Qur'an Translation as a Modern Phenomenon 9789004543553, 9789004543560
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Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements
Tables
Preface
Chapter 1. The Early European Qurʾān Translation Project
1. Attacking the Holy Book of the Turks
2. The Genuine Interest in Understanding Islam
3. The Scientific Turn of the Study of the Qurʾān
4. The Sacred Books of the East
5. European Qurʾān Translation: Assessment in Context
Chapter 2. Translation as Reform
1. Colonization, India, and the Need for Reform
2. The Birth of Reform and the Indian Qurʾān Translation Project
Chapter 3. The Rise of Muslim Translations
1. Interpretation of the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān and the Bible
2. Chronological Translation
3. Collaborative Translation
Chapter 4. Indian Muslim Translations: An Apex
1. Extensive Notes
2. Poetic Form
Chapter 5. Interconnectedness of Qurʾān Translations
1. Spirituality in Yūsuf ʿAli’s Translation
2. The Spiral of Influence in Qurʾān Translations
Chapter 6. Toward a Modernist Interpretation of the Qurʾān
1. The Pluralist Qurʾān
1.1. Universalism of Prophethood
1.2. Universalism of Salvation
1.3. Muslims, Superiority and Humanity
1.4. The Politics of Otherness
1.5. Contemporary Views on Pluralism
2. Peaceful Jihad
2.1. Abrogation Theory to Downplay Peace
2.2. Ethics of War
2.3. Context-Based Explanation of the Verses of War
2.4. The Broad Applicability of Verses of Peace
2.5. Jihad in the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 7. Modernism, Traditionalism, and the Social Function of Qurʾān Translation
1. Rationality
2. Science
3. Women
Chapter 8. Alternative Modernities of Qurʾān Translation
1. The Journey of the Indian Qurʾān Translations in Europe and America
2. Politics, Religion and Qurʾān Translation in Egypt
3. Al-Azhar’s Translation: Al-Montakhab
4. State-Sponsored Qurʾān Translation in Saudi Arabia
5. Alternative Modernities: Qurʾān Translation Form and Content
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Citation preview
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly - 978-90-04-54356-0 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2023 03:33:13AM via Leiden University
Qurʾān Translation as a Modern Phenomenon
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly - 978-90-04-54356-0 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2023 03:33:13AM via Leiden University
Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān Editorial Board Gerhard Bö wering (Yale University) Bilal Orfali (American University of Beirut) Devin Stewart (Emory University)
volume 21
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/tsq
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly - 978-90-04-54356-0 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2023 03:33:13AM via Leiden University
Qurʾān Translation as a Modern Phenomenon By
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly
leiden | boston
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly - 978-90-04-54356-0 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2023 03:33:13AM via Leiden University
Cover illustration: The extensive editing of the 1917 edition with the handwriting of Maulana Muhammad Ali. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Aly, El-Hussein A.Y., author. Title: Qur'an translation as a modern phenomenon / by El-Hussein A.Y. Aly. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2023. | Series: Texts and studies on the Qur'an, 1567-2808 ; 21 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2022062153 (print) | lccn 2022062154 (ebook) | isbn 9789004543553 (hardback) | isbn 9789004543560 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Qurʼan–Translations into English–History and criticism. | Qurʼan– Translating–History. | Translating and interpreting–Social aspects. | Translating and interpreting–Political aspects. Classification: lcc bp131.15.E54 A58 2023 (print) | lcc bp131.15.e54 (ebook) | ddc 297.1/22–dc23/eng/20230206 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022062153 lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022062154
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface. issn 1567-2808 isbn 978-90-04-54355-3 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-54356-0 (e-book) Copyright 2023 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly - 978-90-04-54356-0 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2023 03:33:13AM via Leiden University
To Hanan, for encouraging me to write my first book and my second book To Nazif and John, for all I learned from them To Samina and Noman, for all the love they surrounded me with
∵
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly - 978-90-04-54356-0 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2023 03:33:13AM via Leiden University
El-Hussein A.Y. Aly - 978-90-04-54356-0 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2023 03:33:13AM via Leiden University
Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Illustrations and Tables x Preface xi 1 Qurʾān Translation as a Cultural Production xii 2 Importance of Comprehensive Assessment of Qurʾān Translation xiii 3 Qurʾān Translation as a Solution to Socio-Political Problems xvi 4 Qurʾān Translation: Linguistic and Cultural Controversies xviii 5 An Overview xx 1 The Early European Qurʾān Translation Project 1 1 Attacking the Holy Book of the Turks 2 2 The Genuine Interest in Understanding Islam 5 3 The Scientific Turn of the Study of the Qurʾān 8 4 The Sacred Books of the East 10 5 European Qurʾān Translation: Assessment in Context
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2 Translation as Reform 18 1 Colonization, India, and the Need for Reform 18 2 The Birth of Reform and the Indian Qurʾān Translation Project 3 The Rise of Muslim Translations 36 1 Interpretation of the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān and the Bible 2 Chronological Translation 44 3 Collaborative Translation 52
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4 Indian Muslim Translations: An Apex 59 1 Extensive Notes 59 2 Poetic Form 68 5 Interconnectedness of Qurʾān Translations 75 1 Spirituality in Yūsuf ʿAli’s Translation 77 2 The Spiral of Influence in Qurʾān Translations
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6 Toward a Modernist Interpretation of the Qurʾān 94 1 The Pluralist Qurʾān 95 1.1 Universalism of Prophethood 96 1.2 Universalism of Salvation 98 1.3 Muslims, Superiority and Humanity 101 1.4 The Politics of Otherness 106 1.5 Contemporary Views on Pluralism 109 2 Peaceful Jihad 111 2.1 Abrogation Theory to Downplay Peace 113 2.2 Ethics of War 115 2.3 Context-Based Explanation of the Verses of War 2.4 The Broad Applicability of Verses of Peace 121 2.5 Jihad in the Twenty-First Century 123
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7 Modernism, Traditionalism, and the Social Function of Qurʾān Translation 126 1 Rationality 126 2 Science 135 3 Women 146 8 Alternative Modernities of Qurʾān Translation 154 1 The Journey of the Indian Qurʾān Translations in Europe and America 154 2 Politics, Religion and Qurʾān Translation in Egypt 158 3 Al-Azhar’s Translation: Al-Montakhab 171 4 State-Sponsored Qurʾān Translation in Saudi Arabia 174 5 Alternative Modernities: Qurʾān Translation Form and Content
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Conclusion 183 1 The Interconnectedness of the Past and the Present: Tradition and Modernity as a Continuum 185 2 The Relationality of Qurʾān Translations 187 3 Assessment of Qurʾān Translation in Context 189 4 Qurʾān Translation, Interpretation, and Adaptation 190 Bibliography Index 205
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Acknowledgements There are many people without whom there is doubt this book comes out to light. I am grateful to Prof. John Walbridge, who read my manuscript and suggested various corrections. Prof. Nazif Shahrani’s advice and comments on the manuscript were priceless. Both Prof. Walbridge and Prof. Shahrani provided constructive feedback that contributed greatly to the book. I am thankful to Dr. Noman Malik, the grandson of Maulana Muhammad Ali, for opening his personal library to me. He provided me with manuscripts by Maulana Muhammad Ali and many references to the early Muslim translators of the Qurʾān. My thanks are also due to the granddaughter of Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar, Prof. Emerita Dr. Wazir Jahan Begum, who published a chapter on his life history, and promptly answered many of my enquiries via the email.
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Tables Tables 1 2 3 4 5 6
The influence between Ross, Sale, and Khan, Q 1:1–7 89 The influence between Khan, Muhammad Ali, and Sarwar, Q 1:1–7 89 The influence between Ross, Sale, and Khan, Q 3:110 91 The influence between Muhammad Ali, Sarwar, and Yūsuf ʿAli, Q 3:110 91 The influence of Rodwell and Palmer on Abuʾl-Fadl, Q 5:3 92 The influence of Sale, Khan, and Muhammad Ali on Yūsuf ʿAli, Q 3:115 93
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Preface No other texts represent the profundity of interaction between Western modernity and the East more than English translations of the Qurʾān produced in India in the early twentieth century.1 The history and evolution of these works represent a particular case of religious modernity, one that reconciled between a number of opposing world views. On the one hand, the translation movement in India flourished at the same time as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s secularization program in modern Turkey, which attempted to cut its complex educational and cultural ties with the Arabic language and culture. On the other hand, other Muslims called for a rejection of modernity, arguing instead for a return to the purity of early Islam. Salafism in Egypt did not reject modernity outright, but it did espouse conservative views on many issues, and it did oppose translation of the Qurʾān to European languages. The Indian translators who were the first Muslims to translate the Qurʾān into English brought these opposing world views together in their works by stressing the compatibility of the foundational texts of Islam with the Western scholarship and modern thought. The first of these translations was published in 1905 by Muhammad Abd alHakim Khan. Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl and Mirza Hairat published their translations in 1911 and 1912, respectively, followed by Maulana Muhammad Ali in 1917. Then there ensued a period of twelve years in which no translation was produced, until Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar published his translation in 1929, and, eight years later, ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli published his, in 1937.2 These translations were not isolated projects but were part of one larger project and shared key characteristics. Most significantly, in attempting to reconcile the teaching of the Qurʾān with modernity, each translation reflected the Indian socio-cultural context of
1 I am using “India” although “the Subcontinent” is the accepted term for the area which was then British India and later became the Republic of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. 2 Marmaduke Pickthall’s (1875–1936) Qurʾān translation was published in 1930. Pickthall himself was not Indian, but he was greatly influenced by the Indian translations, and his translation was used to support many arguments related to the socio-political context of India. Three incomplete translations produced in that period are excluded. Nawab ʿImad al-Mulk Sayyid Husain Bilgrami of Hyderabad finished sixteen parts of the Qurʾān, but he passed away leaving the translation in the possession of Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi. Muhammad Abdur Rahman published one part of an English translation of the Qurʾān in 1926, but no other part appeared in print afterwards. An Ahmadi translation under the auspices of Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad was published in 1915, but it was not complete. See Mofakhar Hussain Khan, “English Translations of the Holy Qurʾan: A Bio-Bibliographic Study,” Islamic Quarterly 30, no. 2 (1986): 1, 126.
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the time. All the translators were fully absorbed in the intellectual life of India, and their translations did not merely reflect individual views, but rather the views and sentiments of many Muslim elites, particularly those with British education. Furthermore, the translations cannot be understood in isolation but must be examined in relation to previous translations. It is true that each of the early translations can be read as a stand-alone work that possesses a meaning of its own, but reading them as part of a continuum enriches our understanding of these translations and helps us not only to identify any mistranslations or misreadings but also to derive meaning out of these mistranslations and misreadings.
1
Qurʾān Translation as a Cultural Production
I propose to analyze the Indian translations of the Qurʾān as an on-going process of cultural production using what Bourdieu calls “the space of the possible,” i.e., by describing the complex relations and social conditions that contributed to the production of these works.3 For example, I argue that George Sale (1697–1736) and John Rodwell (1808–1900) were the most influential linguistically among the early Indian translators due to “a collective belief” of what constituted a good translation in the early twentieth century. Most of the Indian translators studied in England and looked to the accessibility and splendor of Victorian English as a model for their work.4 For them, Sale and Rodwell were important English linguistic resources on the Qurʾān even though they did not agree with their renditions. Bourdieu analyzes these social conditions in terms of “fields of forces”— meaning that a new work is evaluated as a work of art because it is like something else in the field—and “fields of struggles”—meaning that each work of art seeks to distinguish itself as radically different. It is the dynamic between “fields of forces” and “fields of struggles” that established the Indian translations among the classics. Although they followed in the footsteps of the Euro-
3 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed,” Poetics, no. 12 (1983). 4 As Venuti explains, “Fluency emerges decisively in English-language translation during the early modern period, a feature of aristocratic literary culture in seventeenth-century England, and over the next two hundred years it is valued for diverse reasons, cultural and social, in accordance with the vicissitudes of the hegemonic classes.” Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, 2 ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), 35.
