Girish Chandra Sen

Girish Chandra Sen () (1835/36-1910), a Brahmo Samaj missionary, was the first person to translate the Qur’an into Bengali language in 1886. It was his finest contribution to Bengali literature.

Early life

Son of Madhabram Sen of Panchdona, Dhaka in Bengal (now part of Narayanganj District in Bangladesh), he learnt Persian and Sanskrit in early life and started working as a copywriter in the court of the deputy magistrate in Mymensingh. He was attracted to the Brahmo Samaj under the influence of Keshub Chunder Sen and Bijay Krishna Goswami and joined it as a missionary in 1871.

In 1869, Keshub Chunder Sen chose from amongst his missionaries, four persons and ordained them as adhyapaks or professors of four old religions of the world. He was selected to study Islam. Others selected to study different religions were Gour Govinda Ray for Hinduism, Protap Chandra Mozoomdar for Christianity, and Aghore Nath Gupta for Buddhism. A firm believer in the basic unity of all religions, he immersed himself in his studies and later went to Lucknow to study Arabic and the Islamic religious texts. He was involved in intense studies for about five years.

Erudition on Islam

On completion of his studies, he returned to Kolkata and engaged in translation of Islamic scriptures. After hard labour of six years from 1881-1886, he produced an annotated Bengali version of the Qur’an. Apart from this, he translated from original Persian religious books such as the teachings of Golestan and......
Read More