Online Quran

Mary Kennedy was born in Orlando. She was a former Christian who converted to Islam.

Amatullah Bantley was a former Catholic Christian. She was introduced to Islam through international Muslim students. She converted to Islam in 1986 and eventually moved to Saudi Arabia.

Emily Assami spent the 1970s studying Arabic in Damascus, Syria, She’d arrived there as an atheist. But before long, she found meaning in the Qur’an and pursued language studies at Damascus University, eventually converting to Islam and moving to Saudi Arabia. These days, she’s better known as Umm Muhammad to followers, or by her chosen name, Aminah.

Assami grew up in a family of atheists. But she first grew interested in Islam after a biased comparative religion presentation by a history teacher.

Yet when Assami eventually got her hands on the Qur’an, something clicked. She was drawn by the similarities to the holy books she recognized.

“I started to read the translation of the Qur’an from the very beginning. I found there were many things, I didn’t understand, but others impressed me,” she wrote.

“So I decided to continue my reading since I was unable to sleep anyway, in order to keep from thinking too much I began reading although my heart was not really in it, and suddenly before me were these words: ‘And give glad tidings to the patient, who say when misfortune strikes: To God do we belong, and to Him is our return…’”

Mary Kennedy, the Orlando-born English major who serves as an editor for the publishing house, grew up in a Christian family in Florida. She told Arab News that she was inquisitive, but “many things never clicked.” That changed when she began reading Islamic texts.

Her brother’s conversion paved the way for her own. And her family as supportive, Kennedy said.

Like Assami, Amatullah Bantley’s journey to Saudi Arabia started early. As a child, she found the Catholicism she was raised in unsatisfying: Every time she went to confession, no matter what the sin, her penitence was the same.

She sought liberation from her family’s Catholicism by in a lack of faith, yet she continued to yearn for a higher power—one she believed created the universe. in college, she met international students who were Muslim, if not overtly practicing, and captivated her attention. They eventually discussed religion, though Bantley was hesitant.

“I remember saying, ‘I would never live like that,’” she recalled. “I obviously bought into the common misconception that women have fewer rights in Islam.”

But Bantley remained curious. She learned more about Islam and concluded that if women were mistreated in Muslim countries, it was because of culture and human influence—not religion.

“I saw the beauty of the religion and became convinced it was from God Himself,” she said. “I embraced Islam in 1986 and moved to Saudi the following year.”

“To make a long story short, we cleaned up and reorganized the text and prepared it for printing,” Bantley said. “The publisher liked our improvements and so the three of us continued to edit other author’s works.

Their Qur’an came out in 1997. Now online, the Saheeh International translation is often recommended for English speakers. It is frequently the default translation on religious websites.