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pean translators, each translation is distinctive, a unique stage in the overall development of the English translations of the Qurʾān. Khan was the first to set each verse of the Qurʾān in English as an independent unit. The European translators read the Qurʾān as one would read English prose, and thus they critiqued the Qurʾān for lack of coherence and repetition while struggling to group the verses into paragraphs. Abuʾl-Fadl was the first to insert the Arabic text with the English translation. Hairat was the first to produce a collaborative translation, employing a group of scholars to perform the translation and then editing the whole work himself. Muhammad Ali was the first to produce extensive scholarly notes, refereeing a good number of sources, both Eastern and Western. Sarwar and Yūsuf ʿAli were the first to translate the Qurʾān into poetic form in an attempt to imitate the Qurʾanic style that is highly rhetorical and rhythmic. That feat restored to the English translations of the Qurʾān much of the spirit of the original. Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation also implied a reading of the Qurʾān as a literary work, both in terms of his writing style and explaining some Qurʾanic verses in terms of literature.5
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Importance of Comprehensive Assessment of Qurʾān Translation
Studying these translations exclusively in terms of equivalence to the source text may result in dismissing some as subpar. However, studying their relationship to European translations, to one another, and to later translations helps us see the role they have played in the evolution of Qurʾān translation. Although new translations of the Qurʾān have always been seen as a substitution for older ones, they actually build upon them and rarely start from scratch. That is how some of the early translations that are judged as unworthy of attention have introduced serviceable features and renderings that are used in other translations up to the present time. Reductive analysis is a serious problem in Qurʾān translation. It usually leads to unfounded binary valuations. For example, one translation can be deemed excellent because of its style, another deemed poor because it is plagued by
5 This is one example among many. In his comment on the seven heavens and earths, he said, “The literal meaning refers to the seven orbits or firmaments that we see clearly marked in the motions of the heavenly bodies in the space around us … In poetical imagery there are the seven Planetary spheres, which form the lower heaven or heavens, with higher spheres culminating in the Empyrean, or God’s Throne of Majesty.” ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary (Lahore, India: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1937), 1567, n. 5526.
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grammatical errors and run-on sentences. Sometimes, statements such as “The translation does not do justice to the original,” “The translation is too literal,” or “The translation is biased” are global and not based upon any criteria. Such reductive analyses are the easiest and most effective strategy to damage the reputation of scripture translation.6 Any serious evaluation of translation should fall between the two extremes that Bourdieu calls “reductive analyses” and “celebratory effusions.” There are many possibilities between these two extremes that can be discovered by setting criteria for translation assessment as Juliane House does in her pioneer book A Model for Translation Quality Assessment and, more importantly, in the field of Qurʾān translation by examining the social conditions in which these translations are produced. Describing the social conditions underlying a translation eliminates the dichotomy of translation strategies that dominates the field and does little to describe Qurʾān translation fully. Since the mid-twentieth century, various, mostly binary translation strategies have been proposed. Eugene Nida, for example, compares formal and dynamic correspondence.7 Peter Newmark dis-
6 Such reductive assessments succeed, as in the tragedy of William Tyndale (1494–1536), where religious authority, power, and money fail. When Tyndale decided to produce an English translation of the Bible, he fled England because of the Bishop of London’s opposition to such an act. Soon, however, his translation flooded the English ports. The Bishop of London managed to seize thousands of copies of the translation and burn them at St. Paul’s Cross, but many copies managed to escape that fate and reach the hands of readers. The Bishop of London then thought that instead of seizing the copies, he might be able to lay his hand on all the copies if he bought them. He approached Augustine Pakington, a merchant trading to Antwerp, about buying all the copies of translation and having them sent to the bishop, who would pay all the cost. Unfortunately, Augustine Pakington was also a secret friend of Tyndale, and so the bishop’s idea ended up serving Tyndale’s purpose. The bishop’s money paid off Tyndale’s debts and enabled him to resume printing. Neither burning nor buying the translations helped destroy Tyndale’s task, but a third far simpler strategy worked much better. The Bishop of London and his supporters accused the translation of being inaccurate. “Such attacks, made from different pulpits throughout the land, were much more effective than the previous stupid measures adopted against the Bible.” On October 6, 1536, Tyndale’s translation project came to a close when Tyndale was arrested, strangled, and his corpse burned. Nevertheless, the effect of his translation lived on. As John Smyth states, “every succeeding version is in reality little more than a revision of Tyndale’s; even our present Authorised Version owes to him chiefly the ease and beauty for which it is so admired.” John Paterson Smyth, How We Got Our Bible. (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1892), 84–90. 7 Eugene A. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating: With Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating (Leiden: Brill, 1964); Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (Leiden: Brill, 1982).
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tinguishes between semantic and communicative translation.8 Juliana House offers the two possibilities of overt and covert translation.9 Venuti argues that translators either domesticate or foreignize a text.10 The difference is always between two types of translations. The first is a translation that respects the structure, style, and culture of the source text so that the target reader engages in a conversation with the source text and culture through the target text. In such a translation, the source text and culture are never absent, and readers may need to familiarize themselves first with the source culture before reading the target text. Transliteration where readers must learn the word and the concept behind it to understand the text is perhaps the simplest example. Thus, comprehension of transliterated words such as “zakat” and “jihad” is inseparable from understanding the Islamic concepts behind them. The second type focuses on the message and effect of the source text and totally disregards the form, so that “zakat” and “jihad” may be translated into familiar English terms such as “alms” and “holy war” respectively. As far as Qurʾān translation is concerned, this is a false dichotomy for a number of reasons. First, in many instances it is quite difficult to analyze a rendering as belonging to one or the other strategy. Second, it is quite possible to produce a text that is both accessible and close to its source. For example, Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation is noteworthy for following the word order of the source text, and yet it is accessible and gives the reader an impression of the style of the original.11 Third, Qurʾān translation is not simply an act of preserving equivalent meaning while replacing one form by another. Sometimes, one word in the original conveys more than one meaning, and the translator introduces other meanings in a footnote. Furthermore, sometimes a translation does not translate the Qurʾān per se, but it offers a reading of the Qurʾān.12
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Peter Newmark, Approaches to Translation (Pergamon Press, 1986); Peter Newmark, A Textbook of Translation (New York: Prentice-Hall International, 1988); Peter Newmark, About Translation (Multilingual Matters, 1991). Juliana House, A Model for Translation Quality Assessment (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1977); Juliane House, Translation Quality Assessment: A Model Revisited (Tübingen: Narr, 1997). Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. For example, Abuʾl-Fadl translated Q 11:21 as follows: “These It Is Who Have Lost Their Souls, and there Shall Stray Away from Them What They Did Invent.” Yūsuf ʿAli translated the same verse as follows: “They Are the Ones Who Have Lost Their Own Souls, and the (Fancies) They Invented Have Left Them in the Lurch.” Sometimes also a literal translation is the more readable rendering such as Q 89:2 which was translated literally into “the ten nights” by most Indian translators, but “the nights twice five” by Yūsuf ʿAli. For example, the translation of Q 3:7 usually constitutes an explanation of the verse.
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Qurʾān Translation as a Solution to Socio-Political Problems
Both the early European and Indian Qurʾān translations were the outcome of a particular cultural context. And, in both instances, the translators tried to confirm the superiority of their culture. The first Latin translation of the Qurʾān was published between 1141 and 1143 ce. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, a Benedictine monastery in medieval France, assigned the translation to Robert of Ketton who supervised a team of translators to perform the translation of the Qurʾān together with a number of other Islamic texts. The translation became part of the church and hence sacred, meant to focus attention on the Other—the enemy, as Alexander Ross, to whom the first translation of the Qurʾān into English is attributed, stated in his introduction.13 His translation clearly portrayed the Qurʾān as written by Muhammad, rather than a divine revelation. It was intended mainly as what sociologist Peter Berger termed “world-maintaining force;”14 that is to say, by criticizing Islam and highlighting its weaknesses, Ross’ translation sought to uphold the belief in Christianity as a superior religion. The other early English translators adopted a similar world view though they did exhibit a growing interest in understanding Islam rather than simply attacking it. Christian missionaries used these European translations to argue against Islam and convert Muslims to Christianity. Indian Muslims’ resistance to these translations ended up in 1905 with the first English translation of the Qurʾān by a Muslim. In a relatively short time, from 1905 to 1937, India produced six English translations of the sacred text. Those translations were born out of a very particular moment in the history of India. To start with, the results of the Great Mutiny were significant for Indian elites, including Muslims, particularly in terms of English language education and access to governmental service. It is difficult to imagine the appearance of those translations without the English language education policies of the Raj. As one of the Muslim translators said in his comment on Sale’s translation, “In the days when few … Muslims knew English, such forgeries as are perpetrated in Sale’s translation, notes, and 13
14
Noel Malcolm suggests that Alexander Ross is neither the translator nor the author of the short essay on Muhammad. Noel Malcolm, “The 1649 English Translation of the Koran: Its Origin and Significance,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 75 (2012), https:// www.jstor.org/stable/24395993. He was someone who was brought at later stage to write a text to defend the publication of the translation; Other scholars such as Nabil Matar confirm that Alexander Ross is the translator; Nabil Matar, “A Note on Alexander Ross and the English Translation of the Qurʾān,” Journal of Islamic Studies 23, no. 1 (2012). Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2011).
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Preliminary Discourse might have passed unnoticed.”15 Similarly, joining the Indian Civil Service (ics) soon became the highest ambition for any Indian, and sufficient motivation to master the English language. Two of the Indian translators of the Qurʾān were officers in the Indian and Malayan Civil Service, and they established themselves not only as efficient officers but also as excellent scholars. The overarching criticism by Protestant missionaries of Islam was that it lost its “plausibility structures” in modern times since it failed to offer rationalist answers to many questions.16 Muslim translations embodied a full-fledged response in which Muslims utilized printing and technology to indicate that they could adapt to modernity. They produced rationalist readings of the Qurʾān to indicate that the text was compatible with European intellectual attainments. They also consulted the Bible to prove that the Qurʾanic truth was all-encompassing. Both the European and Indian translators of the Qurʾān used the reality of the Other as evidence to support the superiority of their own reality, but whereas the Europeans attacked Islam, Indian translators indorsed the European reality to argue that Islam was valid in an age of modernity. In their attempt to reconcile Islam and modernity, Muslim translators adopted interpretations which were not widely supported by Muslim orthodoxy. Some of these interpretations such as the definition of jihad are seamlessly part of Islamic thought now, but some others such as the nature of salvation and truth of all religions are barely accepted.17 It is important in this context to stress that Indian Muslims were conscious that any reform that was not based upon the foundational texts would not be easily endorsed. They confirmed that they abided by the Qurʾān and authentic Hadith, and although they maximized the role of reasoning, they did not ignore earlier Muslim scholarship. However, it was extremely important to them to claim that the foundational texts were still open to re-interpretation, and that there was no final
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Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar, “Introduction,” in Translation of the Holy Qur-ân from the Original Arabic Text with Critical Essays, Life of Muhammad, Complete Summary of Contents (Woking: Unwin Brothers press, 1929), xvi. The term “plausibility structures” was coined by Peter Berger; see Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. For a discussion on how the Indian translators redressed the plausibility structures of the teachings of the Qurʾān, see chapters Six and Seven. The Indian translators defined jihad as “a struggle in the path of God” rather than “holy war” or “fighting” as al-Hilālī and Khan insisted. This peaceful understanding of jihad is more acceptable now. However, their views that hell is not eternal or that religions such as Hinduism are originally revealed messages from God are not accepted by the majority of Muslims. This is further discussed in Chapter Six.
