Sh. Muhammad Ashraf (Publisher)
Encyclopedia
Sheikh
Muhammad Ashraf, Importers, Exporters, Distributors, Publishers and Booksellers (often shortened to simply Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, the imprint used in their publications) is a notable publisher and distributor
of Sunni Islamic literature
based in Lahore
, Pakistan
. The translation
of the collection of hadith
known as Sahih Muslim
, translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, commissioned by Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, is considered the authoritative English-language translation, evidenced by its inclusion in the University of Southern California
Muslim Students Association (associated with and a recruiting system for the Muslim Brotherhood
) Compendium of Muslim Texts, now known as the USC Center for Jewish-Muslim Engagement. It is currently the only publisher which has in print James Robson's translation of the Mishkat al-Masabih
. It also is the sole publisher and the commissioner of the English translation of Sunan Abu Dawood by Professor Ahmad Hassan, again considered the authoritative translation due to its inclusion in the USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts.
Sh. Muhammad Ashraf was the original publisher of the Abdullah Yusuf Ali
translation of the Koran, The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary
, famous for its copious missionary and apologetic footnotes (over 1200 pages), which, after gaining Saudi "imprimatur", became the standard for use amongst English-speaking
Muslims (alongside A.J. Arberry's translation, The Koran Interpreted
widely used by academics and non-Muslims looking for a more accurate and objective text), as it was subsidised by the Saudi government: it has been described as reading like an "anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, Islamic supremacist polemic instead of a faithful rendition of the Islamic scriptures", and was banned from several school systems in California for that reason. Now, the new Saudi-sponsored Koran, the Hilali-Khan translation
, a strictly orthodox and traditional translation along Salafi
lines using the most respected tafsir
, such as Tabari, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathir
, along with copious references to the asbab al-nuzul
or "occasion of revelation" as traditionally recorded in the books of hadith
Sahih Bukhari
and Sahih Muslim
, considered second only to the Koran in terms of religious authority: all Muslim rituals, from the timings and type of five-daily ritual prayers (salat
) and even the Muslim pilgrimage, the Hajj
, come from the books of hadith, and are not mentioned in the Koran. The Hilali-Khan translation is much more anti-Semitic and anti-Christian than the Yusuf Ali translation - widely called an "extremist translation" and a "terrorist translation", a translation by Muslims and for Muslims for internal consumption, not softened by mistranslation or misinterpretation to appear less barbaric to modern, civilised people with concepts such as gender equality
and human rights
- has rapidly displaced it in mosques around the Anglosphere. Yusuf Ali's once-ubiquitous Saudi-subsidised translation has only recently been largely displaced by the newer and more harsh Saudi-subsidised Wahhabi-influenced fundamentalist Hilali-Khan translation
, which is distributed widely and free of charge by the Saudi government.
Sh. Muhammad Ashraf publishes solely Sunni Islamic religious work and was associated with the Darul Uloom Deoband
madrasah
and the movement that arose there, the Deobandi
.
It focuses on English
and Urdu language translations and the original Arabic
text of important classical Sunni religious literature. They have published many works on fiqh
, along with the Qur'an
and Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir
), translations of the six canonical hadith collections
(in order of authenticity: Sahih Bukhari
, Sahih Muslim
, Sunan al-Nasa'i, Sunan Abu Dawood, Jami al-Tirmidhi and Sunan Ibn Majah) of Sunni Islam
, and several other primary (i.e. Sunan al-Darimi, Musnad of Imam Ahmad
and Muwatta of Imam Malik, taken together with the other six to become the nine major collections of Sunni ahadith) and secondary (i.e. Mishkat al-Masabih
) collections, biographies and histories of Muhammad
, Messenger of Islam, along with the same of the rise and growth of early Islam, the Islamic Golden Age
, and the Rashidun
caliph
s and other Sahaba
and notable figures in early Islam.
and Wahhabi Islamist Islamic materials among others, including the famous Hilali-Khan Koran.
Sheikh
Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...
Muhammad Ashraf, Importers, Exporters, Distributors, Publishers and Booksellers (often shortened to simply Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, the imprint used in their publications) is a notable publisher and distributor
Distributor
A distributor is a device in the ignition system of an internal combustion engine that routes high voltage from the ignition coil to the spark plugs in the correct firing order. The first reliable battery operated ignition was developed by Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co. and introduced in the...
of Sunni Islamic literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
based in Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. The translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of the collection of hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
known as Sahih Muslim
Sahih Muslim
Sahih Muslim is one of the Six major collections of the hadith in Sunni Islam, oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It is the second most authentic hadith collection after Sahih Al-Bukhari, and is highly acclaimed by Sunni Muslims...
, translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, commissioned by Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, is considered the authoritative English-language translation, evidenced by its inclusion in the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
Muslim Students Association (associated with and a recruiting system for the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
) Compendium of Muslim Texts, now known as the USC Center for Jewish-Muslim Engagement. It is currently the only publisher which has in print James Robson's translation of the Mishkat al-Masabih
Mishkat al-Masabih
Mishkat al-Masabih is an expanded version of by Al-Baghawi's Masabih al-Sunnah by Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh Khatib Al-Tabrizi. Khatib Al-Tabrizi d. 741H rendered this version of the original text more accessible to those not having an advanced knowledge of the science of hadith...
. It also is the sole publisher and the commissioner of the English translation of Sunan Abu Dawood by Professor Ahmad Hassan, again considered the authoritative translation due to its inclusion in the USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts.
Sh. Muhammad Ashraf was the original publisher of the Abdullah Yusuf Ali
Abdullah Yusuf Ali
Hafiz Abdullah Yusuf Ali, CBE, FRSL was an Indian Islamic scholar who translated the Qur'an into English. His translation of the Qur'an is one of the most widely-known and used in the English-speaking world....
translation of the Koran, The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary
The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary
The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary is an English translation of the Qur'an by Indian Muslim civil servant Abdullah Yusuf Ali . It was undertaken after Yusuf Ali had retired from the Civil Service and settled in the United Kingdom in the 1920s...
, famous for its copious missionary and apologetic footnotes (over 1200 pages), which, after gaining Saudi "imprimatur", became the standard for use amongst English-speaking
Anglophone
Anglophone may refer to:*An English language-speaking person, group, or locality*English-speaking world* Anglosphere...
Muslims (alongside A.J. Arberry's translation, The Koran Interpreted
The Koran Interpreted
The Koran Interpreted is a translation of the Qur'an by Arthur John Arberry. The translation is from the original Arabic into English. First published in 1955, it is one of the most prominent written by a non-Muslim scholar...
widely used by academics and non-Muslims looking for a more accurate and objective text), as it was subsidised by the Saudi government: it has been described as reading like an "anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, Islamic supremacist polemic instead of a faithful rendition of the Islamic scriptures", and was banned from several school systems in California for that reason. Now, the new Saudi-sponsored Koran, the Hilali-Khan translation
Noble Qur'an (Hilali-Khan)
The Noble Qur'an, also informally known as the Hilali-Khan translation, is a translation of the Qur'an by contemporary Pakistani Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan , a man of Afghan Khattak heritage, and Dr...
, a strictly orthodox and traditional translation along Salafi
Salafi
A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...
lines using the most respected tafsir
Tafsir
Tafseer is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. Ta'wīl is a subset of tafsir and refers to esoteric or mystical interpretation. An author of tafsir is a mufassir .- Etymology :...
, such as Tabari, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathir
Ibn Kathir
Ismail ibn Kathir was a Muslim muhaddith, Faqih, historian, and commentator.-Biography:His full name was Abu Al-Fida, 'Imad Ad-Din, Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir, Al-Qurashi, Al-Busrawi...
, along with copious references to the asbab al-nuzul
Asbab al-nuzul
Asbāb al-nuzūl , an Arabic term meaning "occasions/circumstances of revelation", is a secondary genre of Qur'anic exegesis directed at establishing the context in which specific verses of the Qur'an were revealed...
or "occasion of revelation" as traditionally recorded in the books of hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
Sahih Bukhari
Sahih Bukhari
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī , as it is commonly referred to, is one of the six canonical hadith collections of Islam. These prophetic traditions, or hadith, were collected by the Persian Muslim scholar Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, after being transmitted orally for generations. Muslims view this as one of...
and Sahih Muslim
Sahih Muslim
Sahih Muslim is one of the Six major collections of the hadith in Sunni Islam, oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It is the second most authentic hadith collection after Sahih Al-Bukhari, and is highly acclaimed by Sunni Muslims...
, considered second only to the Koran in terms of religious authority: all Muslim rituals, from the timings and type of five-daily ritual prayers (salat
Salat
Salah is the practice of formal prayer in Islam. Its importance for Muslims is indicated by its status as one of the Five Pillars of Sunni Islam, of the Ten Practices of the Religion of Twelver Islam and of the 7 pillars of Musta'lī Ismailis...
