Marked words appear in this translation and in no other English translation of this verse. Common small words and older spellings are not marked. The marks show where the wording differs, not where the meaning does.
Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a murky spring, and found a people in its vicinity. We said, "O Zul-Qarnain, you may either inflict a penalty, or else treat them kindly."
Translation Talal Itani, ClearQuran·Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall1875–1936 · published 1930
Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout. We said: O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness
Sources
Translation Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran·Public domain — copyright term expired
Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran·1930 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work
·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Edward Henry Palmer1840–1882 · published 1880
until when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a black muddy spring, and he found thereat a people.' We said, 'O Dhu'l Qarnain! thou mayest either torment these people, or treat them well
Sources
Translation Edward Henry Palmer, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
Until when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it to set in a miryfount; and hard by he found a people. We said, "O Dhoulkarnain! either chastise or treat them generously
Sources
Translation John Medows Rodwell, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
until he came to the place where the sun setteth; and he found it to set in a spring of black mud; and he found near the same a certain people. And we said, O Dhu'lkarnein, either punish this people, or usegentleness towards them
Sources
Translation George Sale, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
George Sale, English translation of the Qur'an·1734 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work
·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Other languages (18)Shqip · Albanian
Kur arriti në vendin e perëndimit të Diellit, e gjeti atë duke perënduar te një burim me baltë të zezë dhe aty gjeti një popull. Ne i thamë: "O Dhulkarnejn, po deshe, ndëshkoji ata, e, po deshe, sillu mirë me ta."
Translated by the team of Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.5
বাংলা · Bengali
অবশেষে যখন সে (ভ্রমণ করতে করতে) সূর্যাস্তের স্থানে পৌঁছলো, তখন সে সূর্যকে একটি কর্দমাক্ত পানির ঝর্ণায় ডুবতে দেখতে পেলো এবং সে এর কাছে একটি জাতির দেখা পেলো। আমি বললাম: ‘হে যুলকারনাইন! তুমি তাদেরকে শাস্তিও দিতে পার অথবা তাদের ব্যাপারে সদাচরণও করতে পার।’
Translated by the team of Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Dawah Association in Rabwah, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.1.2
Bosanski · Bosnian
Kad stiže do mjesta gdje Sunce zalazi, učini mu se kao da zalazi u jedan mutan izvor i nađe u blizini njegovoj jedan narod. “O Zulkarnejne”, rekosmo Mi, “ili ćeš ih kazniti ili ćeš s njima lijepo postupiti?”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 2.0.4
Hrvatski · Croatian
Kad stiže do mjesta gdje Sunce zalazi, učini mu se kao da zalazi u jedan mutan izvor i nađe u blizini njegovoj jedan narod. “O Zulkarnejne,” rekosmo Mi, “ili ćeš ih kazniti ili ćeš s njima lijepo postupiti?”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.1
Fulfulde · Fulani
Haa nde o yottinoo ka mutirde na'ange ngen o tawi henge muta e loope ɓaleeje, o tawi ton yimɓe : Min mbi'i'i: "Ko aan yo jom galaaɗi ɗiɗi, ko si a leptay ma si a jogitoto e maɓɓe ko moƴƴi.
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
ქართული · Georgian
ვიდრე მზის დასავალს მიაღწევდა და დაინახა, რომ იგი ჩადიოდა ცხელ, ამღვრეულ წყაროსთვალში, რომელთანაც ნახა ხალხი. ვუთხარით: «ჰეი, ზულ-ყარნაინ, ან დასჯი [თუ არ ირწმუნებენ], ან დაადგენ მათში სიკეთეს [მოუწოდებ რწმენისკენ და ასწავლო ჭეშმარიტი გზა]».
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.7
Deutsch · German
bis, als er den Ort des Sonnenuntergangs erreichte, er fand, dass sie in einer schlammigen Quelle unterging, und er fand bei ihr ein Volk. Wir sagten: „O Dhul-Qarnayn, entweder strafst du (sie), oder du behandelst sie mit Güte.“
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.15
Ελληνικά · Greek
Ώσπου όταν έφτασε στη δύση του ήλιου, τον είδε (τον ήλιο) σαν να δύει σε μία θερμή πηγή (με μαύρη λάσπη) και βρήκε εκεί έναν (άπιστο) λαό. Είπαμε: «Ω, Δου-Αλ-Καρνάιν! Ή να (τους) τιμωρήσεις (αν αρνούνται την πίστη), ή να τους φέρεσαι με καλοσύνη (με το να τους διδάξεις την πίστη).»