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word on the interpretation of the Qurʾān. They also claimed that the purpose of re-interpreting the Qurʾān was to return to pure Islam, and in that sense, Barbara Metcalf calls them “traditionalists.”18 Their translations, however, were modern in the sense that they were born out of the interaction with European modernity. They also featured characteristics of what Robert Bellah categorizes as early modern religion; all the translators more or less approved of secularity and rationalization, they critically engaged with the foundational texts of Islam, and they actively engaged in social life.19 Therefore, some may argue that what the Comaroffs refer to as “colonization of consciousness” in describing the impact of Christian missionary activities on Southern Africans also applies to some elements of Indian Muslims since they re-interpreted their most sacred text in terms of European culture.20 That is, they voluntarily espoused an alien culture and imposed upon the Qurʾān a foreign way of thinking. However, Indian Muslim translators insisted that they were duly attentive to their foundational texts, and every interpretation they proposed was sufficiently supported by the Qurʾān and Hadith. They used European and Christian terminology to express new concepts in which elements of both European and Muslim cultures were integrated, and that was exactly what contributed most to the success of their Qurʾān translations.21
4
Qurʾān Translation: Linguistic and Cultural Controversies
Qurʾān translation was so controversial that in the 1930s more than a dozen books and articles, either refuting or supporting Qurʾān translation, were published in Egypt alone. Since its revelation, the Qurʾān has been seen as a linguistic miracle against the pre-Islamic poetry, the most elegant Arabic literary production. Constituting the word of God, verbatim, the Qurʾān transcends human linguistic capacity at all levels. It challenges its opposers, on more than one occasion, to come up with a sūra (chapter) like it to confirm that it has no equivalent in human language.22 As a result, Muslims have been pre-occupied 18 19 20 21
22
Barbara D. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 12. Robert N. Bellah, “Religious Evolution,” in Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, ed. William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (New York: Harper & Row 1965). John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, “The Colonization of Consciousness,” in A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, ed. Michael Lambek (MA: Blackwell, 2008). See Chapters Six and Seven, which include several examples on how the Indian translators of the Qurʾān offered an amalgamation of reason and faith, modernity and tradition, service to humanity and service to God. As, for example, in Q 2:23 and Q 10:38.
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with the question of translation since the very first centuries after the death of the Prophet. As early as the eighth century, Abū Ḥanīfa (699–767) supported Qurʾān translation and argued for the validity of translated prayers. Although that remained a unique Ḥanafī stance, particularly among the early Ḥanafī scholars, other scholars from different schools of thought agreed to translation for comprehension and propagation purposes. The confusion over Qurʾān translation may have stemmed from the ambiguity of the Arabic term itself. There are two opinions that explain the root of the verb “tarǧama” (to translate). Some linguists believe that the term is derived from the root “r.ǧ.m,” which means two things: (1) “to throw stones at” as in Q 11:91 “wa-laulā rahṭuk laraǧamnāk” (And if not for your family, we would have stoned you.), and (2) “to guess” as in Q 18:22 “raǧman bi-al-ġaib” (guessing at the unseen). Some expressions such as “lisānun mirǧam” (perspicuous tongue) and “lisānun yarǧim” (a tongue that is copious in speech) support this view. And, in turn, this view also supports the argument that the word “translate” is originally an Arabic word.23 Other linguists believe that the term is a loan word, and that it was Arabized. These scholars claim it is derived from the quadrilateral root “t.r.ǧ.m,” which has a few meanings, two of which relate to translation: (1) “to explain speech in another language,” and (2) “to explain one’s own speech in the same language.” These dictionary meanings are significant since they define the act of translating as explaining, elaborating, or clarifying rather than as saying the same thing in another language. That attitude toward translation as explanation was not uncommon during the Graeco-Arabic translation movement, which took place in Baghdad from the mid-eighth to the late tenth century, and which sought to translate a large volume of secular Greek texts into Arabic. Within that movement, translation was understood and practiced as the most functional act of cultural appropriation. Translators not only brought home and Arabized Greek ideas, but they also explained and further developed them. Despite repeated assurances of fidelity to the source text, the translators of these texts aimed to educate the Muslim scholars and community, and so they sometimes departed from the source text for the sake of accessibility. They sometimes reorganized the source text, added to it, or re-wrote parts of it all together. This view of translation as a form of re-writing was responsible in part for resistance to Qurʾān translation for fear of taḥrīf (alteration).24
23 24
See Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (London: Willams & Norgate, 1863), 302. Travis Zadeh, The Vernacular Qurʾan: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 32–35.
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Technically, the act of translating is no less controversial, and the plethora of definitions and images used to describe it are indicative of its multi-faceted nature. Peter Newmark compares translation to an iceberg where only a small tip is visible.25 That tip is the output or the target text. The rest of the iceberg, hidden beneath the surface, is the mental activity that underlies the production of the target text. Roger Bell likens translation to an ice cube.26 We can see it thawed and refrozen just as we can see the physical stages of creating the target text. But beyond our capacity of observation is a huge mental process of translation similar to molecular change and movement when the ice cube is refrozen. There is always an invisible element in the process of translation. That is the black box in the mind of the translator where the mental processes take place and to which no one has direct access. The only access, indirect though, is through techniques such as think-aloud protocols, eye-tracking, and keyboard tapping, all recorded during the process of translation. Since this is not possible in the case of Qurʾān translations produced one hundred years ago, the only way we can get a glimpse at the black box is through translators’ prefaces, introductions, and notes, where we can read about their reasons for and approaches to translation. What we need, then, is not to identify and classify translation errors, but to interpret those errors within a cultural framework. In this case, translation is an interpretation, explanation, adaptation, or a form of re-writing rather than an equivalent to the source text. This view of Qurʾān translation as explanation is what Muslim scholars such as Muhammad Muṣṭafa al-Marāġī (1881–1945), the late Grand Imam of al-Azhar, supported. The study of the early European and Indian translations supports this view as well. The early European and Indian translations adopted certain readings of the Qurʾān and translated them to solve social problems. Qurʾān translation can thus be seen as an important means of reform. By offering a new reading or selecting a certain reading to foreground, translation is capable of renewing and reforming understanding of the Book. Whereas the source is and will continue to be Arabic, its representations in other languages will continue to grow and adapt the source to changing circumstances.
5
An Overview
A few of the questions that I try to answer in this book are (a) how did social and cultural changes in India in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century 25 26
Newmark, A Textbook of Translation, 12. Roger T. Bell, Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice (London: Longman, 1991).
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contribute to Qurʾān translation? (b) how did Indian Muslim translators of the Qurʾān reconcile Qurʾān interpretation with modern concepts such as pluralism, tolerance, spirituality, rationality, egalitarianism, and even secularism? (c) how did Indian Muslim translators of the Qurʾān support their modernist views and present their translations as part of mainstream Islam? (d) how were those translations received in Europe and USA? and (e) why weren’t those translations well received in countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Each of the book’s eight chapters addresses one or more of the central questions outlined above. Chapter One describes the context in which the early European Qurʾān translations by Alexander Ross (1590–1654), George Sale (1697–1736), John Rodwell (1808–1900), and Edward Palmer (1840–1882) were produced. It is these translations that Protestants depended upon when they settled in India to perform their missionary activities. Chapter Two describes the Indian context in which Muslim translations emerged. Ethnographies and biographies focusing on India from the Great Mutiny of 1857 through the early twentieth century show how Indian Muslims were beset by Christian missionary activities, European criticisms of Islam, and European translations of the Qurʾān. In a context where English was almost accessible, and religion was almost a free market, Muslims engaged in debates with missionaries, published tracts, and produced full Qurʾān translations. Chapter Three, Four and Five introduce the Indian translations. Chapter Three surveys the first three Indian translations of the Qurʾān by Muhammad Abdul Hakim Khan (1900s), Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl (1865–1956), and Mirza Hairat (1850–1928). Chapter Four surveys those by Maulana Muhammad Ali (1874– 1951) and Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (1873–1954), and Chapter Five includes ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli (1872–1953). Taken together, the first five chapters make the case that Qurʾān translation has always been the outcome of its cultural context. Chapters Six and Seven analyze and compare the six Indian translations in terms of (a) pluralism, (b) jihad, (c) rationality, (d) science, and (e) women. Such an analysis is not intended to assess the different translations in terms of equivalence to the Arabic source. The purpose is to see how these translations reconciled Qurʾān interpretation with aspects of modernity. The analysis and comparison do not cover the whole Qurʾān, but only the verses that are usually cited as evidence of modern concepts (or lack thereof) such as spirituality, pluralism, and tolerance. For example, some of these translations cited Q 16:36 which confirms that God sent a prophet to every community and argued that many of the old religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism were founded by messengers of God.27 In this sense, tolerance and pluralism gained deeper 27
Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 2002 ed. (USA: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaʿat Islam Lahore Inc., 2017), 861, note 24a.
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significance than a mere practice dictated by a set of social and political conditions. These translations also used scientific concepts to explain the Qurʾān. For example, Orientalists repeatedly criticized the Qurʾān as an incoherent book. That is why John Rodwell proposed his chronologically ordered Qurʾān translation. Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl also argued that the chronological order of the Qurʾān makes the development of revelation and the message of the Qurʾān clearer. However, Maulana Muhammad Ali defended the present arrangement of the Qurʾān, arguing that it is a scientific arrangement in which the first short chapter functions as a preface and the second chapter as an introduction. In so doing, he not only sanctified words such as “scientific,” “preface,” and “introduction,” but the concepts behind them were placed at the heart of Islamic culture since they had existed in it long before the rise of modern European civilization. These two chapters also include the views of contemporary Muslim intellectuals on jihad, pluralism, rationalization of the Qurʾān, scientific supremacy of the Qurʾān, and women. Chapter Eight takes us to other places where the Indian translations lived. The history of these translations is significant because they represent a different religious modernity from the West. Indian Muslims tried to show that Islam is a religion for all times and places. They saw the Qurʾān as embracing all principles of modernity and as even more advanced than modern thought. Remodeling their religion and their understanding of the foundational text in that vein, the Indian Qurʾān translators achieved success in Europe and the US along two lines: their translations were adopted by Western and Western-based institutions, and they impacted later translations such as those by Marmaduke Pickthall (1875–1936) and Muhammad Asad (1900–1992). I argue in Chapter Eight that the life and impact of these translations depended on political and economic support. The first translation that crossed the borders of India was Maulana Muhammad Ali’s. Thanks to the active Ahmadiyya Movement, it was adopted by the Woking mission of the UK and was translated into several languages. It was also adopted by the Nation of Islam in the USA.28 Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation was adopted for some time by King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qurʾān but was later replaced by al-Hilālī and Khan’s, which garnered far more attention. The chapter compares the Indian translations with translations adopted in the Middle East such as al-Hilālī and Khan’s in Saudi Arabia and al-Azhar translation in Egypt to see how Muslim translations in different contexts embraced modernity. The chapter also outlines the similar-
28
Besides the economic and political support, the scholarly notes of Maulana Muhammad Ali contributed tremendously to the success of his translation.
