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Al-Maaida المائدة

In plain wordsEditorial

An editorial summary of the translations. Not a translation or tafsir.

One hundred and twenty verses of covenant and law: what may be eaten, how oaths bind, the rules of pilgrimage, and what a community owes to the agreements it has entered — taking its name from the table of food the disciples ask Jesus to bring down.

AALAMIN Editor · signed 29 August 2026

not a scholar — what this signature means

I am not a scholar, and nothing here asks you to treat me as one. The plain words on this site are my restatement of what the five translations shown above say, together with counts derived from the text itself — nothing more. I sign them so that a named person is accountable for every sentence, not so you'll take my word for anything. The authority on this page is the text and its translators. If my words don't match theirs, mine are the ones that are wrong.

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Every verse as a number; tap one to open it. Shaded numbers mark verses where the translations differ most.

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worded differently

Where the translators differDerived

The verses of this surah whose wording differs most, most differently worded first. Under each, the two renderings that share the fewest words are quoted in full under their translators' names; every rendering is on the verse's own page. This measures wording, not meaning.

5:63
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.78. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.91.

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

Why do not the rabbis and the priests forbid their evil-speaking and their devouring of illicit gain? Verily evil is their handiwork

John Medows Rodwell · 1861

Had not their doctors and teachers forbidden their uttering wickedness, and their eating unlawful food, bad indeed would have been their doings
5:76
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.76. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.85.

Talal Itani · 2012

Say, "Do you worship, besides God, what has no power to harm or benefit you?" But God: He is the Hearer, the Knower.

John Medows Rodwell · 1861

SAY: Will ye worship, beside God, that which can neither hurt nor help? But God! He only Heareth, Knoweth
Show all verses the translators word differently
5:79
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.73. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.83.

Edward Henry Palmer · 1880

they would not desist from the wrong they did; evil is that which they did

George Sale · 1734

They forbade not one another the wickedness which they committed; and wo unto them for what they committed
5:102
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.72. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.87.

Talal Itani · 2012

A people before you asked about them, but then came to reject them.

John Medows Rodwell · 1861

They who were before you, asked concerning such things, and afterwards quickly disbelieved therein
5:1
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.71. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.84.

Talal Itani · 2012

O you who believe! Fulfill your commitments. Livestock animals are permitted for you, except those specified to you; but not wild game while you are in pilgrim sanctity. God decrees whatever He wills.

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

O ye who believe! Fulfil your indentures. The beast of cattle is made lawful unto you (for food) except that which is announced unto you (herein), game being unlawful when ye are on the pilgrimage. Lo! Allah ordaineth that which pleaseth Him
More about this surahDerived
Verses
120
Words
2,804
Place
Medinan
Revelation position
112th of 114 in an ordering its source does not name
Opening letters
None
Bismillah
Carried by the surah, unnumbered
Word-by-word breakdown
53.3% of 2,804 words carry an analysis
  1. 96
  2. 68
  3. 73
  4. 74
  5. 1
  6. 111
  7. 81
  8. 87
  9. 92
  10. 89
  11. 93
  12. 94
  13. 103
  14. 100
  15. 108
  16. 102
  17. 107
  18. 109
  19. 105
  20. 113
  21. 114
  22. 112
  23. 53
  24. 80
  25. 97
  26. 91
  27. 85
  28. 95
  29. 106
  30. 101
  31. 75
  32. 104
  33. 77
  34. 50
  35. 90
  36. 86
  37. 54
  38. 38
  39. 7
  40. 72
  41. 36
  42. 25
  43. 35
  44. 19
  45. 20
  46. 56
  47. 26
  48. 27
  49. 28
  50. 17
  51. 10
  52. 11
  53. 12
  54. 15
  55. 6
  56. 37
  57. 31
  58. 34
  59. 39
  60. 40
  61. 41
  62. 42
  63. 43
  64. 44
  65. 45
  66. 46
  67. 51
  68. 88
  69. 18
  70. 16
  71. 71
  72. 14
  73. 21
  74. 23
  75. 32
  76. 52
  77. 67
  78. 69
  79. 70
  80. 78
  81. 79
  82. 82
  83. 84
  84. 30
  85. 29
  86. 83
  87. 2
  88. 8
  89. 3
  90. 33
  91. 60
  92. 4
  93. 99
  94. 57
  95. 47
  96. 13
  97. 55
  98. 76
  99. 65
  100. 98
  101. 59
  102. 24
  103. 22
  104. 63
  105. 58
  106. 49
  107. 66
  108. 64
  109. 61
  110. 62
  111. 48
  112. 5
  113. 9
  114. 110

Meccan Medinan

Counted from the text and the spine at build time, not written into the page. Opening letters are derived from the edition's orthography: an opening token of at most five letters carrying none of its vocalisation marks. The revelation position is reproduced from Revelation order as encoded by the Tanzil metadata, which does not name whose ordering it is.

Analysis detailsDerived

These figures count the words the translations share. They measure wording, not meaning, and they do not say which translation is right.

Mean score across this surah
0.58 across 120 scored verses

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
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.
Scored
6,236 verses
As at
13 September 2026, 10:56 UTC
Sources for this page

Surah metadataTanzil Qur'an metadata ·quran-data.xml v1.0·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution — version not specified by the source·retrieved 24 Aug 2026

Surah metadata from Tanzil Qur'an metadata (quran-data.xml, version 1.0), Tanzil Project, tanzil.net. (C) 2008-2009 Tanzil.info. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution; the source does not state a version. Values are reproduced unchanged; this site selects and arranges them, and derives verse ranges from the division start points. https://tanzil.net/res/text/metadata/quran-data.xml