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
हिन्दी · Hindi
यहाँ तक कि जब वह सूर्यास्त के स्थान[30] तक पहुँचा, तो उसे पाया कि वह एक काले कीचड़ वाले जलस्रोत में डूब रहा है और उसके पास एक जाति को पाया। हमने कहा : ऐ ज़ुल-क़रनैन! या तो तू उन्हें यातना दे और या तो तू उनके साथ अच्छा व्यवहार कर।
Translated by Azizul Haq Al-Omari
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.1.5
Italiano · Italian
finché arrivò dove tramonta il sole, e lo trovò tramontare vicino a una fonte lavica, e lì vicino trovò un popolo. Dicemmo: „O Dhul Qarnain” (il Bicorne), puniscili o guidali con pazienza.”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
Lietuvių · Lithuanian
86. Kol, pasiekęs saulės laidos vietą, rado ją benusileidžiančią į juodo purvino (arba karšto) vandens šaltinį. Ir rado jis šalia žmones. Mes (Allahas) tarėme (įkvėpimu): „Zul-Karnain, arba tu nubausk juos, arba elkis su jais maloniai.“
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.0
Русский · Russian
пока он не достиг места захода солнца и не увидел, что оно заходит в илистый источник, и не нашёл возле него людей. Мы сказали: «О Зу-ль-Карнайн! Либо подвергни [их] наказанию, либо поступи с ними по-доброму».
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.1
Српски · Serbian
Кад је стигао до места где Сунце залази, учини му се као да залази у један мутан извор и нађе у близини његовој један народ. “О Зулкарнејне,” рекосмо Ми, “или их казни или с њима лепо поступи!”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.4
Kiswahili · Swahili
Mpaka alipofika machweo ya jua, akaliona linatua katika chemichemi yenye matope meusi. Na pale akawakuta kaumu fulani. Tukasema: Ewe Dhul-Qarnain, ima uwaadhibu au uwafanyie uzuri.
Issued by the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.5
Svenska · Swedish
tills han nådde den plats där solen går ned, och han fann att den gick ner i en mörk och gyttjig källa. Där fann han ett [otroget] folk och vi sa: ”Du tvåhornade! Du kan antingen straffa dem eller behandla dem väl.”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
Türkçe · Turkish
Nihayet Güneşin battığı yere ulaşınca onu kara çamurlu bir pınarda batıyor gördü. Onun yanında da bir kavim buldu. Dedik ki: “Ey Zülkarneyn! Onları istersen azaplandırabilirsin yahut onlara güzel muamelede de bulunabilirsin.''
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.4
اردو · Urdu
یہاں تک کہ سورج ڈوبنے کی جگہ پہنچ گیا اور اسے ایک دلدل کےچشمے میں غروب ہوتا ہوا پایا[1] اور اس چشمے کے پاس ایک قوم کو بھی پایا، ہم نے فرما دیا[2] کہ اے ذوالقرنین! یا تو تو انہیں تکلیف پہنچائے یا ان کے بارے میں تو کوئی بہترین روش اختیار کرے.[3]
Translated by Muhammad Ibrahim Junagarhi, developed under the supervision of the Rowwad Translation Center. The original translation is available for the purpose of expressing opinion, evaluation, and continuous development.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.1.3
About these translations
5 cleared translations, newest first, by year of publication, so the modern English comes before the historical ones. That is an ordering by date, not a judgement. Each is shown complete — this platform never excerpts a translation — and each renders under its translator's name. No translation here is marked as the correct one.
Which translations appear here is set by copyright: they are the ones whose rights could be documented and cleared. The selection is not a judgement that these are the best.
About easy-read
Easy-read
Easy-read is a simplified pronunciation,
not authoritative — a rule-by-rule romanisation, not a reading.
Each verse ends in its pause form, as it is said when you stop there. Pauses inside a verse and other tajwid rules are not shown. It is derived from the Tanzil
Simple edition, while the Arabic above is the
Uthmani edition; both are cleared, but they are not the
same edition and their orthography differs.