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ities and differences among these translations and highlights the reasons why a certain translation is adopted in a certain context. This brings us to some concluding remarks in the final section of the book. First, Qurʾān translation ought to be studied in context. The European and Indian Qurʾān translations were products of their socio-political circumstances. Similarly, in the twentyfirst century, Sandow Birk chose a title for his Qurʾān translation that refers clearly to the context in which it was produced, American Qurʾān. Second, the more recent translations are interconnected with the older ones, and the more we examine Qurʾān translations along a continuum, the more we can analyze these translations. Finally, the interconnectedness of the past and the present, of tradition and modernity, can be a roadmap for understanding how translation can reform our understanding of religion and renew our readings of the Qurʾān.
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The Early European Qurʾān Translation Project Sometime between 1142 and 1143 ce, just a few years before the second Crusades (1147–1149), Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, gathered a team of scholars during his trip to Spain, with the aim of translating a corpus of intellectual texts on Islam into Latin. They began the first complete European translation of the Qurʾān. The team consisted of three translators, Peter of Toledo, Robert of Ketton, and Hermann of Dalmatia, and two assistants, Peter of Poitiers, who polished Toledo’s Latin translation, and a Spanish Muslim known by the name Muhammad who assisted Robert of Ketton and Hermann of Dalmatia in their translations. Peter of Toledo translated al-Risāla, a theological polemic written by a Christian Arab referred to as ʿAbd al-Masīḥ ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī. Robert of Ketton translated the Qurʾān and Fabulae Saracenorum (Fables of the Saracens), a potpourri of Islamic hadith traditions chronicling the creation of the world, the second Umayyad Caliph Yazīd ibn Muʿāwīya (646– 683), and the Prophet Muhammad’s mission and death. Hermann of Dalmatia translated Kitāb Nasab Rasūl Allāh (Liber Generationis Mahumet), a legendary account of how the prophetic light was passed down from Adam to Muhammad, and Masāʾil ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām (Doctrina Mahumet), an imaginary dialogue between the Prophet Muhammad and the author in which Muhammad expounds on his religion and succeeds in converting the author.1 It is reasonable in view of the texts selected for that project to say that there were always various goals of early European translations of Islamic texts, namely, polemic, proselytization, and scholarship, though, as we will see, one might outweigh the others in different projects.2 Robert’s translation remained in manuscript until 1543, when it was published by Theodore Bibliander in Basel. Several Latin translations were produced after his but did not survive and/or were not as popular as either Robert’s or that of Ludovico Marracci (1612–1700), published in 1698.3 Marracci, a con1 James Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964). 2 This is also supported by the fact that Muslim literary, scientific, and philosophical texts were translated into Latin and French. Few examples of such works are included in Muhammad Sultan Shah, “The Earliest Translations of the Holy Qurʾan: Latin, French and English,” The Islamic Quarterly 57, no. i (2013): 54. 3 For a list of these translations, see Hartmut Bobzin, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill, 2004). https://reference works.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopaedia‑of‑the‑quran.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004543560_002 El-Hussein
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fessor to Pope Innocent xi and a teacher of Arabic at the Sapienza University of Rome, produced the first scholarly translation of the Qurʾān, a volume which included the Arabic Qurʾān, annotations, and an essay entitled “Refutation of the Qurʾān.” It is true that other translators such as Robert of Ketton depended on Muslim commentaries to translate the Qurʾān, but Marracci’s was the first translation to integrate those commentaries into the Latin text. He had access to a fairly good collection of Arabic manuscripts housed in the Bibliotheca Vaticana, and included Arabic excerpts followed by Latin translation in his manuscript. In his annotations, he explained difficult Quranic terms according to Muslim commentators, referred to the context of revelation, and engaged in Christian polemics.
1
Attacking the Holy Book of the Turks
A number of Qurʾān translations into European vernaculars were produced, not directly from the original Arabic but from the Latin translation of Robert of Ketton, prior to the publication of Marracci’s translation. The most significant of these was the French. It was not the oldest—it was preceded by the Italian, the German, and the Dutch, among others—but it was significant because it served as the basis for the first English translation. The French translation was produced in 1647 by the Orientalist André Du Ryer, Lord of La Garde-Malezair (1580–1660/1672). According to Sale, Du Ryer’s work “is far from a just translation; there being mistakes in every page, besides frequent transpositions, omissions, and additions.”4 Having no access to the Arabic original, Alexander Ross (1590–1654) Englished Du Ryer’s French translation in 1649.5 That work continued to exist as the only available English translation of the Qurʾān for almost a century. In order to understand the context in which Ross’ translation was produced, as well as its effect on Qurʾān reception in Britain and its influence on later English translations, we need to highlight a few key points that Ross stressed in his paratextual material. First, Ross wanted to distance himself from the Qurʾān and express his hostility to it in no ambiguous terms.6 Interestingly,
4 George Sale, “To the Reader,” in The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (London: C. Ackers, 1734), vi. 5 Alexander Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet: Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sier Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria, and newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desired to look into Turkish vanities (London: Anno Dom, 1649). 6 As Nabil Mater rightly notices, “Ross Wanted To Be Remembered for the Attack on the Qurʾān,
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when the translation was first published, it listed no publisher or author as nobody wanted to be associated with such a dangerous project, and indeed when news of the publications reached the House of Commons, the printer, translator, and licensor found themselves in trouble. In March 1649, a petition was submitted to the House of Commons informing its members that Alcoran was being printed in London and demanding it be seized and burned before it got into the hands of readers. Within days, the printer was arrested, and the books were seized. The case was then handed over to the Council of State, the country’s supreme executive body. The decision of the Council of State was lenient, and a couple of months later, the first copies of the book came out in print. The publication was aggressively criticized. The Devil, explained a royalist, “hath got leave, that a servant of his, a Saint of the last edition, should translate that Academy of Heresies, the Turkish Alcoran, which in the days of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles of blessed Memory, was treason in any one to transport hither, much less Translate.” Other unfounded charges included omitting “all the most gross, absurd, ridiculous Blasphemies, and impossible Fictions” because Du Ryer, the translator of the French copy which Ross translated, “working secretly for the Sultan, had removed them when making his translation.”7 In a kind of apologia for translating the Qurʾān, Ross reassured his readers that a Qurʾān translation could not be a threat to Christianity in Britain since the Qurʾān failed to convert any Christians after being translated into most common European languages, proof, he believed, that Islam was spread by the sword and not the word. The purpose of Ross’ translation was to make Christians aware of their enemy, and so it should be understood as an assertion of Christian superiority, not as an Islamic cultural invasion. Translation functions in this case as a reality-maintaining formula, to use Berger’s terminology.8 Ross’ translation was published during a difficult time for Europe in general and Britain in particular. In 1649, Charles i was executed after a series of rebellions and wars, which threatened not only the political stability but also the very social base of Christianity. In addition, the Cretan War, or the Fifth Ottoman-Venetian War, which erupted in 1645, pitted the Republic of Venice, the Knights of Malta, the Papal States, and France against the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary States. After the Ottoman Empire seized most of Crete, the fortress of Candia successfully resisted the Ottoman attacks. To support Candia, not the Translation; ”Matar, “A Note on Alexander Ross and the English Translation of the Qurʾān,” 82, 83. 7 Malcolm, “The 1649 English Translation of the Koran: Its Origin and Significance,” 265. 8 Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.
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the Pope urged all European nations to send men and supplies to defend Christendom. In 1669, the war ended with the negotiated surrender of the fortress. Typically, as Berger explains, such critical moments give rise to antagonistic theories that legitimize one’s reality in comparison to the unpalatable reality of the other. Alexander Ross introduces his work with “A summary of the religion of the Turks,” in which he explains the pillars of Islam. He also outlines some of the repugnant practices such as marrying four wives, having as many concubines as one can, invoking saints and praying for the dead, and holding the darwīš who dresses and acts like a fool in great honor and holiness. As for the Qurʾān itself, he states that it is full of “contradictions, blasphemies, obscene speeches and ridiculous fables.”9 It contains “a multitude of incongruous pieces, and diverse repetitions of the same thing.”10 As such, Christian readers firm in their beliefs would not, according to Ross, be harmed by reading his translation; nor would those who were already heretics be hurt by falling into the deeper darkness of the Qurʾān.11 It is indeed inexplicable, according to the French translator, that “such absurdities have infected the best part of the world.”12 It is interesting also that Ross refers to Islam as the religion of the Turks, and not the religion of Muslims. His paratexts include various examples of essentialist generalizations that link culture to nations and peoples and reduce its complexity to oversimplified images.13 His translation, then, belongs to the narrow school of intercultural communication that propagates cultural stereotypes. Its purpose is not really to understand the other, but to facilitate domination over it whether for trade or colonization. 9
10
11
12
13
Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet: Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sier Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria, and newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desired to look into Turkish vanities. Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet: Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sier Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria, and newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desired to look into Turkish vanities. As Nabil Mater explains, “the dismantling of the national church in England had spawned new sects and heresies which had taken hold of the army and had spread among the rest of the population. Ross, who viewed the “Turkish religion as a heresy, turned now against these “heretics” at the helm of the English state and explained to the “Christian Reader” that the reason why he had been forbidden from publishing his text was because the “Batch” of heretics in Whitehall did not want another heresy to threaten their own.;” Nabil Matar, “Alexander Ross and the First English Translation of the Qurʾān,” The Muslim World lxxxviii, no. 1 (1998): 84. Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet: Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sier Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria, and newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desired to look into Turkish vanities. A clear example is the title of Ross’ translation. See note 40.
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In the 1649 edition, the translation was followed by two sections: a history of Muhammad’s life, the author of the Qurʾān as Ross saw him, and a caveat that further explained why Britain needed the Qurʾān in English. These two sections were moved to the beginning of the book by the publisher of the 1688 edition to form a framework for understanding the Qurʾān.14 This tradition of providing prefatory sections would continue for centuries with both Muslim and non-Muslim translations of the Qurʾān. Another important feature of Ross’ translation was its easy unambiguous language, which contributed to its accessibility. As Nabil Matter explained, “It is by addressing the common reader and not the specialist that Ross ‘succeeded’ in his translation.”15 Although it was far removed from the style of the Qurʾān and in many cases from its meaning, it was smooth and entertaining to read. Despite its clarity and providing a framework for understanding the Qurʾān, Ross’ translation was a failure. Its discreditable weakness was the translator’s ignorance of the language of the Qurʾān and its tafsīr (interpretation). This, together with his inadequate command of the French language, led Ross not only to duplicate mistakes in the French translation but also to make additional mistakes of his own. However, since it was the only translation available in English for almost a century, it was republished several times, and had extensive influence on how English-speaking people perceived Islam.
2
The Genuine Interest in Understanding Islam
A century after Ross’ translation, George Sale felt a need for a better translation of the Qurʾān. After all, he felt, an English translation should stem directly from the original Arabic, a fact which Sale was keen to stress in his title. Given the poor quality of the French translation that Ross used as the basis for his own work, translating directly from Arabic sounded like a guarantee for excellence, and indeed the second English translation was a marked improvement over its predecessor. The intellectual apparatus employed by Sale was also different. Whereas Ross saw his translation as an exercise in “world-maintaining” which vindicated Christianity against Islam, Sale offered his translation as a “worldshaking force”16 which was intended to alienate Muslims from their religion, a
14 15 16
See Matar, “Alexander Ross and the First English Translation of the Qurʾān,” 88. Matar, “Alexander Ross and the First English Translation of the Qurʾān,” 91. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.
