On Some Recent Translations of the Qur'ān.pdf

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On Some Recent Translations of the Qur'n

Author(s): A. BausaniSource: Numen, Vol. 4, Fasc. 1 (Jan., 1957), pp. 75-81Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3269293 .

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SHORTER NOTESON SOME RECENT TRANSLATIONS OF THE QUR'ANR. Blachere's clear and useful translation of the Qur'an, publishedin three volumes in the years I947-I95I, seems to have opened thedoor to a flow of re-translations of the Muslim Holy Book intovarious languages.Almost contemporary with Blachere's version is the first volumeof an English translation of the Qur'an prepared by the qadyani

Ahmadiyyas of Pakistan, with a long introduction by the Chief of theAhmadiyya Community and very abundant footnotes. In I953 theindefatigable and prolific English orientalist A. J. Arberry producedan Anthology of the Qur'an 1), followed in 1955 by a complete trans-lation in two volumes. In 1954 the Ahmadiyya Mission in Europepublished (in Holland) a German translation. The following year sawthe publication of my Italian translation with introduction and notes:another Italian translation, not yet published, had been entrusted byanother publisher to a remarkabe personality in Italian orientalism:M. M. Moreno, presently Italian Plenipotentiary Minister in Khartum.At last, in I956 a Dutch translation of the Qur'an was published, asthe posthumous work of the great Dutch orientalist J. H. Kramers.All this work of re-interpretation has been accompanied by studiesand "Introductions" into the religious world of the Prophet of Arabia,of which I only mention R. Bell's Introduction to the Qur'an (I953),W. Montgomery Watt's Muhammad at Mecca (I953), G. Widengren'sstudy on Mohammad the Apostle of God and his Ascension (I955).I leave apart the more technical articles appeared on various scientificjournals concerning this and that Qur'anic problem.We are now very far from the times when the Qur'an was a booksealed with seven seals for the Christian world!

The books mentioned above contain nothing extremely new for whatconcerns philology stricto sensu: actually Qur'anic philology does notpresent those complicated problems implied in the interpretation, e.g.,

I) A. J. ARBERRY, The Holy Koran, London, I953.

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Shorter Notesof the Avesta or other religious Books of the antiquity. We canfreely say that - with some minor exceptions - we substantiallyknow pretty well what the Qur'an means, at least what it meant forcenturies to the Muslim world. The only originality that the newtranslations may offer is an originality of approach. For a really newinterpretation, whose interest would however remain purely philo-logical and probably affect more the Muslim world than the Western,we have to wait the final results of the preliminary works foran editio critica of the text, begun already in I930-34 by Bergstrasserand Pretzl and continued by others: particularly interesting in thisaspect are the painstaiking and extremely accurate studies of P. E.Beck 2).The translations made by Muslims, on the other hand, are furtherexamples of tentative solutions of the central problem of Muslimmodernism: i.e. to justify modern trends, though remaining attachedto the traditional and antiquated idea of the verbal inspiration of theHoly Book. As it is well known - quite differently from what hap-pened in the history of Christian theology - Islam, and even its mostmodernistic representatives, always considered the Qur'an as theliteral dictation of the actual words of God to the Prophet. In a wayall the attempts of modernism in Islam could be defined as attemptsto give modern meanings to words spoken by God directly to solveproblems of an Arab community of thirteen centuries ago, whereaseven orthodox Christian moderns - with the now widely acceptedidea of a non-verbal inspiration of the "holy" authors, - simply tryto imagine what those holy persons would have said when faced withour present problems: a task, perhaps, more colourful and phantastic,but no doubt easier!

But let us return to our books, beginning with the Ahmadiyyatranslations.a) The Holy Qur'an, with English translation and commentary.

Rabwa, 1947 ff.b) Der Heilige Qur'an. Arabisch-Deutsch. Versehen mit einer aus-

fiihrlicher Einfiihrung, unter der Leitung von Hazrat Mirza Bashi-2) Especially is articles n Orientalia,.g.Studien urGeschichteerkufischenKoranlesungin den beiden ersten Jahrhunderten(1948, pp. 326 ff.); Die Kodi-zesvarianten der Amsar (ibid. 1947,pp. 353 ff.); Die Sire ar-Rgm (ibid. I944 pp.334 ff., 1945,pp. 118 ff.) etc.

