Abdulla Yusuf Ali was an Indian Islamic scholar. His translation of The Qur’an is one of the most widely used in the English-speaking world. He was born in 1872 to a wealthy merchant family in India at the time of British rule. He spoke both English and Arabic fluently and studied at several European universities. His English translation of The Qur’an was published in 1938. He remained a respected scholar in India and became the head of Islamia College in Lahore. He died in London in December 1953 and is buried in the Muslim cemetery at Brookwood in Surrey.