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tactic which European translations of the Qurʾān adopted only in the late nineteenth century when Protestants were permitted to perform their missionary activities in the Muslim world.17 In his introduction titled “To the Reader,” Sale referred generally to the sources he relied upon. He depended completely on the collection of books he owned, except for two sources that he had to borrow. However, as Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar stated, two years after Sale published his translation and upon his death in 1736, the list of the books he owned was printed by the executor of his will. The list was rich in Persian and Turkish histories, but it did not include many of the Arabic Qurʾān commentaries he claimed to rely on.18 This supports the view that Sale depended heavily on Marracci’s Latin translation, which was rich in resources and also included the Arabic excerpts together with their Latin translations.19 In addition to these resources, Sale borrowed two important books: the Qurʾān commentary of Baiḍāwī (1286/1319), Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl (The Lights of Revelation and the Secrets of Interpretation) and the Gospel of Barnabas. He borrowed Baiḍāwī’s commentary from the library of the Dutch church in Austin Friars in London. The merits of Baiḍāwī’s commentary are well-known to Sunni Muslims and are appreciated in Sale’s work. The Gospel of Barnabas, which Sale borrowed from the rector of Hedley in Hampshire, was in Spanish, and it was translated from Italian by a Muslim. In the preface, the discoverer of the original manuscript, a Christian monk, told the story of how the book helped him to convert to Islam. The gospel contained a complete history of Jesus the Christ from birth to ascension, but most of the stories, as Sale said, favored Islam and turned the whole book into “a most barefaced forgery.” The use of the Gospel of Barnabas, even though it was intended as an anti-Islamic polemic, indicates Sale’s scholarship and his genuine interest in learning about Islam. Sale also outlined his translation approach, emphasizing, I have endeavoured to do the Original impartial justice; not having, to the best of my knowledge, represented it, in any one instance, either better or worse than it really is. I have thought myself obliged, indeed, in a piece which pretends to be the Word of God, to keep somewhat scrupulously
17 18 19
Denise A. Spellberg, Thomas Jefferson’s Qurʾan: Islam and the Founders (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013). Sarwar, “Introduction.” See, for example, Alexander Bevilacqua, “The Qurʾan Translation of Marracci and Sale,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 76 (2013). See also Bobzin, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” 348.
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close to the text; by which means the language may, in some places, seem to express the Arabic a little too literally to be elegant English; but this, I hope, has not happened often; and I flatter myself that the stile [style] I have made use of will not only give a more genuine idea of the original than if I had taken more liberty (which would have been much more for my case) but will soon become familiar: for we will not expect to read a version of so extraordinary a book with the same ease and pleasure as a modern composition.20 Of special importance to Sale was the causes of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl), particularly whether the verse was Meccan or Medinan.21 This explained much of the content of the Qurʾān in terms of abrogation theory, i.e., which verses cancelled or were cancelled by others, and in terms of the distinction between allegorical (mutašābihāt) and literal (muḥkamāt) verses. Sale’s explanation of these two types of verses (Q 3:7), which, he said, was taken from al-Zamaḫsharī’s (1075–1144) al-Kaššāf and his translation of the terms were adopted by most early Muslim translators. As the following example attests, his translation is much closer to the source text than Ross’ is: “It is he who hath sent down unto thee the book, wherein are some verses clear to be understood, they are the foundation of the book; and others are parabolical.” Ross’ translation, on the other hand, is unclear and includes many additions: “He it is that sent to thee the Book, whose precepts are necessary, they are the originall, and foundation of the Law, like in puritie one to the other, and without contradiction” (Qurʾān 3:7). Sale’s “Preliminary Discourse” which introduced the Qurʾān was meant to show the irrationality of Muslim beliefs. For example, in his description of the Balance at the Judgement Day, he offered the most basic understanding of the concept: They say it will be held by Gabriel, and that it is of so vast a size, that its two scales, one of which hangs over paradise, and the other over hell, are capacious enough to contain both heaven and earth. Tho’ some are willing to understand what is said in the Koran concerning this balance, allegorically, and only as a figurative representation of God’s equity, yet the more ancient and orthodox opinion is that they are to be taken literally; and 20 21
Sale, “To the Reader,” vii. As a representation of the significance Sale attributes to the time and place of revelation, he changes the vocative expressions in some chapters to indicate whether they are Meccan or Medinan as in 2:21; see Sarwar, “Introduction.”
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since words and actions, being mere accidents, are not capable of being themselves weighed, they say that the books wherein they are written will be thrown into the scales, and according as those wherein the good or the evil actions are recorded, shall preponderate, sentence will be given.22 Sale stressed in more than one instance including the one above that a metaphorical understanding of the Qurʾān is also possible. Nevertheless, he claimed that the literal understanding was the result of Muhammad’s preaching and the very Qurʾān itself: Had Mohammad, after all, intimated to his followers, that what he had told them of paradise was to be taken, not literally, but in a metaphorical sense, (as it is said the Magians do the description of Zoroastres’) this might, perhaps, make some atonement; but the contrary is so evident from the whole tenor of the Koran, that altho’ some Mohammedans, whose understandings are too refined to admit such gross conceptions, look on their prophet’s descriptions as parabolical, and are willing to receive them in an allegorical or spiritual acceptation, yet the general and orthodox doctrine is, that the whole is to be strictly believed in the obvious and literal acceptation.23 The major weakness of Sale’s view is that he conflated the Qurʾān with its commentaries and mixed reliable and unreliable reports. As a result, the Qurʾān, as seen through the lens of Sale’s introduction, is nothing more than a book of mythology. The style of the translation as Arthur Arberry said in his preface to his Qurʾān translation Koran Interpreted is “a somewhat a monotonous humdrum voice.”24
3
The Scientific Turn of the Study of the Qurʾān
Such a voice remained the only voice of the Qurʾān in Europe for over a hundred years. However, it was an important step which improved the quality of Ross’ translation and paved the way for superior translations to follow. With the advent of the nineteenth century, oriental studies started to take a more seri22 23 24
Sale, “Prelimenary Discourse,” 89. Sale, “Prelimenary Discourse,” 102. Arthur J. Arberry, “Preface,” in The Koran Interpreted (London: George Allen & Unwin ltd, 1955), 14.
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ous and more scientific turn. That was a new phase of harsh criticism of Islam as orientalists applied the methods of higher criticism to it. In particular, the critical literary study of the Qurʾān led to new conceptions such as the chronology of the Qurʾān based upon the distinctive stylistic features of the Meccan and Medinan verses. That had an impact on the third English translation of the Qurʾān, published by Rev. John M. Rodwell, the Rector of St Ethelburga’s, Bishopsgate, London, in 1861. Rodwell’s translation was the first to follow a chronological order. For him, the existent arrangement of the Qurʾān could be explained by one of two theories. First, he argued that it was quite possible that Muhammad himself mixed up old and new revelations to soften earlier, stronger statements on Hell and the Day of Judgement, and to align his earlier predictions with his successes to keep his followers faithful. His second theory was that the arrangement of the chapters of the Qurʾān was performed by the immediate followers of Muhammad, particularly Zaid bin Ṯābit, who was entrusted with collecting and authenticating the Qurʾān at the time of Abū Bakr, the first Caliph after Muhammad, and that their order was not based upon the authority of Muhammad or even any rigorous system. Rather, the longest chapters had simply been placed first, followed by the shorter ones. The result was the most unreadable work, and indeed it may sound so, even for Muslims, unless the message behind its order whether in its existent form or as a chronology became clear. As Rodwell claimed, the order of the Qurʾān in the present arrangement did not convey the context of writing the verses, or any development plan in the mind of the writer. Furthermore, Zaid was honest enough, as Rodwell argued, not to add any verses to repair the logical sequence, which contributed to the authenticity of the book—but also resulted in an incoherent book. To solve that problem, Rodwell tried a chronological order, which was based upon reports on asbāb al-nuzūl (causes of revelation) as well as European scholarship, particularly Mohammed der Prophet by the German orientalist Gustav Weil (1808–1889), Life of Mahomet by the Scottish orientalist William Muir (1819–1905) and Geschichte des Qorâns by the German orientalist Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930). Rodwell, like Nöldeke, classified the sūras on the basis of their stylistic features, particularly the transition from poetic to prosaic style. He ended up with a unique chronology, emphasizing that while it was not greatly difficult to link some verses to salient events in Muhammad’s life, it was impossible to date others. Reference to minor events was either non-existent or general and vague, and so understanding the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān itself, thanks to repetition and multiple references, was sometimes the only way possible, as Rodwell believed.
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As for Rodwell’s approach to translation, he explained that he consulted the translations of Sale, Ullmann, Wahl, Hammer von Purgstall and M. Kasimirski as well as Marracci. He then adopted two approaches to translation depending on the style of each chapter. For the short poetic verses, he employed a communicative approach in an attempt to achieve a similar effect and style, and so he was the first translator, as Arberry stated, “to imitate the style of the Arabic original.”25 However, in the more prosaic verses, he tried to stay as close as possible to the original. In general, he tried to limit paraphrasing, which he accused Sale of being overly reliant upon, to cases where it was impossible to convey the meaning without so doing. Furthermore, Rodwell’s rearrangement of the Qurʾān was an attempt to understand Muhammad as an orator and a politician and appreciate the beauty of his language. He saw the chronological order as an instructive way to understand the Qurʾān and wished to see the Bible benefit from that approach.
4
The Sacred Books of the East
In 1880, Edward Henry Palmer published his translation as part of Max Müller’s (1823–1900) series “Sacred Books of the East.” That series included translations of Buddhist and Hindu sacred texts as well as those of other Asian religions. The significance of that series is that it highlighted a change that took place in Europe around that time. As Tomoko Masuzawa explained, Europeans had a several-century-long convention of categorizing people of the world into Christians, Jews, Muslims, and “other religions.” In the first half of the nineteenth century, the last item of that convention (i.e., other religions) was replaced by a list of ten to a dozen world religions.26 Max Müller’s series would not have been possible without that change as it recognized the texts of those religions as sacred and part of a generic concept of scripture.27 The series was inspired by Sir William Jones’ (1746–1794) philological theory of the relationship between Indo-European languages.28 It could also have been inspired by the Indian 25 26 27
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Arberry, “Preface,” 17. Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005). That concept of scripture, as Alexander Bevilacqua and Jan Loop propose, “emerged from the early modern European study of the Qurʾān;” Alexander Bevilacqua and Jan Loop, “The Qurʾan in Comparison and the Birth of Scriptures,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 20, no. 3 (2018). Sir William Jones (1746–1794) was an Anglo-Welsh philologist and a scholar of ancient India. He was the first scholar to explore the relationship between the Indo-European languages.
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Muslim concept of the commonly accepted truth of religions as postulated by Shah Walīy Allāh (1703–1762), which developed later into a belief that old religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism were equally revealed messages from God.29 In his introduction, Palmer like other European translators of the Qurʾān, was trying to form a theory of who Muhammad was. For him, the secret of Muhammad’s success in Mecca was his strong faith in, and enthusiasm for, his mission. That enthusiasm, according to Palmer, devolved into pious fraud when he turned against Christians and Jews. But enthusiasm alone did not explain the immense influence of the Qurʾān among Arabs. In addition to enthusiastic utterances, the Qurʾān consisted of popular sayings and favorite legends that were common among the Arabs at the time of Muhammad. In addition, many ceremonies in the Qurʾān such as prayers and pilgrimage were meant to distinguish the movement of Muhammad from mere political reform. He also definitely borrowed from Christianity and Judaism. As a result, the Qurʾān was neither consistent nor original.30 In spite of that, Muhammad’s religion itself was strikingly original in the sense that it set before the idolater Arabs, for the first time since the Prophet Abraham, the unshakable principle of the Oneness of God. The Qurʾān was also original in terms of its literary merit which no other Arab writer managed to emulate. In comparison to other Arab authors whose style was “imitative” and who used “ancient words … as a literary embellishment,” the Quranic style was natural, and its words “were those used in everyday ordinary life.”31 The language of the Qurʾān was noble and forcible, but “not elegant in the sense of literary refinement.”32 What distinguished the Qurʾān was its overwhelming enthusiasm and its ordinary language that became once a medium for great and noble truths. This view of the language of the Qurʾān dictated Palmer’s approach to translation. He believed in a middle course since artificial English with rhyme and rhythm or Biblical phraseology would be foreign to the spirit of the Qurʾān, and crude or familiar English would equally be inappropriate. As a result, in order to achieve closeness of rendering, he sometimes used inelegant English, 29
30
31 32
For Shah Walīy Allāh’s contributions to reform of Islam in India, see Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance in South Asia 1707–1867: The Role of Shāh Walī Allāh and His Successors (Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 2002). But non-originality as Palmer said was not exclusive to the Qurʾān: “The Great Principles of Morality, and the Noble Thoughts Which Are Common to Humanity, Must Find Their Way into the Scriptures.” E.H. Palmer, “Introduction,” in The Qurʾân (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880), liii–liv. Palmer, “Introduction,” lv. Palmer, “Introduction,” lxxvii.