DIN 31635qāla ʾammā man ẓalama fasawfa nuʿaḏḏibuhu ṯumma yuraddu ʾilā rabbihi fayuʿaḏḏibuhu ʿaḏāban nukran
Talal Itani2012 He said, "As for him who does wrong, we will penalize him, then he will be returned to his Lord, and He will punish him with an unheard-of torment.
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall1930 He said: As for him who doeth wrong, we shall punish him, and then he will be brought back unto his Lord, Who will punish him with awful punishment
Edward Henry Palmer1880 Said he, 'As for him who does wrong, I will torment him, then shall be be sent back to his Lord, and He will torment him with An unheard-of torment
John Medows Rodwell1861 The impious," said he, "will we surely chastise;" then shall he be taken back to his Lord, and he will chastise him with a grievous chastisement
George Sale1734 He answered, whosoever of them shall commit injustice, we will surely punish him in this world; afterwards shall he return unto his Lord, and He shall punish him with a severe punishment
Easy-read (simplified)wa'ammaa man aamana wa'amila saalihan falahu jazaa'an l-husnaa wasanaqoolu lahu min amrinaa yusraa
DIN 31635waʾammā man ʾāmana waʿamila ṣāliḥan falahu ǧazāʾan l-ḥusnā wasanaqūlu lahu min ʾamrinā yusran
The translators word this verse differently
Talal Itani2012 "But as for him who believes and acts righteously, he will have the finest reward, and We will speak to him of Our command with ease."
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall1930 But as for him who believeth and doeth right, good will be his reward, and We shall speak unto him a mild command
Edward Henry Palmer1880 but as for him who believes and acts aright, for him is an excellent reward, and we will tell him our easy bidding
John Medows Rodwell1861 But as to him who believeth and doeth that which is right, he shall have a generous recompense, and we will lay on them our easy behests
George Sale1734 But whosoever believeth, and doth that which is right, shall receive the most excellent reward, and We will give him in command that which is easy
These figures count the words the translations share. They measure wording, not meaning, and they do not say which translation is right.
Derived measure: mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the
lowercased word sets of the 5 renderings above —
0.56 on a scale
where 0 means identical wording and 1 means no shared words. It is
computed, not judged.
The page says a verse is worded differently only above the cut below. The cut is a stated convention, not a property of the text, and it can be changed.
The cut
0.644
Share of measured verses above it
33%
Verses above it
2,079
Verses measured
6,236
Edward Henry Palmer · George Sale0.65
Talal Itani · George Sale0.64
John Medows Rodwell · George Sale0.59
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · George Sale0.58
Edward Henry Palmer · John Medows Rodwell0.55
Edward Henry Palmer · Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall0.53
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · John Medows Rodwell0.53
Talal Itani · Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall0.52
Talal Itani · Edward Henry Palmer0.51
Talal Itani · John Medows Rodwell0.50
One bar per pair of renderings, longest bar for the pair
sharing fewest words. Every pair is shown; none is singled out.
Method Wording differences — derived 13 September 2026
Method
Mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the lowercased word sets of the cleared translations of each verse. A verse is marked as worded differently when its score falls in the top third of the corpus — the cut set out in Analysis details.
As at
13 September 2026, 10:56 UTC
Gate
verify/divergence_gate.py re-derives and fails on drift
The platform does not say which is right, and does not
characterise what the difference means. The renderings are placed
together so the difference is visible; reading it is the reader's work.
Sources, editions and licences for everything above
ReceiptsSource fact
7 sources
stand behind this page. Each is listed once, in the order the page first
cites it, with the licence it was cleared under and what was actually read.
Nothing on this page rests on a source that is not here.
Source Tanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) · Uthmani, Version 1.1
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 ayahs. The bismillah is delivered as a separate `bismillah` attribute on ayah 1 and is NOT fused into the ayah text. 112 surahs carry one: every surah except al-Fatiha, where the bismillah is ayah 1:1 itself, and at-Tawba, which has none. Sourced from the XML output; the plain-text output of the same release DOES fuse it, which is defect D1.
