Bausani Il Corano.pdf Jun 2026

To understand the value of Bausani's Il Corano , one must first appreciate the brilliant and unconventional mind behind it. Alessandro Bausani was a man of extraordinary intellectual range—a scholar of Islam, a historian of religions, a master of linguistics, and a visionary who could see the Islamic world as a single, interconnected cultural system. He was a renowned polyglot, having studied over thirty languages, including not only Arabic, Persian, and Turkish but also more esoteric tongues like Esperanto and Cherokee.

He argued that the Quran’s power lies precisely in what Western critics might call its “non-literary” qualities: the sudden ruptures of narrative, the oscillation between the majestic plural of God and the intimate singular, the hypnotic repetition of rhymes. In his translation, Bausani famously attempted to preserve the of the original Arabic, even at the cost of Italian syntax. For example, where another translator might write “By the sun and its brightness,” Bausani would twist the Italian to end with a stressed vowel sound that mimics the Arabic wāw or nūn . This choice was controversial; critics accused him of producing an unnatural, forced Italian. Yet, this very “unnaturalness” becomes a theological statement: the language of revelation is not meant to sound like a newspaper. Bausani Il Corano.pdf

While newer translations exist—such as those by Ida Zilio-Grandi or versions focused on chronological order with modern punctuation —Bausani’s version is the classic starting point for anyone serious about Islamic studies in Italy . Final Thoughts To understand the value of Bausani's Il Corano

To appreciate , one must compare it to its rivals. The most common Italian Quran today is by Professor Hamza Roberto Piccardo , published by Newton Compton. Piccardo’s translation is the standard for Italian-speaking Muslim communities—it is clear, modern, and doctrinally orthodox. He argued that the Quran’s power lies precisely