Translating the Untranslatable: A Survey of English Translations of the Quran by A.R. Kidwai
Translating the
Untranslatable:
A Survey of English Translations of the Quran
by A.R. Kidwai
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Selecting Quran Translation |
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Despite the historical fact that the early Muslim community's stand on the
translation of the Arabic text of the Quran was ambivalent, as indeed, the
general Muslim attitude remains so to this day, the act of translation may be
logically viewed as a natural part of the Muslim exegetical effort. However,
whereas the idea of interpreting the Quran has not been so controversial, the
emotional motives behind rendering the Quranic text into languages other than
Arabic have always been looked upon with suspicion.
This is obvious as the need for translating the
Quran arose in those historic circumstances when a large number of non-Arabic
speaking people had embraced Islam, and giving new linguistic orientations to
the contents of the revelation - as, for instance, happened in the case of the
'New Testament' - could have led to unforeseeable, and undesirable,
developments within the body of the Islamic religion itself. (For a brief,
though highly useful, survey of the Muslim attitudes towards the permissibility
of translating the text of the revelation to non-Arabic tongues, see M. Ayoub,
'Translating the Meaning of the Quran: Traditional Opinions and Modern
Debates', in Afkar Inquiry, Vol. 3, No. 5 (Ramadan 1406/May 1986), pp.34 9).
The Muslim need for translating the Quran into
English arose mainly out of the desire to combat the missionary effort.
Following a long polemical tradition, part of whose goal was also the
production of a - usually erroneous and confounding - European version of the
Muslim scripture, Christian missionaries started their offensive against a
politically humiliated Islam in the eighteenth century by advancing their own
translations of the Quran.
Obviously, Muslims could not allow the
missionary effort - invariably confounding the authenticity of the text with a
hostile commentary of its own - to go unopposed and unchecked. Hence, the
Muslim decision to present a faithful translation of the Quranic text as well
as an authentic summary of its teaching to the European world. Later, the
Muslim translations were meant to serve even those Muslims whose only access to
the Quranic revelation was through the medium of the European languages.
Naturally, English was deemed the most important language for the Muslim
purpose, not least because of the existence of the British Empire which after
the Ottomans had the largest number of Muslim subjects.
The same rationale, however, applies to
sectarian movements within Islam or even to renegade groups outside the
fold of Islam, such as the Qadiyanis. Their
considerable translational activities are motivated by the urge to proclaim
their ideological uniqueness.
Although there is a spate of volumes on the
multi-faceted dimensions of the Quran, no substantial work has so far been done
to critically examine the mass of existing English translations of the Quran.
Even bibliographical material on this subject
was quite scant before the fairly recent appearance of World
Bibliography of the Translations of the Meanings of the Holy Quran (Istanbul,
OIC Research Centre, 1986), which provides authoritative publication details of
the translations of the Quran in sixty-five languages.
Some highly useful work in this field had been
done earlier by Dr. Hamidullah of Paris. Appended to the Cambridge
History of Arabic Literature Volume 1, Arabic Literature to the End of
the Umayyad Period (Cambridge university Press, 1983) is a
bibliography of the Quran translations into European languages, prepared by
J.D. Pearson, as is the latter's article in the Encyclopaedia of Islam.
It is, however, of not much use to the Muslim.
Since none of the above-mentioned works is
annotated, the reader gets no idea about the translator's mental make-up, his
dogmatic presuppositions and his approach to the Quran as well as the quality
of the translation.
Similarly the small chapter entitled 'The Qur'an
and Occidental Scholarship' in Bell and Watt's Introduction to the
Qur'an (Edinburgh, 1970, pp. 173-86), although useful in providing
background information to Orientalists efforts
in Quranic studies, and translations, more or less for the same reasons, is of
little value to general Muslim readers. Thus, studies which focus on those
aspects of each translation of the Quran are urgently needed lest Western
scholars misguide the unsuspecting non-Arabic speaking readers of the Quran. An
effort has been made in this survey to bring out the hallmarks and shortcomings
of the major complete translations of the Quran.
The early English translations of the Quran by
Muslims stemmed mainly from the pious enthusiasm on their
part to refute the allegations leveled by the Christian missionaries
against Islam in general and the Quran in particular.
Illustrative of this trend are the following
translations:
(i) Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan, The Holy
Qur'an:'with short notes based on the Holy Qur'an or the authentic
traditions of the Prophet, or and New Testaments or scientific truth. All
fictitious romance, questionable history and disputed theories have been
carefully avoided' (Patiala, 1905);
(ii) Hairat Dehlawi, The Koran Prepared, by
various Oriental learned scholars and edited by Mirza Hairat Dehlawi. Intended
as 'a complete and exhaustive reply to the manifold criticisms of the Koran by
various Christian authors such as Drs. Sale, Rodwell, Palmer and Sir W. Muir'
(Delhi, 1912); and
(iii) Mirzal Abu'l Fadl, Qur'an, Arabic
Text and English Translation Arranged Chronologically with an Abstract (Allahabad,
1912).