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as in Chapter One: “of those thou art gracious to, not of those thou art wroth with.” He also maintained ambiguity when a word could have more than one interpretation. For example, “istawā” (Q 2:29), which literally means “being or going straight,” was translated into “He made for the heavens” which, just as the Arabic, could have a wide range of interpretations. For most words, however, which have a single signification, he used the direct English equivalent. Palmer used notes only when they were necessary for understanding the text, and recommended Sale’s notes for readers who might be interested in historical allusions and legends related to certain verses. In his rendering, as he claimed, he depended on the Qurʾān commentary of Baiḍāwī. In addition, Palmer, who believed that the Qurʾān was written in everyday language, made use of his experience in everyday desert life in Egypt to understand the Qurʾān. The strengths and weaknesses of Palmer’s translation both stemmed from his view of the language of the Qurʾān as rude, everyday vernacular.33 In some passages, when he followed the source text closely and performed word-forword meaningful renditions, his translation was outstanding. However, in many instances, his translation suffered from grammatical errors and a lack of coherence due to omission of conjunctions and articles. That greatly affected the clarity and smoothness of style and contributed to an inelegant English text. That was by no means evidence of a poor command of either language. Palmer’s translation of the poems of Bahāʾ al-Dīn Zuhair from Arabic into English and his book Arabic Grammar left no room for doubt regarding his linguistic capabilities. But Palmer did not believe in the literary merits of the Qurʾān as seen by Sale and Rodwell. He believed that inelegant English would best represent the enthusiastic everyday language of the Qurʾān. In addition, Palmer completed his translation in a short period of time, which contributed to his ill-considered interpretation, characterized by what Stanley Lane-Poole (1854–1931) described as “the grave fault of immaturity.”34
33
34
Palmer did not provide any analysis to support his view, but Sarwar thought that he might be influenced by the language of “the ignorant Bedouins of today” among whom he lived for some time. He might also be influenced by Saint Jerome, the translator of the Bible, who “had found the style of the scriptures in comparison with the classics ‘harsh and barbarous’, and he warned his readers not to expect in his translation any Ciceronian ‘eloquence;’” Stephen Prickett, Words and the Word: Language, Poetics and Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 38. Quoted in Bobzin, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” 351.
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European Qurʾān Translation: Assessment in Context
In my evaluation of the European translations of the Qurʾān, I propose an initial shift of attention from the source and target texts to the translator, the reader, and the socio-political context in which the translation was undertaken. European translations of the Qurʾān into English were serious attempts to understand the Qurʾān, Muhammad, and the socio-political development of Muslim communities. Alexander Ross wanted to protect his Christian fellows from being deceived by the great success of Muslims by showing them the alleged fabrications of the Qurʾān. For him, the only value in translating the Qurʾān was to know the mentality of the people who believed in a book which was full of contradictions, fables, and obscene language.35 In contrast, Sale translated the Qurʾān because he felt it was useful knowledge for Christians, not simply in Ross’ sense of knowing “thy enemy,” but also because the laws of the most civilized nations of the time deserved better attention. According to Sale, “Mohammed gave his Arabs the best religion he could, as well as the best laws, preferable, at least, to those of the ancient pagan lawgivers.”36 But, in Sale’s view, Muhammad remained a great legislator only in the Machiavellian sense.37 He was a mere politician who used his power as a militant, his wit as a legislator and the beauty of language as an orator to attract people to his message; thus Muslims, innocent and ignorant, needed Christians to guide them. Such a belief is manifest in the strategies that Sale described for converting the Mohammedans. In particular, he asked missionaries to deal with them with common decency, to avoid teachings which were against common sense, to avoid weak arguments, and not to give up any article of Christian faith to win them over.38 Rodwell, too, found himself obliged to acknowledge that the Qurʾān deserved the highest praise for “its conceptions of the Divine nature,” “wisdom,” “deep moral earnestness,” and “its merits as a code of law, and as a system of religious teaching.”39 However, Rodwell believed that the greatness of the Qurʾān was not absolute; it was only perceptible in relation to the conditions
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36 37 38 39
Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet: Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sier Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria, and newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desired to look into Turkish vanities. Sale, “Dedication.” Bevilacqua and Loop, “The Qurʾan in Comparison and the Birth of Scriptures.” Sale, “To the Reader,” iv, v. J.M. Rodwell, The Koran Translated from the Arabic by the Rev. J.M. Rodwell (London: J.M. Dent & sons, 1909), 15.
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of the barbaric ignorant Arab tribes that Muhammad converted. In addition, the greatness of the Qurʾān resided in the beauty of its language and not the content, which was clearly borrowed from the Bible. Those interpretations of Muhammad offered by Ross, Sale and Rodwell were refuted by Palmer as only partial explanations for his success: In forming our estimate of Mohammed’s character, therefore, and of the religion which we are accustomed to call by his name, we must put aside the theories of imposture and enthusiasm, as well as that of divine inspiration. Even the theory of his being a great political reformer does not contain the whole truth; and although it is certain that his personal character exercised a most important influence on his doctrine, yet it is not by any means evident that it even moulded it into its present shape.40 For Palmer, it was a combination of factors that led to the Prophet’s success. Furthermore, European translators of the Qurʾān in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the Qurʾān as an opportunity for reform and intellectual exchange even though they viewed it as a fabrication. For example, Sale believed that “the church of Rome ought to part with many practices and some doctrines” if missionaries wish to convince Muslims of the superiority of Christianity.41 Rodwell did not see chronological order of scripture as something specific to the Qurʾān. Equally instructive and useful, for him, “so far as it can be proximately ascertained,” is “an arrangement of the Books of the New Testament in their chronological order.”42 Similarly, Palmer did not single out the Qurʾān alone for its lack of originality for he believed that the New Testament also drew upon the Talmud, classical Greek sources, Stesichorus’Palinodia, and Homer’s Iliad.43 He also seemed to be using the Qurʾān for intra-Christian criticism: The essence of Mohammedanism is its assertion of the unity of God, as opposed to polytheism and even to trinitarianism. And this central truth was, we repeat, nothing new; it was, as Mohammad said of it, the ancient faith of Abraham, and it was upon that faith that the greatness of the Jew-
40 41 42 43
Palmer, “Introduction,” xlvi. Sale, “To the Reader,” iv, v. J.M. Rodwell, “Preface,” in The Koran Translated from the Arabic: The Suras Arranged in Chronological Order; with Notes and Index (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1876), x, note 2. Palmer, “Introduction,” liv.
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ish nation was founded; nay, it was the truth which Christ himself made more fully known and understood.44 The view that Europeans translated the Qurʾān because they were interested in knowing Islam and saw their translation projects as an opportunity for intellectual exchange helps us to better understand the errors in these translations instead of simply seeing them as intentional distortions of the Qurʾān. Errors in European Qurʾān translations into English can then be classified, as far as ideology is concerned, into (a) errors dictated by the translator’s ideology and background without any foundations in linguistics or Muslim exegeses, and (b) errors based upon selection of a certain interpretation which is supported by Muslim exegetes and/or linguists but is selected by a pick-and-choose strategy because it is compatible with the translator’s ideology. For example, Sale’s translation of “al-ġaib” into “mysteries of faith” (Q 2:3) was based upon his Christian background and was not founded on any linguistic or theological argument. In his translation of Q 9:122, he imposed a Medieval interpretation on the Qurʾān which was compatible with his view of Muhammad as a politician: “The believers are not obliged to go forth to war together, if a part of every band of them go not forth, it is that they may diligently instruct themselves in their religion, and may admonish their people, when they return unto them, that they may take heed to themselves.” In the footnote, Sale stated: They say, that after the preceding passages were revealed, reprehending those who had staid [stayed] at home during the expedition of Tabuc, every man went to war, so that the study of religion, which is rather more necessary for the defence and propagation of the faith than even arms themselves, became wholly laid aside and neglected, to prevent which, for the future, a convenient number are hereby dedicated to be left behind, that they may have leisure to prosecute their studies.45 Although Sale’s translation was inaccurate, the interpretation upon which the translation was based was not uncommon.46 Sale selected interpretations
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Palmer, “Introduction,” 1. See more on the use of the Qurʾān for intra-Christian criticism and debate in Jan Loop, “Introduction: The Qurʾan in Europe—The European Qurʾan,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 20, no. 3 (2018). George Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (London: C. Ackers, 1734), 165. See, for example, al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān alʿAẓīm, 1 ed., 1 vols. (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2000), 918.
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which conformed to his view and employed addition and paraphrase to emphasize them. He translated Q 21:109 into “But if they turn their backs to the confession of God’s unity, say, I proclaim war against you all equally.” He again added the word “war,” which is not in the source text, and which is only one possible interpretation of the verse.47 Although the translators’ personal views of Muhammad and the Qurʾān can certainly account for some of the errors found in the English translations, they cannot explain all of them. For an objective evaluation of those translations, it is important to distance the European Qurʾān translations from their paratexts, i.e., their prefaces, introductions, and annotations. It is true that those polemical paratexts encompass the translator’s ideology which affects his final output, but they are responsible for some errors, not all of them. Others are linguistic in nature, and result from serious engagement with the text, either analyzing the source text or synthesizing the target text.48 Most of the ideology-based errors occur in verses of war and peace. Analyzing those errors in terms of equivalence alone would cause them to lose much of their meaning given that early European translations were produced during the Crusades and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. It is important also to remember that Qurʾān interpretation and translation are not easy tasks even for Muslims, and the assessment of their accuracy has never been a straightforward process.49 47
48 49
For that interpretation, see Abū Jaʾfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿ an Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 1 ed., ed. ʿAbd Allah ibn Abd al-Muḥsin al-Turki (Egypt: Dār Haǧr, 2001), 16, 442. Sarwar translated the same verse into, “But If They Turn Back, Then Say, ‘I Have Informed You All Equally and I Know Not Whether What You Are Promised is near or far.’” See Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Qurʾān in Latin Christendom: 1140–1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). This is obvious from the fact that Qurʾān interpretation (as well as translation) started as early as the time of the Prophet and has been ever since a continuous process. Here are two examples from Sale and Rodwell on how the European translators were struggling with the difficult style of the Qurʾān. on his comment on Q 70:40, Sale explained that “ ‘Of the easts and the wests:’ The original words are in the plural number, and signify the different points of the horizon at which the sun rises and sets in the course of the year.” Noteworthy, many Muslim commentators struggle with explaining the plural form of these two words. Similarly, in his comment on Q 2:194, Rodwell provided a literal translation and then explained the verse. He stated, “Lit. the sacred month for the sacred month and the sacred precincts or things (for) reprisals. The meaning of this difficult passage is that in wars for the cause of religion, the sacred month and the temple of Mecca may be made the time and scene of contests which then and there are usually prohibited.” See Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, 466. Rodwell, The Koran Translated from the Arabic by the Rev. J.M. Rodwell, 358.
