Inji’l i Muqaddas 1955
Revised Urdu New Testament in Roman Urdū 1955
Urdu is native language in Pakistan and parts of India, and is the official language of Pakistan along with English. It is closely related to Hindi. The modern Hindi and Urdu languages are mutually intelligible in colloquial form, but use different scripts when written. Urdu is usually written in Persian-Arabic Nastaliq script in Pakistan, and sometimes in Devanagari script in India, and sometimes in a romanised script when it is called Roman Urdū. Roman Urdū was historically used more by Christians, but today is increasingly used for the Internet, and by the Urdu-speaking diaspora in English speaking countries, who speak and understand Urdu but cannot write it in the traditional Persian script.
Urdu translations of the Holy Scriptures date back to 1745 with the book of Genesis from the Torah. It was ranslated by Benjamin Schultze and published in Arabic script. The New Testament was first published in 1805 in Devanagari script. In 1814 the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) published this in Arabic script.
The New Testament was first published in Roman Urdu in 1841 as “Hamáre ḳhudáwand Yisú' Masíh ka' naya' wazi'qa”. The whole Bible was first published in Roman Urdu in 1843 as “Kitʹab ul quds Pura'na aur Naya' Ahdna'ma”. This translation was frequently revised and improved through the decades. It became known as the Revised Urdu and was printed in Persian script and in Roman script. The British and Foreign Bible Society produced a Roman Urdū New Testament called “Injil i Muqaddas” in 1878. The whole Revised Urdu Bible was last printed in Roman script by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1931 as “Kitáb i muqaddas”. A BFBS revision of the New Testament was printed in 1955 as “Inji’l i muqaddas”, which was digitised in 2016.
© British and Foreign Bible Society 1955, digital form 2016