Since none of these early translations was by a
reputed Islamic scholar, both the quality of the translation and level of
scholarship are not very high and these works are of mere historical interest.
Later works, however, reflect a more mature
and scholarly effort.
Muhammad Marmaduke William Pickthall, an
English man of letters who embraced Islam, holds the distinction of bringing
out a first-rate rendering of the Qur'an in English, The
Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an (London, 1930).
It keeps scrupulously close to the original in
elegant, though now somewhat archaic, English. However, although it is one of
the most widely used English translations, it provides scant explanatory notes
and background information. This obviously restricts its usefulness for an
uninitiated reader of the Qur'an.
Abdullah Yusuf Ali's The
Holy Qur'an: Translation and Commentary (Lahore, 1934 37), perhaps
the most popular translation, stands as another major achievement in this
field. A civil servant by vocation, Yusuf Ali was not a scholar in the
classical Muslim tradition. Small wonder, then, that some of his copious
notes, particularly on hell and heaven, angels, jinn and polygamy, etc. are
informed with the pseudo-rationalist spirit of his times, as for
instance in the works of S. Ahmad and S. Ameer Ali.
His overemphasis on things spiritual also
distorts the Qur'anic worldview. Against this is the fact that Yusuf Ali
doubtless was one of the few Muslims who enjoyed an excellent command over the
English language. It is fully reflected in his translation. Though his is more
of a paraphrase than a literal translation, yet it faithfully represents the
sense of the original.
Abdul Majid Daryabadi's The
Holy Qur'an: with English Translation and Commentary (Lahore, 1941 -
57) is, however, fully cognate with the traditional Muslim
viewpoint.
Like Pickthall's earlier attempt, it is a
faithful rendering, supplemented with useful notes on historical, geographical
and eschatological issues, particularly the illuminating discussions on
comparative religion. Though the notes are not always very exhaustive, they
help to dispel the doubts in the minds of Westernized readers. However, it too
contains inadequate background information about the Suras (chapters of the
Quran) and some of his notes need updating.
The Meaning of the Qur'an (Lahore,
1967), the English version of Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdud'i's magnum
opus, the Urdu Tafhim al-Quran is an
interpretative rendering of the Qur'an which remarkably succeeds in recapturing
some of the majesty of the original.
Since Mawdudi, a great thinker, enjoyed rare
mastery over both classical and modern scholarship, his work helps one develop
an understanding of the Qur'an as a source of guidance. Apart from setting the
verses/Suras in the circumstances of its time, the author constantly relates,
though exhaustive notes, the universal message of the Qur'an to his own time
and its specific problems. His logical line of argument, generous sensibility,
judicious use of classical Muslim scholarship and practical solutions to the
problems of the day combine to show Islam as a complete way of life and as the
Right Path for the whole of mankind. Since the translation of this invaluable
work done by Muhammad Akbar is pitiably poor and uninspiring, the much-needed
new English translation of the entire work is in
progress under the auspices of the Islamic
Foundation, Leicester.
The Message of the Quran by Muhammad Asad (Gibraltar,
1980) represents a notable addition to the body of English
translations couched in chaste English. This work is
nonetheless vitiated by deviation from the viewpoint of the Muslim orthodoxy on
many counts. Averse to take some Qur'anic statements literally, Asad denies
the occurrence of such events as the throwing of Abraham into the fire, Jesus
speaking in the cradle, etc. He also regards Luqman,
Khizr and Zulqarnain as 'mythical figures' and holds unorthodox
views on the abrogation of verses. These blemishes apart, this highly readable
translation contains useful, though sometimes unreliable background information
about the Qur'anic Suras and even provides exhaustive notes on various Qur'anic
themes.
The fairly recent The Qur'an: The First American
Version (Vermont, 1985) by another native Muslim speaker of English, T.B. Irving, marks
the appearance of the latest major English translation. Apart from the
obnoxious title, the work is bereft of textual and explanatory notes.
Using his own arbitrary judgment, Irving has
assigned themes to each Qur'anic Ruku' (section). Although modern and forceful
English has been used, it is not altogether free of instances of mistranslation
and loose expressions. With American readers in mind, particularly the youth,
Irving has employed many American English idioms, which, in places, are not befitting
of the dignity of the Qur'anic diction and style.
In addition to the above, there are also a
number of other English translations by Muslims, which,
however, do not rank as significant ventures in this field.
