لَوْ أَنَّ عِندَنَا ذِكْرًا مِّنَ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ
Easy-read (simplified)law anna 'indanaa dhikran mina l-'awwaleen
DIN 31635law ʾanna ʿindanā ḏikran mina l-ʾawwalīna
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CLEARED. Parallel edition, held in ayah_text_variants. It sits alongside the Uthmani spine for search normalisation and is never used to correct it.
The translators word this verse differently
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.
"Had we received advice from the ancients.
Talal Itani, ClearQuran ·ClearQuran, "God" edition, EPUB·Talal Itani / ClearQuran.com ·Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International·retrieved 7 Sep 2026
Translation by Talal Itani, ClearQuran.com https://clearquran.com
If we had but a reminder from the men of old
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
Had we a reminder from those of yore
Translation Edward Henry Palmer, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
Edward Henry Palmer, English translation of the Qur'an ·1880 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work ·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Had we a revelation transmitted to us from those of old
Translation John Medows Rodwell, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
John Medows Rodwell, English translation of the Qur'an ·1861 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work ·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
if we had been favoured with a book of divine revelations, of those which were delivered to the ancients
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
"Sikur të kishim një Libër nga të mëparshmit,
‘যদি আমাদের কাছে পূর্বর্তীদের মত কোন উপদেশ (কিতাব) থাকত,
“Da smo mi Knjigu imali kao što su je imali narodi prijašnji,
“Da smo mi Knjigu imali kao što su je imali narodi prijašnji,
"Hara deftere iwnde e adinooɓe ɓeen, no woodannoo min,
«ნეტავ ჩვენ გვქონოდა შეხსენება [ალლაჰის წიგნი ან მისი წინასწარმეტყველი] წინამორბედთაგან,
„Wenn wir nur eine Ermahnung (gleich derjenigen) der Früheren hätten,
«Αν είχαμε ένα Βιβλίο (και μία νουθεσία) από τους προηγούμενους (Προφήτες που να μας πληροφορούν για τα προηγούμενα έθνη),
यदि हमारे पास पहले लोगों की कोई शिक्षा (किताब) होती,
»Se avessimo avuto un Avvertimento degli antichi,
168. „Jei būtume turėję priminimą, kaip turėjo senovės žmonės (prieš ateinant Pranašui Muchammedui ﷺ Allaho Pasiuntiniu).
“Odoo yaadannoo warra durii keessaa tokko nu bira jiraatee,
«Если бы у нас было Напоминание от прежних,
„Да смо ми имали Књигу као што су је имали претходни народи,
Tungelikuwa na Ukumbusho kama wa watu wa zamani.
”Om vi bara hade fått en skrift lik tidigare folks [skrifter],
“Eğer yanımızda öncekilerden bir zikir (kitap) bulunmuş olsaydı.”
کہ اگر ہمارے سامنے اگلے لوگوں کا ذکر ہوتا.
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.
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.
shown so it's never read alone
وَإِنَّا لَنَحْنُ ٱلْمُسَبِّحُونَ
Easy-read (simplified)wa'innaa lanahnu l-musabbihoon
DIN 31635waʾinnā lanaḥnu l-musabbiḥūna
The translators word this verse differently
And we are the glorifiers."
Lo! we, even we are they who hymn His praise
verily, we celebrate His praises
And we celebrate His praises
and we celebrate the divine praise
وَإِن كَانُوا۟ لَيَقُولُونَ
Easy-read (simplified)wa'in kaanoo layaqooloon
DIN 31635waʾin kānū layaqūlūna
The translators word this verse differently
Even though they used to say.
And indeed they used to say
And yet they say
And if those infidels say
The infidels said
37:168 — the verse above
لَكُنَّا عِبَادَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلْمُخْلَصِينَ
Easy-read (simplified)lakunnaa 'ibaada llaahi l-mukhlaseen
DIN 31635lakunnā ʿibāda llāhi l-muḫlaṣīna
The translators word this verse differently
We would have been God's faithful servants."
We would be single-minded slaves of Allah
we should surely have been of God's sincere servants
We had surely been God's faithful servants
we had surely been sincere servants of God
فَكَفَرُوا۟ بِهِۦ فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ
Easy-read (simplified)fakafaroo bihi fasawfa ya'lamoon
DIN 31635fakafarū bihi fasawfa yaʿlamūna
The translators word this verse differently
But they rejected it, so they will find out.
Yet (now that it is come) they disbelieve therein; but they will come to know
But they misbelieved in it; but soon shall they know
Yet they believe not the Koran. But they shall know its truth at last
Yet now the Koran is revealed, they believe not therein; but hereafter shall they know the consequence of their unbelief
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) ·Uthmani, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
لَوْ أَنَّ عِندَنَا ذِكْرًا مِّنَ الْأَوَّلِينَ
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Simple) ·Simple, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
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 — 0.70 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.
One bar per pair of renderings, longest bar for the pair sharing fewest words. Every pair is shown; none is singled out.
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.
SourceTanzil Qur'an text (Simple) ·Simple, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
SourceTanzil Qur'an text (Simple) ·Simple, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Qur'anic text from the Tanzil Project. Copyright (C) 2007-2026 Tanzil Project License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Source: tanzil.net · Updates: tanzil.net/updates/ https://tanzil.net/updates/