The Message of the Qur'an by the famous 20th-century Muslim thinker Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss) is one of the most popular Qur'an interpretations in both East and West. Although his 1980 full translation has been studied in detail, the first version of this work remains little more than a bibliographical reference. Influenced by previous works in this genre (Muhammad Ali, Yusuf Ali and Marmaduke Pickthall), a partial translation published in 1964 covering surahs 1-9, it became controversial after it received harsh criticism from the Muslim World League and many other religious groups and circles. This study comprises the first attempt to examine this neglected text, comparing it with the complete 1980 edition so as to shed light on several important questions: what role did Asad's 1964 translation play in Muslim translational discourse in the early 1960s; how does it reflect the evolution of his thought; and finally, what were the real issues underlying the debates and controversy that surrounded this significant work.