Marmaduke Pickthall

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Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall
Islamic scholar
Known forThe Meaning of the Glorious Koran

Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (born Marmaduke William Pickthall; 7 April 1875 – 19 May 1936) was an English

Islamic scholar noted for his 1930 English translation of the Quran, called The Meaning of the Glorious Koran. His translation of the Quran (usually anglicized as "Koran" in Pickthall's era) is one of the most widely known and used in the English-speaking world. A convert from Christianity to Islam, Pickthall was a novelist, esteemed by D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, and E. M. Forster, as well as journalists, political and religious leaders. He declared his conversion to Islam in dramatic fashion after delivering a talk on 'Islam and Progress' on 29 November 1917, to the Muslim Literary Society in Notting Hill, West London.[1]

Biography

Marmaduke William Pickthall was born in

rectory in rural Suffolk.[5] He was a sickly child. When about six months old, he fell very ill of measles complicated by bronchitis.[4] On the death of his father in 1881 the family moved to London. He attended Harrow School but left after six terms.[6] As a schoolboy at Harrow, Pickthall was a classmate and friend of Winston Churchill.[7]

Grave of Muhammad Pickthall in Brookwood Cemetery

Pickthall travelled across many Eastern countries, gaining a reputation as a Middle-Eastern scholar, at a time when the

Times Literary Supplement praised his efforts by writing "noted translator of the glorious Quran into English language, a great literary achievement."[9] Pickthall was conscripted in the last months of World War I and became corporal in charge of an influenza isolation hospital.[9]

When news of the Armenian genocide reached Britain, Pickthall frequently wrote in defense of the Ottomans by downplaying atrocities committed against Armenians, whom he also made derogatory remarks about.[10] During the war, Pickthall developed a reputation as "a rabid Turkophile", consequently denying him a position with the Arab Bureau. The role was instead given to T. E. Lawrence.[11]

In June 1917, Pickthall gave a speech defending the rights of Palestinian Arabs, in the context of the debate over the Balfour Declaration. In November 1917, Pickthall publicly took shahada at the Woking Muslim Mission with the support of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din. He followed this with a speech contrasting the Christian and Muslim approaches to religious law, arguing that Islam was better equipped than Christianity to handle the post-World War world.[12]

Pickthall, who now identified himself as a "

khutbas (sermons) were subsequently published. For a year he ran the Islamic Information Bureau in London,[13] which issued a weekly paper, The Muslim Outlook.[1] Pickthall and Quran translator Yusuf Ali were trustees of both the Shah Jehan Mosque in Woking and the East London Mosque.[14][15]

In 1920 he went to India with his wife to serve as editor of the Bombay Chronicle, On the behest of

Nizam’s Government proposed to establish a Publicity Bureau in the Hyderabad State as it appeared in the Mushir-i-Deccan on 14 June 1931, that Marmaduke Pickthall is to be appointed Publicity Officer in addition to his own duties as Principal of the Chadarghat High School.[16]
Returning to England only in 1935, a year before his death at St Ives, Cornwall.

Pickthall was buried in the Muslim section at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, England,[7] where Abdullah Yusuf Ali was later buried.

Written works

As editor

  • Folklore of the Holy Land – Muslim, Christian, and Jewish (1907) (E H Hanauer)
  • Islamic Culture (1927) (Magazine)

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Marmaduke Pickthall - a brief biography". British Muslim Heritage. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  2. ^ a b Shaheen, Mohammad. "Pickthall, Marmaduke William (1875–1936)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ a b c Murad, Abdal Hakim. "Marmaduke Pickthall: a brief biography".
  4. ^ a b Fremantle, Anne (1938). Loyal Enemy. London: Hutchinson & Co.
  5. ^ Pickthall, Muriel (1937). "A Great English Muslim". Islamic Culture. XI (1): 138–142.
  6. ^ Rentfrow, Daphnée. "Pickthall, Marmaduke William (1875–1936)". The Modernist Journals Project. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 9 February 2014.
  7. ^ a b "The Victorian Muslims of Britain". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  8. ^ GRAND MEETING REGARDING THE COLLAPSE OF KHILAFAH translated by Meeraath
  9. ^
    ISBN 9781450269551
    . Retrieved 7 September 2013.
  10. ^ Clark 1986, pp. 30–33.
  11. ^ Clark 1986, p. 31.
  12. ISBN 9789004327597.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  13. ISBN 9789675062742. Retrieved 3 February 2020. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  14. ^ Khizar Humayun Ansari, ‘Ali, Abdullah Yusuf (1872–1953)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Oct 2012; online edn, Jan 2013 accessed 6 February 2020
  15. ^ "East London Mosque - London Muslim Centre". East London Mosque. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  16. ISBN 978-90-04-32759-7
    . Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  17. ^ "Review of The Myopes by Marmaduke Pickthall". The Athenaeum (4178): 649. 23 November 1907.
  18. ^ "Review: Pot an Feu by Marmaduke Pickthall". The Athenæum (4350): 274. 11 March 1911.

Further reading

External links
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