Marmaduke William Pickthall (7 April 1875 – 19 May 1936), also known as Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, was an English Islamic scholar. His 1930 English translation of the Quran, titled the The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, is one of the most widely known and used in the English-speaking world.

The Son of a Clergyman

Pickthall was born in London, on 7 April 1875, the elder of the two sons of the Christian cleric Charles Grayson Pickthall (1822–1881) and his second wife, Mary Hale. As a schoolboy at Harrow, Pickthall was a classmate and friend of Winston Churchill. In June 1917, Pickthall gave a speech defending the rights of Palestinian Arabs, in the context of the debate over the Balfour Declaration. In November 1917, Pickthall converted to Islam, publicly taking the Shahadah at the Woking Muslim Mission. He followed this with a speech contrasting the Christian and Muslim approaches to religious law, arguing that Islam was better equipped than Christianity to handle the post-World War world. Pickthall was buried in the Muslim section at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, England.