They may be listed as:
1. Al-Hajj Hafiz Ghulam
Sarwar, Translation of the Holy Qur'an (Singapore,
1920)
2. Ali Ahmad Khan Jullundri, Translation of
the Glorious Holy Qur'an with commentary (Lahore, 1962)
3. Abdur Rahman Tariq and Ziauddin Gilani, The
Holy Qur'an Rendered into English (Lahore, 1966)
4. Syed Abdul Latif, Al-Qur'an:
Rendered into English (Hyderabad, 1969)
5. Hashim Amir Ali, The Message of
the Qur'an Presented in Perspective (Tokyo, 1974)
6. Taqui al-Din al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Explanatory
English Translation of the Holy Qur'an: A Summarized Version of Ibn Kathir
Supplemented by At-Tabari with Comments from Sahih al-Bukhari (Chicago,
1977)
7. Muhammad Ahmad Mofassir, The Koran: The
First Tafsir in English (London, 1979)
8. Mahmud Y. Zayid, The Qur'an: An English
Translation of the Meaning of the Qur'an (checked and revised in
collaboration with a committee of Muslim scholars) (Beirut, 1980)
9. S.M. Sarwar, The Holy Qur'an: Arab Text and
English Translation (Elmhurst, 1981)
10. Ahmed Ali, Al-Qur'an: A Contemporary
Translation (Karachi, 1984).
(In view of the blasphemous
statements contained in Rashad Khalifa's The
Qur'an: The Final Scripture (Authorized English Version) (Tucson,
1978), it has not been included in the translations by Muslims).
Even amongst the Muslim translations, some are
representative of the strong sectarian biases of
their translators.
For example, the Shia
doctrines are fully reflected in accompanying commentaries of the
following books: S.V. Mir Ahmad Ali, The Holy
Qur'an with English Translation and Commentary,
according to the version of the Holy Ahlul Bait includes 'special notes
from Hujjatul Islam Ayatullah Haji Mirza Mahdi Pooya Yazdi on
the philosophical aspects of the verses' (Karachi, 1964); M.H.
Shakir, Holy Qur'an (New York, 1982); Syed
Muhammad Hussain at-Tabatabai, al-Mizan: An Exegesis of the Qur'an,
translated from Persian into English by Sayyid Saeed Akhtar
Rizvi (Tehran, 198~). So far five volumes of
this work have been published.
Illustrative of the Barelvi
sectarian stance is Holy Qur'an, the English version
of Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi's Urdu
translation, by Hanif Akhtar Fatmi (Lahore, n.d.).
As pointed out earlier, the Qadiyanis, though
having abandoned Islam, have been actively engaged in translating the Qur'an, Apart from
English, their translations are available in several European and African
languages.
Muhammad Ali's The
Holy Qur'an: English Translation (Lahore, 1917) marks
the beginning of this effort. This Qadiyani translator is guilty of
misinterpreting several Qur'anic verses, particularly those related to the
Promised Messiah, his miracles and the Qur'anic angelology.
Similar distortions mar another Qadiyani translation
by Sher Ali, The Holy Qur'an: Arabic Text with English Translation (Rabwah,
1955).Published under the auspices of Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad,
second successor of the "Promised Messiah" and head of the
Ahmadiyyas, this oft-reprinted work represents the official Qadiyani version of
the Qur'an. Unapologizingly, Sher Sher Ali refers to Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad as the "Promised Messiah" and mistranslates and misinterprets a
number of Qur'anic verses.
Zafarullah Khan's The
Qur'an: Arabic Text and English Translation (London, 1970) ranks
as another notable Qadiyani venture in this field. Like other Qadiyanis,
Zafarullah too twists the Qur'anic verses to opine that the door of prophethood
was not closed with the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). The
obtrusion of similar obnoxious views upon the Qur'anic text is found in the following Qadiyani
translations, too:
(i) Kamaluddin and Nazir Ahmad, A
Running Commentary of the Holy Qur'an (London, 1948)
(ii) Salahuddin Peer, The Wonderful Koran (Lahore,
1960)
(iii) Malik Ghulam Farid, The Holy Qur'an (Rabwah,
1962)
(iv) Khadim Rahman Nuri, The Running
Commentary of the Holy Qur'an with under-bracket comments (Shillong,
1964)
(v) Firozuddin Ruhi, The Qur'an (Karachi, 1965)
Apart from the Qadiyanis, Christian missionaries
have been the most active non-Muslim translators of the Qur'an. As already
noted, origins of this inglorious tradition may be traced back to the
anti-Islamic motives of the missionaries.
Small wonder, then that these ventures are far
from being a just translation, replete as they are with frequent
transpositions, omissions, unaccountable liberties and unpardonable faults.
A very crude specimen of the Orientalist-missionary
approach to the Qur'an is found in Alexander
Ross's The Alcoran of Mahomet translated out of
Arabique into French, by the Sieur Du Ryer...And newly Englished, for the
satisfaction for all that desire to look into the Turkish vanities (London,
1649).
