Here is a list of the reference books I am working from. If you want to discuss these things these are the books you will need to work from. If you wish to question them using other books, you can list those in a separate forum post and we can discuss them there.
The Quran (Arabic Mosque-printed; non edited original.)
The Quran English Translation (Abdullah Yusuf Ali; edited modern version.)
Please note the dedication and the stamp of approval given at the top right corner and at the foot of the page. A Yusuf Ali is an accepted scholarly authority by Sunni Mecca Mosque, as well as by The Greater Manchester Mosque in Britain.
3. The Quran In English (Usama Dakdok; interpretation of the original into English.)
4. The English Interpreted Quran (Dr Gordon Nichol; scriptural interpretation into English.)
5. The Google-Translated English Quran (supplied in romanticised English.)
These are the primary versions I used in order to produce my own translation - using the Arabic original Mosque Quran as my basis, and then referring to all those other texts for comparison to ensure accuracy. Finally I have two Arabic ex-Muslim friends checking my work over time to ensure it stays accurate. One is an Egyptian lecturer now working and living in Britain, and the other is a theologian whom is now Christian living in Saudi Arabia.
Regards
Daily Corvid.
A previous member (now deleted) did question my translations, but as he continually broke the forum rules I have removed his post. For the sake of fairness I will record his complaints here in short :
My translation are poor quality, and do not match his copy of the Quran.
I was not submissive to his greater knowledge of the Quran and Hadith.
I was heavily biased against Islam, and was not fair in my appraisals of the Quran.
These are the basics of his complaints, so let's break those down and see if there is any truth to them. Ultimately I want to improve so this site can improve too. We start with the first point...
1 : He said that because I am not naturalised Arabic, this meant I could not understand his language well enough to "get" the nuance of context and descriptions of things. He said I was getting things totally wrong as well though, which would not be an accuracy issue but instead an issue of honesty.
I replied that I listed my sources (which you can find in the pinned forum post) and that all six of the Quran copies I was working with all 100% agreed with the context and descriptions I found in my own translation. I also said that since my Quran copies were all sanctioned either by Islamic religious authorities in Mecca or the Oxford Scriptural Research Group - that I found his complaints to be without weight.
He also supplied a fair amount of PDF excerpts of the particular Quran he was using - though I found that the one he supplied, whilst nowhere near as accurate or as well explained as the ones I have been used, did in fact agree with 99% of what I had written. The only parts which did not agree were semantic in nature. For instance saying "schemer" instead of "deceiver" or "warrior" instead of "soldier".
He continually claimed also, that I was adding a lot of things which are not in the text at all - and therefore my Quran translation was to be faulted for this having been the case. I replied with evidence that it was not "translation" which was the root cause of this - but the fact that his Quran did not include those parts from the original manuscripts (he was using a romanticised version not a pro-quo original as we do here).
In summary, I found his complaints to be unfounded and rooted in discrimination rather than enquiry.
2 : He claimed that as I was not Arabic, and not a Muslim myself this meant that I could not possibly have a greater knowledge of Quran and Hadith scripture as he had (claiming to be an Arab Muslim himself). I responded with the fact that he was writing his messages to me in English, and if I applied that same standard to him then I could just write off his entire argument as ignorance. But I chose to hear it instead and consider his points fairly.
He claimed that he had studied the Quran for his entire life, though declined to tell me how long in years the period of study was. I guessed that he was at most twenty years of age and probably younger, based on a cursory Google search against the details he had supplied in his membership sign-up. I replied that despite my lack of long years of experience, I had completed over six solid months of a daily study. I said that for the last six months, for between four and seven hours every day - I had done nothing else but study these Quran copies in detail, translating them and comparing them to previously done authorised translations (finding them to be accurate). In addition to this I had been recording my study in longform videos on YouTube, to which I had accumulated over 70 hours of live one-take videos of my breaking down the Quran in English verse by verse.
In summary once again I found his complaints to be rooted in discriminatory thinking.
3 : He claimed I was heavily biased against Islam and therefore was assuming I was biased against him as he said he was a Muslim. I had doubts whether he actually was a Muslim at all, judging him by the comments he had made and his apparent ignorance of the Quran history and writings. He used as evidence of this, the fact I did not agree with his points and that I deleted two of his posts. Whilst it is true I did remove some of his posts, they contravened the forum rules - which he had agreed to follow during his account creation. He did neither read nor follow them.
I responded by saying his approach seemed heavily biased in favour of his view of Quranic morality, and was not honest. I reminded him that his initial post which was a question personally toward me claimed a thing which he never presented in his actions. He said he was here to weigh up the evidence fairly, but immediately did the opposite and ignored every piece of evidence presented.
One of the things he did which contravened the forum rules was he was constantly trying to leave unanswered questions behind in the comment thread then bringing up newer ones. I reminded him of the forum rules; and said please stay on topic for the sake of future reading comprehension. I requested he created new topics and posts for preaching from the Quran or arguing against other religions as this was nothing to do with the initial post.
In summary I found his complaints to be unfounded, and somewhat hypocritical.
His final actions before I deleted him and his post (which I didn't have to do but served as a courtesy to him, I would have liked to keep it and just deleted him as a user); were to passive-aggressively insult me and my works (which he never actually attempted to read or watch).
BIGMAN101 REMOVED FROM THE DIRECTORY
The original post he made was :
"as an arab muslim, who read the entire quran cover to cover, ik what the book is about, and i want to debate/chat/see other opinions even opposing ones. i ofcourse wont be disrespectful to figures anyone worships and i wish you would do the same. i also would sometimes be critical of some religious texts in other books that i personally dont completely follow. please take this not as a fight for humiliation of the other side, that wont be my aim when talking to anyone, i am truly here to learn and it can end in either
1. me being more sure that islam is correct and i should continue.
2. me leaving islam and following other religions truthfully just like i did with islam (in the case of someone actually refuting the quran and the prophet Muhammad (SAW)).
I dont want to be ganged up on here so keep your replies in a reasonable amount so i can reply to all of em."