include Enid (1904), The House of Islam (1906), The Children of the Nile (1908), Veiled Women (1913), With the Turks in Wartime (1914), Oriental Encounters (1918), Friday Sermons (1919), Islam and Progress (1920) and The Cultural Side of Islam (1927). With the Turks in Wartime was translated into Turkish by Kemalettin Yiğiter ( Harpte Türklerle Birlikte , Ankara 1990) and Said the Fisherman by Tuba Şahin ( Balıkçı Said , Istanbul 2002).