In translating the Qur'an, the intention
of Ross, a chaplain of King Charles I, was: 'I thought good to
bring it to their colours, that so viewing thine enemies in their full body,
thou must the better prepare to encounter...his Alcoran.'
In the same rabidly anti-Islamic
vein are the two appendices in the work entitled as (a) 'A
Needful Caveat or Admonition, for them who desire to know what use may be made
of or if there be danger in reading the Alcoran' (pp. 406 20) and 'The Life and
Death of Mahomet: the Prophet of the Turks and author of the Alcoran' (pp.
395-405).
George Sale, a
lawyer brought out his The Koran, commonly called The Al
Koran of Mohammed (London, 1734), which has been the most
popular English translation. Sale's exhaustive 'Preliminary Discourse', dealing
mainly with Sira and the Qur'an, betrays his deep hostility towards Islam and
his missionary intent in that he suggests the rules to be observed for 'the
conversion of Mohammedans' (q.v.).
As to the translation itself, it abounds in
numerous instances of omission, distortion and interpolations.
Dissatisfied with Sale's work, J.M.
Rodwell, Rector of St. Ethelberga, London, produced his translation
entitled The Koran (London, 1861). Apart from hurling all sorts of wild and nasty
allegations against the Prophet and the Qur'an in the Preface, Rodwell is
guilty of having invented the so-called chronological Sura order
of the Qur'an. Nor is his translation free from grave mistakes of translation
and his own fanciful interpretations in the notes.
E.H. Palmer, a
Cambridge scholar, was entrusted with the preparation of a new translation of
the Qur'an for Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East series. Accordingly, his
translation, The Qur'an, appeared in London in 1880. As to the
worth of Palmer's translation, reference may be made to A. R. Nykl's article,
'Notes on E.H. Palmer's The Qur'an',
published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 56
(1936) pp. 77-84 in which no less than 65 instances of omission and
mistranslation in Palmer's work have been pointed out.
Richard Bell, Reader
of Arabic, University of Edinburgh, and an acknowledged Orientalist produced a
translation of the Qur'an with special reference to its Sura order,
as is evident from the title of his work, The Qur'an
translated with a critical rearrangement of the Surahs (Edinburgh,
1937-39). In addition to describing the Prophet as the author of the
Qur'an, Bell also believes that the Qur'an in its present form was 'actually
written by Muhammad himself' (p. vi). In rearranging the Sura order of the
Qur'an, Bell, in fact, makes a thorough mess of the traditional arrangement and
tries to point out 'alterations substitutions and derangements in the text.
A.J. Arberry, a
renowned Orientalist and Professor of Arabic at the Universities of London and
Cambridge, has been, so far, the latest non-Muslim translator of the Qur'an.
Arberry's The Koran Interpreted (London,
1957) no doubt stands out above the other English renderings by non-Muslims in
terms of both its approach and quality. Nonetheless, it is not altogether free
from mistakes of omission and mistranslation, such as in Al' Imran 111:43, Nisa' IV:
72, 147 and 157, Ma'ida V: 55 and 71, An'am VI: 20,
105, A'raf VII: 157, 158 and 199, Anfal VIII: 17, 29,
41, 59, Yunus X: 88, Hud XI: 30 and 46 and Yusuf
XII: 61.
N.J. Dawood is
perhaps the only Jew to have translated
the Qur'an into English. Available in the Penguin edition,
Dawood's translation, The Koran (London, 1956) is perhaps the most widely
circulated non-Muslim English translation of the Qur'an. The
author's bias against Islam is readily observable in the Introduction.
Apart form adopting an unusual Sura order in his translation, Dawood is
guilty also of having mistranslated the Qur'an in
places such as Baqara II:9 and A'raf VII:31,
etc.
No doubt, the peculiar circumstances of history
which brought the Qur'an into contact with the English language have left their
imprint on the non-Muslim as well as the Muslim bid to translate it. The
results and achievements of their efforts leave a lot to be desired.
Unlike, for instance, major
Muslim languages such as Persian, Turkish and Urdu, which
have thoroughly exhausted indigenous linguistic and literary resources to meet
the scholarly and emotional demands of the task, the prolific resources of the
universal medium of English have not been fully employed in the service of the
Qur'an.
The Muslim Scripture is yet to find a
dignified and faithful expression in the English language that
matches the majesty and grandeur of the original. The currents of history,
however, seem to be in favour of such a development. Even English is acquiring
a native Muslim character and it is only a matter of time before we have a
worthy translation of the Qur'an in that tongue.
Till then, the Muslim student should judiciously
make use of Pickthall, A. Yusuf Ali, Asad and Irving, Even Arberry's stylistic
qualities must not be ignored. Ultimately, of course, the Muslim should try to
discover the original and not allow himself to be lost in a maze of
translations and interpretations.
(Originally printed in The Muslim World Book Review, Vol. 7, No. 4 Summer 1987)
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