The Korean translation of the meanings of the Qur'an (Hamid Choi)

This Korean rendering of the meanings of the Qur'an by Hamid Young Kil Choi first appeared in 1988 and was published in a bilingual edition by the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur'an in 1997; it is today the main point of access to the Qur'an in Korean. ¹

Choi, born in 1949, took a BA at Hankuk University in Seoul in 1975, then studied at the Islamic University of Madinah and at Omdurman Islamic University, and returned home as a professor at Myongji University and chairman of the Korea Muslim Federation. ¹

Choi began in the early 1980s, working mostly from Abdullah Yusuf Ali's English, supervised by Saudi scholars who urged him to finish it for missionary purposes. ¹ A company from the UAE funded the first edition of 1988 after he wrote to Arab embassies; he then corresponded with the Muslim World League for years until he was invited to Saudi Arabia in 1996, the League passed the project to the King Fahd Complex, and the standard edition with the Arabic text appeared in 1997. ¹

His main exegetical sources were Muhammad Ali al-Sabuni's Safwat al-Tafasir and his abridgement of Ibn Kathir, and Yusuf Ali's influence shows in his terminology. ¹ For God he chose Hananim, the word Korean Protestants use, explaining that most Korean readers take "Allah" for one Islamic god among others. ¹ His notes include rebuttals of Christian doctrines, which the reviewer relates to the fact that about a quarter of South Koreans are Christians and to the translation's missionary aim. ¹

Two complete Korean translations preceded it, by Kim Yong-sun in 1971 and an Ahmadiyya translation of 1988, but through the Complex's promotion Choi's became the main Korean Qur'an; he later translated Sahih al-Bukhari as well. ¹

• Mykhaylo Yakubovych, "Qur'an translation of the week #185", The Global Qur'an, 2024. ¹