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Furthermore, although the European study of Arabic philology progressed in the nineteenth century, it did not have much impact on the quality of Qurʾān translation. According to the German Orientalist August Fischer (1865–1949), “of all the Qurʾān translations available, whether complete or partial, not a single one satisfies the stringent standards of philology.”50 Nevertheless, some of these translations were reprinted several times and were commercially successful in Europe. It was the function of those translations as polemical literature rather than their equivalence to the Arabic original that led to their success in Europe and rejection in the Muslim world. 50
Quoted in Bobzin, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” 352.
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Translation as Reform Indian Muslims encountered the early European Qurʾān translations when Protestant missionaries were allowed into India in the second half of the nineteenth century. They experienced firsthand the bitter European criticisms of the Qurʾān, and they defended it using various tools, including the production of new translations of the Qurʾān. The early Indian Qurʾān translators were balanced in their evaluation of the European translations. They neither disregarded them as mere distortions of the Qurʾān, nor did they accept them as they are. They studied them, identified their mistakes, and produced new translations which combined the best of Eastern and Western scholarship—but that was only after a long period of resistance, intense debate, and reform.
1
Colonization, India, and the Need for Reform
India faced loud calls for reform in the nineteenth century. The revolt of 1857, known as the Great Mutiny, was not only a protest against unjust rule but also against the pervasive activities of Christian missionaries and British policies that undermined deep-rooted religious customs. Although reformers had various grievances,1 religious sentiment was paramount, and it tinged key incidents before, during, and after the Mutiny.2 In particular, on the eve of revolt, a rumor circulated claiming that the cartridges of a new British rifle were greased with beef and pork fat, which are forbidden in Hinduism and Islam respectively.
1 The various causes of the revolt attracted much research. For annotated bibliographies, see Harold E. Raugh, The Raugh Bibliography of the Indian Mutiny, 1857–1859 (UK: Helion and Company, 2016). Vipin Jain, Indian Mutiny of 1857: An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography (Vintage Books 1998). Janice Marie Ladendorf, The Indian Mutiny, 1857–1858: An Annotated Bibliography of European Language Materials (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1966). 2 For example, rage was poured into religious symbols such as Skinner’s church on the part of Indians, and Jama Masjid and Zinat-ul-Masjid, on the part of the British. The contents of Skinner’s Church, the oldest church in Delhi built in 1836, were wrecked by angry mob. The copper ball and cross on the top of the church were fired at, damaged and had to be replaced later. A few of the tombs, housed by the church, were also vandalized. In retaliation, the British desacralized many of the mosques in the city, turning some of them into baths, bakery houses and barracks; Nayanjot Lahiri, “Commemorating and Remembering 1857: The Revolt in Delhi and Its Afterlife,” World Archaeology 35, no. 1 (2003).
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004543560_003 El-Hussein
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Hindu and Muslim sepoys who had to bite the cartridge to release the powder believed that they were beguiled into breaking their own sacred codes. They were not only offended, but they were being used, they thought, as pawns to destroy their own religions. Since these unsubstantiated rumors came on top of a series of religious challenges such as the harsh European criticisms of Hinduism and Islam, they were easy to believe and act upon. For several months, incidents in the army continued to add to accumulated tensions, and on May 10, 1857, a confrontation between the East India Company’s army and sepoys began in the town of Meerut and soon spread to other places. Joined by feudal nobility, landlords, and peasants, the sepoys were able to capture several important towns before the British soldiers launched a counterattack. The Mutiny lasted almost 13 months, and the threat to British rule was so serious that the British had to rethink their policies in India. On November 1, 1858, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation that announced the end of the East India Company’s rule and the transference of its functions to the British crown. The proclamation also articulated Queen Victoria’s general administrative policies, which would greatly affect the cultural milieu of India. In particular, the proclamation included two important policies. First, since grievances related to religion were among the reasons for the uprising, the proclamation reiterated that the government would not interfere in the religious affairs of its subjects. Second, to achieve equal opportunity with the British, the proclamation announced that government offices would be equally accessible to qualified Indians. The first policy—the non-interference in the religious customs of Indians— was one of the generally accepted principles of British rule before the Queen’s proclamation. However, its implementation was controversial as it allowed Christian missionaries to propagate their religion, a concession that intensified Indian resentment against the British rule. Both Hindus and Muslims experienced the Christian assault on their social customs, beliefs, and Holy Books, and were troubled by the presence of missionaries who were inseparable from the political authority of the British rule. The watershed of Christian missions in India was the East India Company Act of 1813, which removed the ban on Christian missionaries in India.3 Before that Act, there was a war of words between British opponents and supporters of Christian missions in India. Whereas some thought the activities would cause dissatisfaction among Indians and undermine British rule, others believed that it was a divine duty to save the Indians
3 Karen Chancey, “The Star in the East: The Controversy over Christian Missions to India, 1805– 1813,” The Historian 60, no. 3 (1998).
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and combat immorality.4 The pro-missionary faction won the war in 1813 but were proven wrong in their thinking only a few decades later when the 1857 rebellion erupted. To quell the Indians, the post-Mutiny proclamation had to reassert religious toleration. Religious toleration resulted in two significant changes in Indian society. On the one hand, it encouraged Hindus and Muslims to compete with Christians in propagating their religions, a competition which contributed to social and religious reforms. On the other hand, it increased the divide between Hindus and Muslims. Syed Ameer Ali (1849–1928) remembered those days when the relationship between British and Indians was less tense, and the relationship between Hindus and Muslims was relatively more peaceful: In my early days there was unquestionably more goodwill between Englishmen and Indians and more friendly feeling between the races and nationalities of India than is now observable. This may have been due to the better breeding of the Englishmen, or to the lesser consciousness of power on the part of the militant sections of the population. There was also undoubtedly less hostility between section and section … Until recently, in fact until Morley and subsequently Montagu set to work on the ‘Unification’ of India, Hindus and Muslims had lived together side by side in villages and towns generally in peace and harmony, and without friction. They were friendly neighbours but for the slight domestic disputes which occur in every country, and occasional outbreaks of rioting over some purely religious question that raised the passions of the ignorant to more than an ordinary degree. Such outbreaks were, however, very much less frequent than during the last few years ….5 The administrative practices of the post-Mutiny regime deepened the divide between Hindus and Muslims and distanced itself further from both. The application of post-Mutiny reforms was based upon a conception that Muslims and Hindus were two totally distinct communities.6 It is true that differences separated Hindus and Muslims before colonization, but British practices reinforced 4 Jörg Fisch, “A Pamphlet War on Christian Missions in India 1807–1809,” Journal of Asian History 19, no. 1 (1985). 5 Syed Razi Wasti, ed., Memoirs and Other Writings of Syed Ameer Ali (Delhi: Renaissance Publishing House, 1968), 77, 78. The reference is to John Morley who introduced the elective principle to Indian legislative council membership in the Indian Councils Act of 1909, and Edwin Samuel Montagu who became the Secretary of State for India between 1917 and 1922. 6 See Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 133.
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those differences and eventually materialized them into distinctive identities. To start with, between 1865 and 1947, the Census of India emphasized religion and caste and turned enumeration of groups and subgroups into a field of competition.7 It made Hindus and Muslims more aware of their size and weight and encouraged competition for larger representation in the administration of their country. In addition, British racism intensified after the Mutiny, further contributing to the divide between Muslims and Hindus. During the Mutiny, Muslims were stereotyped as religious fanatics seeking to restore Mughal rule.8 Despite having played a limited role in the Mutiny and despite the support of prominent Muslims such as Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) for the British, Muslims paid twice for the Mutiny. In addition to facing their share of indiscriminate killing and destruction, their most impressive mosques were used for a while as bathrooms and barracks. Not only was their present stained as a source of shame, but their past as rulers of India was scurrilously described as the root of India’s decline.9 Instead of rallying together under the banner of a unified Indian culture, Hindus and Muslims paid greater attention to defending themselves against accusations hurled by the other. At that time, public sphere was filled with vigorous public debates, which were introduced by the missionaries in Calcutta and spread to other places.10 As Barbara Metcalf explained, missionaries introduced public debate as means of proselytizing. However, when Hindus and Muslims used it, it diverged. Rather than using public debate to propagate a new world view, Hindus and Muslims used it to confirm and spread their identities.11 It was used to “mobilize public consciousness with regards to belonging to a particular religious tradition.”12 Proselytizing remained one of the goals, but not the main one. More important for Hindus and Muslims was to protect members of their communities against conversion, disassociate themselves
7 8 9 10
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Kenneth W. Jones, The New Cambridge History of India: Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 100. Barbara D. Metcalf, ed., Islam in South Asia in Practice (Princeton: Priceton University Press, 2009), 22. Such a theory of India’s past started much earlier and continued to exacerbate the MuslimHindu divide; Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 89. Hephzibah Israel, Religious Transactions in Colonial South India: Language, Translation, and the Making of Protestant Identity (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 51. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 198. Israel, Religious Transactions in Colonial South India: Language, Translation, and the Making of Protestant Identity, 51.
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from what was morally wrong, and reassure themselves that their religion was worthy and superior. Public debates also served the important psychological function of regaining part of their status claims after they had been denied or rather destroyed by the humiliating encounter with the arrogant British.13 Publishing was another conversion tool used by Christian missionaries, but it, too, was adopted by Hindus and Muslims for different purposes. Like public debate, publishing was used to confirm Hindus and Muslims’ identities, and it, too, further divided them. Generally speaking, the expansion of communication networks—telegraph, postal service, newspapers, journals, and railway—contributed to a morass of religious exclusiveness and conversion as well as to an atmosphere of intellectual dynamism and reform.14 They promoted the rationalist and scientific study of scripture and confirmed the need for reform.15 Modern education also contributed to reform. The post-Mutiny policy of equal opportunity resulted in more emphasis on English education since it was the means to prestigious employment in the civil service. After the East India Company Act of 1813, which allotted Rs 100,000 to promote the education of Indians, “Orientalists” and “Anglicists” disagreed on what kind of education to offer them. Whereas Orientalists emphasized traditional Indian learning—i.e., Indian languages, literature, and religions, with basic Western knowledge— Anglicists favored English language and Western education. A decade later, a more sensible use of the fund was urged on the grounds that Indian languages and literature were responsible for Indian backwardness.16 As Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said in his “Minute on Indian Education” (1835), Assuredly it is the duty of the British Government in India to be not only tolerant but neutral on all religious questions. But to encourage the study of a literature, admitted to be of small intrinsic value, only because that literature inculcated the most serious errors on the most important sub-
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Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 219. See Jones, The New Cambridge History of India: Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, 194. Barbara D. Metcalf, “Introduction: A Historical Overview of Islam in South Asia,” in Islam in South Asia in practice, ed. Barbara D. Metcalf (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 24. Indeed, as Barbara Metcalf explained, “the main influence of the missionaries was not the message they disseminated but the challenge they offered and the example of preaching and publishing they provided.” Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860– 1900, 198. Peter van der Veer, The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India (Priceton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 91.