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Shorter Notesruddin Mahmud Ahmad, Zweiter Kalif des Verheissenen Messias,Oberhaupt der Ahmadiyya-Bewegung des Islams. Ahmadiyya Missiondes Islams, Den Haag, I954.The second translation is without footnotes, and contains only adetailed Introduction, which is a summary of the English Introductionof the previous work. The ideas of the Ahmadiyya movement are suf-ficiently well-known in Europe, especially due to the vast propagandamade by this branch of Islam in the Western world. The Qddyandsubdivision of the Ahmadiyyas, having now, after the partition ofIndia, its center in Rabwa ca. Ioo km. from Lahore in Pakistan, isthe more conservative section. They are generally (and in my opinionwrongly) known as a "modernistic" and "progressive" movement ofIslam. Only an example: at p. 496 of the first vol. of the Englishtranslation (footnote) the reader will notice that these alleged "mo-dernists" - contrarily to many modern Muslims who try to explainaway polygamy from the Qur'an - maintain that "the West willnever recover from the terrible moral and social diseases from whichit is suffering...unless, setting aside all false notions and falsesentiments, it submits to the Islamic injunctions about polygamy".During my visit to their center in Pakistan- the small town ofRabwa, practically created out of a desert by the remarkable effortsof the Ahmadiyya refugees from Qadyan (India) - I did not succeedin seeing a single woman: the "parda" custom, now gradually aban-doned even by conservative Muslims, is by them most strictly ob-served. One of their most "modern" tendencies is their categoricaland meritorious refuse of the Holy War, but for what concernsdogmatics Ahmadiyyas (and specially Qadyanis) can not at all beconsidered as it is often the case in Handbooks of Islamistics --under the heading "modernistic trends". At p. II35 and 1227 of thissame work (notes to XII, 3 and XIV, 5) the commentator maintains,following the ideas of the Founder of the Movement, that Arabic isthe mother of all languages (umnmu'I-alsina), a tenet which hasnothing to do with modernism and that, together with other ideas asthat of the death of Jesus Christ in Kashmir, has become almost anew dogma for the Ahmadiyya believers.The English Introduction comprises 276 pp. and is a most in-teresting and authoritative compendium of the Ahmadiyya doctrines.The translation is generally accurate, but can be useful only for those

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Shorter Noteswho know the "weak points" of the Ahmadiyyas. They show ageneral tendency to rationalize the eschatological parts of the Qur'anand to smooth away every trace of anthropomorphism. One example:LV, 30 is so translated into German: "Ihn bitten alle die in den Him-meln und auf Erden sind. Jeden Augenblick (offenbart Er Sich) im(neuem) Glanz" (for "every day He is upon some labour", Arberry).The idea that God is every day occupied in new works evidentlyseemed too anthropomorphic: the Ahmadiyya doctrine also denies thecommonly accepted Muslim tenet that God can abrogate a passage ofthe Holy Book substituting it with another.c) II Corano. Introduzione, Traduzione e commento di AlessandroBausani. Firenze, I955 ("Classici della Religione", Collezione direttada Raffaele Pettazzoni). It is not easy for an author to speak ofhis own work without falling into an excess of (false) modesty, or,in the worst case, of exaggerated self-contentment. Reading the pre-cedent two translations of the Qur'an into Italian, that of Fracassiand that of Bonelli 3), one is compelled to remark two facts: theextremely literal rendering of the original, which completely spoilsthe text of any literary beauty, and the almost total lack of foot-notesand commentary, which makes practically impossible to the Italiannon-specialist reader of the Qur'an to understand the text. MoreoverBonelli's translation included only a very short introduction (no morethan ii pp. in I6?). My aim in retranslating the Sacred Bookof Islam has been that of giving to the Italian non-specialist publicwhat was not to be found in the preceding translations: a readableItalian prose, which in some parts of the Qur'an, especially Meccansura's, passes into a sort of rhythmic prose; a sufficiently extendedCommentary (238 pp.); an Introduction (78 pp.) on the life of theArabian Prophet, and the history of his Book. In the Commentary Iabounded as much as possible in the indication of cross-references: thefirst commentary of the Qur'an is that given by itself, and theutility of a wise employment of this internal system to the studyof this Book (and other Sacred Scriptures too) will never be emphas-ized enough. In my commentary, among other things, I tried to show

3) L. BONELLI,I Corano. Milano, 1929 (2 ed. with only slight changes, I940).Bonelli's translation substituted the precedingone by Fracassi (publishedin thesame collection "Manuali Hoepli" in 1914) which was unscientific and very im-perfect.