) and even the Muslim pilgrimage, the Hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
, come from the books of hadith, and are not mentioned in the Koran. The Hilali-Khan translation is much more anti-Semitic and anti-Christian than the Yusuf Ali translation - widely called an "extremist translation" and a "terrorist translation", a translation by Muslims and for Muslims for internal consumption, not softened by mistranslation or misinterpretation to appear less barbaric to modern, civilised people with concepts such as gender equality
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
- has rapidly displaced it in mosques around the Anglosphere. Yusuf Ali's once-ubiquitous Saudi-subsidised translation has only recently been largely displaced by the newer and more harsh Saudi-subsidised Wahhabi-influenced fundamentalist Hilali-Khan translation
Noble Qur'an (Hilali-Khan)
The Noble Qur'an, also informally known as the Hilali-Khan translation, is a translation of the Qur'an by contemporary Pakistani Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan , a man of Afghan Khattak heritage, and Dr...
, which is distributed widely and free of charge by the Saudi government.
Sh. Muhammad Ashraf publishes solely Sunni Islamic religious work and was associated with the Darul Uloom Deoband
Darul Uloom Deoband
The Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic school in India where the Deobandi Islamic movement was started. It is located at Deoband, a town in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It was founded in 1866 by several prominent Islamic scholars , headed by Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi...
madrasah
Madrasah
Madrasah is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious...
and the movement that arose there, the Deobandi
Deobandi
Deobandi is a movement of Sunni Islam. The movement began at Darul Uloom Deoband in Deoband, India, where its foundation was laid on 30 May 1866.-History:...
.
It focuses on English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Urdu language translations and the original Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
text of important classical Sunni religious literature. They have published many works on fiqh
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....
, along with the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
and Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir
Tafsir
Tafseer is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. Ta'wīl is a subset of tafsir and refers to esoteric or mystical interpretation. An author of tafsir is a mufassir .- Etymology :...
), translations of the six canonical hadith collections
Six major Hadith collections
The six major Hadith collections are collections of hadith by Islamic scholars who, approximately 200 years after Muhammad's death and by their own initiative, collected "hadith" attributed to Muhammad...
(in order of authenticity: Sahih Bukhari
Sahih Bukhari
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī , as it is commonly referred to, is one of the six canonical hadith collections of Islam. These prophetic traditions, or hadith, were collected by the Persian Muslim scholar Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, after being transmitted orally for generations. Muslims view this as one of...
, Sahih Muslim
Sahih Muslim
Sahih Muslim is one of the Six major collections of the hadith in Sunni Islam, oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It is the second most authentic hadith collection after Sahih Al-Bukhari, and is highly acclaimed by Sunni Muslims...
, Sunan al-Nasa'i, Sunan Abu Dawood, Jami al-Tirmidhi and Sunan Ibn Majah) of Sunni Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, and several other primary (i.e. Sunan al-Darimi, Musnad of Imam Ahmad
Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal is a collection of Hadith collected by the famous Sunni scholar Ibn Hanbal to whom the Hanbali madhab of Sunnis is attributed.-Description:...
and Muwatta of Imam Malik, taken together with the other six to become the nine major collections of Sunni ahadith) and secondary (i.e. Mishkat al-Masabih
Mishkat al-Masabih
Mishkat al-Masabih is an expanded version of by Al-Baghawi's Masabih al-Sunnah by Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh Khatib Al-Tabrizi. Khatib Al-Tabrizi d. 741H rendered this version of the original text more accessible to those not having an advanced knowledge of the science of hadith...
) collections, biographies and histories of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, Messenger of Islam, along with the same of the rise and growth of early Islam, the Islamic Golden Age
Islamic Golden Age
During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
, and the Rashidun
Rashidun
The Rightly Guided Caliphs or The Righteous Caliphs is a term used in Sunni Islam to refer to the first four Caliphs who established the Rashidun Caliphate. The concept of "Rightly Guided Caliphs" originated with the Abbasid Dynasty...
caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
s and other Sahaba
Sahaba
In Islam, the ' were the companions, disciples, scribes and family of the Islamic prophet...
and notable figures in early Islam.
See Also
Dar-us-Salam Publishers, a Saudi-owned and operated publisher and distributor of SalafiSalafi
A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...
and Wahhabi Islamist Islamic materials among others, including the famous Hilali-Khan Koran.