French Translations of the Qur’an Between Aesthetics and Scholarly Accuracy

This article examines the history of the tradition of translation of the Qur’an into French. This tradition is one of the oldest and most influential, as it has significantly supported the development of many other traditions of translations of the Qur’an, primarily, but by no means only, into many European languages (including Russian). In this paper we have attempted to examine the history of the tradition of translating the Qur’an into French in the context of the searching for a balance between the aesthetic characteristics of the interpreted text and its scholarly adequacy. Particular attention has also been paid to the translations of the Qur’an into French made by Francophone Muslims themselves: both in France and abroad.