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Shorter Noteshow the Qur'an is not so "contradictory" and so similar to a rudisindigestaque moles as many still think. Moreover, I tried to correcthere and there what I think to be the prejudices of a certain Westernscholarship about the Qur'an: such as the idea that Muhammad wasan "ignorant beduin" who had only extremely vague ideas of theChristian and Jewish scriptures; that of the "materialistic"eschatologyof the Qur'an, and that of the impossibility of the Qur'an containingalso some allegorical or symbolical materials 4).

d) A. J. ARBERRY, The Koran Interpreted. London, I955 (in 2voll., the first comprising suras I-XX, the second XX-CXIV).The aim of the new translation of Mr. Arberry into English ispractically the same as that of mine into Italian. In his Preface (22pp., mainly devoted to a study of other English translations of theQur'an) he writes (p. 24): "The discriminating reader will not havefailed to remark, even in the short extracts quoted, a certain uniformi-ty and dull monotony characteristic of all, from the seventeenthdown to the twentieth century. A conscientious but slavish faith-fulness to the letter - so far as the letter has been progressivelyunderstood - has in general excluded any corresponding reflectionof the spirit, where that has at all been appreciated". I agree comple-tely with this view of the learned Professor of Cambridge: the moreor less precisely definable anti-islamic spirit, which was and partlystill is widely spread in even highly educated European milieus, is alsoa result of the style of the majority of European translations of theHoly Book of Islam. It would be difficult to express in words betterthan those of Prof. Arberry an experience that every translator ofthe Qur'an - not lacking at least a minimum of "poetical" sense -should share: "There is a repertory of familiar themes runningthrough the whole Koran; each Sura elaborates or adumbrat s oneor more - often many of these. Using the language of music, eachSura is a rhapsody composed of whole or fragmentary leitmotivs; theanalogy is reinforced by the subtly varied rhythmical flow of thediscourse. If this diagnosis of the literary structure of the Koranmay be accepted as true - and it accords with what we know of thepoetical instinct, indeed the whole aesthetic impulse, of the Arabs -

4) See now,on thesethreesubjects,myarticlePostillea Cor.II, 248-XXXIX,23- XX, 15 in "Studi Orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi della Vida". Rome,1956, I vol., pp. 32-51.

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it follows that those notorious incongruities and irrelevancies, eventhose "wearisome repetitions", which have proved such stumbling-blocks in the way of our Western appreciation, will vanish in thelight of a clearer understanding of the nature of the Muslim scriptu-res. A new vista opens up; following this hitherto unsuspected andunexplored path, the eager interpreter hurries forward upon anexciting journey of discovery, and is impatient to report his findingsto a largely indifferent and incredulous public".This writer agrees so completely with Prof. Arberry's statementthat he regrets not to have had the courage (due perhaps to an excessof scientific prudence) to express himself more clearly on this sub-ject in his commentary. See however pp. LXIV ff. of my introductionand passim in various footnotes (as e.g. XI, 35) where I express theopinion that the "interpolations" so easily detected by Europeanscholars unware of the artistic unity of some outwardly "broken" pas-sages, may in some cases be due to an excess of criticism. It is onlya pity that Prof. Arberry did not deem it useful to append to hisso valuable "interpretation" a commentary or a longer and moredetailed introduction, in order to elucidate his new views more fully.

c) De Koran. Uit het Arabisch vertaald door J. H. Kramers. Am-sterdam, I956. pp. XX, 728.This is a posthumous work by the well-known Arabist and Islamistof Leiden. He had worked at this translation long years, but un-fortunately he was not able to complete it with a sufficient quantityof foot-notes and an introduction. The introducion of the presentedition (14 pp.) has been written by the editor of the book, Mr. R. W.van Diffelen, from notes by the Author. The footnotes are unfor-tunately rather scarce and prepared by the editor basing himself onmarginal manuscript notes by Kramers, but very useful indications ofcross-references (work of Kramers himself) are inserted in the text.The editor is also responsible for the short introductions to the singlesuras. Completely a work of Kramers is the very detailedalphabeticalIndex at the end of the book (more than 80 pp.), which willprove very useful to every student of the Qur'an; it is perhaps notexaggerated to say that it is one of the best of such Indexes. Thiseulogy of the Index does not however mean a depreciation of thetranslation itself, which is exact and a fruit of wide and deep erudition.My knowledge of Dutch is not so deep as to allow me the possibility

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ShorterNotes 8Iof a literary judgement. It seems to me however that Kramers' transla-tion is made on the pattern of the classical scientific translations, andquite far from Arberry's "new style".

Summing up, it seems that, after the long and fruitful work of Euro-pean scholars for a better understanding of the literal meaning of theQur'an, not much has been left to the recentiores to say in this field.The way is now open to a better and deeper appreciation of theaesthetic and religious (two terms meaning things not so different asit seems at first sight) value of the Qur'an: a way until now barredby the sacred horror of the Muslims to connect such a frivolous termas "poetry" with the Word of God, and by the overcriticism ofcertain "pure" philologists (read "pure" in the sense of "arid") ofEurope. A. BAUSANI.Rome

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On Some Recent Translations of the Qur'ān.pdf