ABSTRACT

The first translator, Umm Muhammad or Aminah Assami, is an American who converted to Islam while following an intensive study of Arabic in Syria. Later she moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she continues to teach religious subjects. Her translation, published by Dar Abul-Qasim 2 under the pseudonym of Saheeh International, is probably the first English translation of the Quran by a woman. There is little information available on Umm Muhammad’s life and works before she converted to Islam. But according to her website, 3 she has authored and revised more than seventy Islamic books in English, mostly for Dar Abul-Qasim. 4 According to the same website, the pseudonym “Saheeh International,” used to refer to Umm Muhammad, is also the name of a group of three American female converts to Islam who joined together in 1989 to edit Islamic literature in English submitted by authors to Dar Abul-Qasim. They later began to produce their

own works. This group includes Umm Muhammad (translator and author), Amatullah J. Bantley 5 (director), and Mary M. Kennedy 6 (English editor). The second translator, Camille Adams Helminski, is also an American convert to Islam. She holds an honorary doctorate in Arabic from the University of Damascus and the World Union of Writers (Paris). She is the co-founder and co-director of the Threshold Society in Aptos, California, which is an educational foundation in the Mevlevi Tradition 7 based on the teachings of the famous Sufi poet Jallaluddin Rumi. As a translator, Helminski has rendered several volumes of Sufi literature into English. Her partial translation of the Quran contains 365 selected verses for daily meditation. The final and most recent woman translator of the Quran is Laleh Bakhtiar, who is an American author and translator. She converted to Islam during her stay in Iran while taking classes on Islamic culture and civilization taught in English at Tehran University. She is the author of many books on Islamic unity, architecture, and moral healing. She has also translated over thirty books on Islam and Islamic beliefs into English.