CLEARED. Licence read verbatim from the block embedded in this very file. Ingested exactly as shipped: no normalisation, no stripping of marks, no Unicode recomposition.
Parsed structurally from the EPUB: an h3 names the surah, one p per verse with its number in its own span. An unnumbered p is the basmala and is not a verse, except in surah 1 where the basmala IS verse 1. 112 unnumbered paragraphs were found, which is 114 surahs less surah 1 and surah 9. Text is stored VERBATIM: NFC normalisation and XML entity unescaping only, because CC BY-ND forbids modification.
CLEARED on a licence read first-hand from the translator's own download page, not from an aggregator. Tanzil also hosts this translation, but under a blanket "non-commercial purposes only" term that directs the user to the translator or publisher for permission - a hosting disclaimer, not a grant - so the grant was taken from the licensor directly. The "God" edition was ingested; ClearQuran also publishes an "Allah" edition, differing in how the divine name is rendered, which is not ingested.
CLEARED ON THE WORK, WITH TWO RECORDED CAVEATS ON THIS COPY. (1) Rights basis is the expired copyright term, NOT the redistributing repository's licence. That repository dedicates its contents to the public domain under the Unlicense while also redistributing plainly in-copyright translations (Abdel Haleem, Saheeh International, The Study Quran), so it is dedicating rights it cannot hold and its blanket grant is not relied upon here. (2) The file declares its own upstream as tanzil.net, and Tanzil attaches a non-commercial condition to its TRANSLATION distributions, though not to its Qur'anic text. Since Pickthall's copyright has expired, nobody holds rights in these words and no licence is required from anyone; Tanzil's terms are a contract binding those who download from Tanzil, which we did not. The chain is nonetheless not spotless and Anwar may prefer a clean digitisation of the 1930 printing. NOT VERIFIED: that this digital text matches the 1930 first printing rather than a later revised edition. No page images were collated. Recorded as unverified rather than presented as established. SERVED TEXT DIFFERS FROM THE CITED FILE AT ONE VERSE, 37:97: the file reads "red-hotfire" (a glued token, also in Gutenberg #16955); the served row reads "red-hot fire", restored 2026-09-13 from Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (London: George Allen & Unwin, printed for Alfred A. Knopf; 1930), p. 460, XXXVII 97 - scan archive.org in.ernet.dli.2015.216140, PDF page 475; banked data/derivation-sources/pickthall-1930-dli-2015.216140-text.pdf (sha256 70e81146c97fa3a590243a82e04e349108546074787e2551a78c616202138870) on Anwar Malik's grant.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 verses, keyed to mushaf order. The
bismillah is not fused into ayah 1: 1:1 carries it and no other verse
does. Verified against content check C3 at ingest.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. The digital edition's upstream is not stated by the redistributor and the printing is unverified. No statement of purpose is recorded for Palmer because none was sourced from his own preface in this pass; nothing is asserted on his behalf.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 verses, keyed to mushaf order. The
bismillah is not fused into ayah 1: 1:1 carries it and no other verse
does. Verified against content check C3 at ingest.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. TWO edition caveats. (1) The upstream is not stated by the redistributor. (2) Rodwell's own edition PRESENTS THE SURAHS IN HIS OWN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, not the mushaf order — he says so in his preface. This digital text is keyed to mushaf order, so it derives from a restored-order printing (such as the Everyman edition) rather than from Rodwell's own arrangement. Which printing is not stated and has not been established.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 verses, keyed to mushaf order. The
bismillah is not fused into ayah 1: 1:1 carries it and no other verse
does. Verified against content check C3 at ingest.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. The digital edition's upstream is NOT STATED by the redistributor, so the printing it represents is unverified; Sale's text was reprinted and re-edited many times between 1734 and 1900. Recorded as unverified rather than assumed to be the first edition.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 ayahs. The bismillah is delivered as a separate `bismillah` attribute on ayah 1 and is NOT fused into the ayah text. 112 surahs carry one: every surah except al-Fatiha, where the bismillah is ayah 1:1 itself, and at-Tawba, which has none. Sourced from the XML output; the plain-text output of the same release DOES fuse it, which is defect D1.
CLEARED. Parallel edition, held in ayah_text_variants. It sits alongside the Uthmani spine for search normalisation and is never used to correct it.