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jects, is a course hardly reconcilable with reason, with morality, or even with that very neutrality which ought, as we all agree, to be sacredly preserved. It is confirmed that a language is barren of useful knowledge. We are to teach it because it is fruitful of monstrous superstitions. We are to teach false history, false astronomy, false medicine, because we find them in company with a false religion.17 That attitude was codified in the English Education Act 1835, according to which, funds were best directed to English education alone. The purpose of that education, as Macaulay described it in his minute, was to produce a class of interpreters between the British and the Indian masses. Those interpreters would be Indians in blood and color, but English in tastes and opinions, and they would shoulder the responsibility of conveying their knowledge to the great mass of the population. That Act made it clear that social advancement beyond a certain limit was totally dependent upon English education. Indian elites, Hindus, and Muslims alike, aspired to English education, particularly after the 1858 proclamation promised them equal opportunity of promotion. Another important post-Mutiny reform was the participation of Indians in the administration of their country as advisors to the viceroy. Before the Mutiny, the viceroy was to be advised by a council that was exclusively made up of British delegates. After the Mutiny, that council was expanded and included both British and loyal Indians. That motivated Indian aristocrats to make the most of English education. For example, Sayyid Ahmad Khan established the Anglo-Muhammadan College in 1875, “an English-style institution that cultivated gentlemanly skills and conservative politics intended to produce the kind of people appropriate to the loyal consultative regime he had advocated in 1858.”18 In spite of the fact that university education remained very limited, and only very few were able to get employment in Indian civil service,19 the type
17
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H. Charles Cameron, Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India: In Respect of the Education of the Natives, and Their Official Employment (Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1853), 76–77. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 106. In 1921, the English-educated were less than one per cent of the Indians. By the mid1880s, no more than a dozen Indians managed to enter the Indian civil service. That did not sound good enough for the Indians even though these posts were high-level posts. See Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 135. As Metcalf and Metcalf explain, “The ceiling on Indian advancement in the governance of their own country had again been made clear. Despite the promises confirmed in the Queen’s Proclamation of a non-discriminatory recruitment to the civil service, admission to the ics became harder, not easier, in these years. Examinations were held only in London, not in India, and the
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of education that Macaulay had envisioned, managed to produce Indians who were well-versed in English language and literature. Although some were Indians only by the color of their skins, but English by all other measures, others were a true bridge between the two civilizations. They were able to assess the weaknesses and strengths of their native culture and lead social and religious reforms.
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The Birth of Reform and the Indian Qurʾān Translation Project
Probably no other parts of the world experienced such a zestful period of religious reform as India in the second half of the nineteenth century. Many reform movements emerged as reactions to colonialism and modernization. They reflected their political and social environment and adopted modern technology to achieve “unprecedented publicity.”20 At the same time, they served similar purposes. To start with, they confirmed Indian identity as a way of resisting British domination and the presence of Christianity. They further distinguished themselves from peer movements and religions, which deepened the gap between religions and drew a sharp line between groups and sub-groups. More importantly, they attempted to find rational interpretations of their scriptures and to purify their religions from erroneous practices and beliefs. They criticized widely held beliefs and practices but insisted at the same time on “the historic continuity of their interpretations.”21 Religion in the modern Subcontinent as Barbara Metcalf explains “was not traditional in the sense of being accepted without question.”22 It was consciously modelled and remodeled in a process of inter- and intra-religious interaction. To rationalize and modernize Hinduism, Arya Samaj (a Hindu reform movement founded in 1875) opposed idolatry, polytheism, and pilgrimages and adopted a modern program that supported women and opposed the caste system.23 Arya Samaj was also conscious of the threats Muslim and
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maximum age for taking the examination was lowered in 1878 to nineteen. Under such restrictions no more than a tiny handful of Indians were even able to compete.” Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 120. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 143. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 199. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 149. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 12. Barbara Metcalf describes the reform movements of South Asia as rationalizing movements in the Weberian sense. They made religion “self-conscious” and “based on abstract principles.” Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 12.
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Christian missions posed to Hinduism. Indeed, the 1871 census of India confirmed that the number of Hindus was declining and the community of Muslim and Christian converts growing.24 At that time, religious leaders were competing for numerical strength, which they took as a symbol of the superiority of their religion. The fervent missionary activities, particularly of Christians, led Arya Samaj to introduce innovative rituals of conversion (called “shuddhi”) to re-convert Hindus who had accepted Islam or Christianity. Further, to gain superiority over Islam and Christianity, they examined the weaknesses of these two religions and exposed them in their publications and public debates. In his book, Satyarth Prakash (The Light of Truth), published in 1875, Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1824–1883), the founder of Arya Samaj, devoted one chapter to the criticism of the Bible and another to the criticism of the Qurʾān. Dayanand Saraswati stated that his objective was “to save” the ignorant from falling into “an abyss of superstition and error,” and “to contribute to the elevation of the human race and enable all men to sift truth from falsehood.”25 He not only invited the reader to think critically about the two books, but also to interact with his own writing: “In case the good reader comes across, in this criticism, anything contrary to facts, it is hoped he will point it out and we shall make the suggested changes if called for, since this criticism is designed to diminish bigotry, obstinacy, jealousy, malice, hatred, and (love of) useless wrangling and not to promote them.”26 Further, his book, particularly the sections in which he criticized other religions, was written in a language that raised doubt and provoked critical thinking. In his comment on Chapter One of the Qurʾān, he said, The Mohammedans claim that this Qurʾan is the Word of God, but it appears from the above passage that the author of this book was some person other than God, since had it been God himself, He would not have said: “(I begin this book) in the name of God etc.”27 He would have, instead, said: “I write this book for the instruction of mankind.” If it be said that by beginning His book in this fashion He means to teach men as
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Jones, The New Cambridge History of India: Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, 100. Maharishi Swami Dayanand Saraswati, The Light of Truth, 587 and 649. Saraswati, The Light of Truth, 650. He refers here to the translation of the first verse of the Qurʾān which in his copy reads as follows: “(I Begin This Book) In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful” (1:1); Saraswati, The Light of Truth, 651.
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to what they should say when about to do a thing, it cannot be true, since some men will do even sinful deeds in the name of God and thereby bring disgrace on Him.28 Dayanand Saraswati himself was conscious of the problem of translating “bismillah” into “I begin this book in the name of God.” He acknowledged as much in a challenge to readers: “Anyone questioning the accuracy of our translation should first prove the translation done by those Mohammedan scholars to be incorrect before sitting down to find fault with us.” The problem of inappropriate translations and their use by hostile missionaries to raise doubt about the Qurʾān and Islam was probably a major reason why a good number of English translations by Muslims were produced in India in the first half of the twentieth century. Arya Samaj achieved its strongest presence in two main states: the Punjab and the United Provinces. In these same states, the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam (founded formally in 1889) was dominant. The founder of Ahmadiyya, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), saved no effort to refute the ideas of Arya Samaj. In one of the conflicts over the nature of spirits and their relationship to the Hindu god Parmeshwar, he announced a reward of five hundred rupees to any person who was able to prove him wrong. The announcement was published in Safeer Hind on February 9, 1878.29 As with public debate, the purpose of such announcements was to achieve a sense of supremacy and assuredness among the members of a certain movement.30 Whereas Christian missionaries used public debate as a tool to achieve the goal of conversion, Muslims and Hindus sought a more psychological end. That was why Mirza Ghulam Ahmad did not find the Safeer Hind announcement sufficient and insisted on meeting Dayanand Saraswati or one of his followers in a public debate. The following announcement, published in the July 1878 issue of the newspaper Hindu Bandu, is reproduced here as it gives a clear idea of what these public debates looked like and the psychological purpose behind them: In response to my arguments, which showed the notion of infinite number of spirits as absurd and thereby proved the ‘Fallacy of transmigration and the antiquity of earth,’ Swami Dayanand Saraswati has sent me mes-
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Saraswati, The Light of Truth, 651. Basharat Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, trans. Hamid Rahman (USA: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam (Lahore) USA Inc., 2001). See also Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900.
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sages through three Arya members. In these messages, he maintains that although spirits are not infinite, transmigration still continues forever through a process whereby, after all the spirits have achieved salvation, they are taken out of salvation as needed. The Swami has now stated that if there is any doubt about this position, then the issue be resolved by a face-to-face debate. He has also written a letter to me on the same subject and expressed his desire for such a debate. Through this announcement, I accept his offer and welcome the opportunity to debate him face to face with all my heart. I sincerely desire that somehow Swami sahib should answer my questions. I suggest that the Swami should propose a neutral venue for this debate by putting an advertisement in any leading newspaper. However, a condition for this debate is that it will be held in the presence of a panel of learned judges, composed of three from the Brahmo Samaj and three from the Christians. I shall have the first opportunity to speak because I shall be raising the questions that need to be answered. Then Pundit sahib may respond as he wishes, keeping within the confines of decency. I will then exercise the right of reply and the debate will end. I am elated at the request of Swami sahib (to debate). I had been saying all along, “How is it that Swami sahib is engaged in other tasks and does not respond to such strong criticism that has silenced the entire Arya Samaj community.” However, if Swami sahib does not publish an announcement in response, then it should be understood that Swami sahib was only interested in wiping the tears of his followers with talk. The contradictions inherent in the belief of returning souls to bodies after salvation have been identified in an article appended to this announcement. Readers may kindly peruse it and judge equitably for themselves.31 In 1882, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed to be the Mahdi and the Promised Messiah, published his book Barāhīn Ahmadiyya (Arguments of Ahmadiyya in Support of Islam), in which he argued for the truth of Islam by describing some of his signs and miracles in support of his claim as Mahdi and Messiah. Pandit Lekh Ram (1858–1897), a follower of Dayanand Saraswati and one of the most aggressive critics of Islam and of the founder of Ahmadiyya, published a rebuttal of that book under the title Takzīb Barāhīn Ahmadiyya (Falsification of Barāhīn Ahmadiyya) in which he attacked Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, and
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Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, 108– 109.
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the signs of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. In 1886, Ahmad promised to show a heavenly sign about Lekh Ram himself and, in February of that year, he prophesied a violent death for Lekh Ram. Lekh Ram in turn prophesied that Ahmad would die of cholera within three years. He had that prophesy printed as a poster by the Chashma Nur Printing Press in Amritsar, and distributed it on July 27, 1886.32 Disputes continued between the two parties until 1892, when Lekh Ram published his controversial book Risala-i- Jihad (Treatise on Jihad), in which he denounced Islam as a religion of violence and all sorts of vices. Muslims filed a lawsuit to ban the book, but they lost the case.33 Soon after that Ahmad proclaimed that the violent death that he had prophesied for Lekh Ram would take place within six years and, in March of 1897, Lekh Ram was stabbed to death by a stranger. That stranger met Lekh Ram after he claimed to be interested in conversion to Hinduism. Accusations were leveled against Ahmadi Muslims, but they did not exclude orthodox Hindus who opposed Lekh Ram’s introduction of conversion to Hinduism, but the case remained cold. It did, however, open the flood gates of animosity and violence between Hindus and Muslims, creating a state of terror and chaos. Opponents of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad feared that they, too, would face a similar fate. In August 1897, Dr. Henry Martyn Clarke, a physician and Christian missionary, filed charges of attempted murder against Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. In 1898, Maulana Muhammad Hussain Batalvi (1840–1920) of the Ahl-i Hadith movement, sought the government’s permission to carry a dagger for self-defense against Ahmad. Although both Clarke and Batalvi later claimed to be mistaken, their actions speak to the antagonism that characterized the intellectual dynamism of the period.34 32
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Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. See also Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) (Surrey, UK: Islam International Publications, 2018), English Translation, 358. Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind: Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism (New Delhi: Rupa, 2005), 108. This antagonism should not blind us to the great reforms introduced by religious leaders such as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and Lekh Ram. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, for example, was long remembered for his defense of Islam against Aryas and Christians and for the great reforms he introduced. Mirza Hairat, the editor of the Cruzon Gazette and a Qurʾān translator, says in his obituary of Ahmad, “The services of the deceased, which he rendered to Islam in confrontation with the Christians and the Arya Samajists, deserve the highest praise. He completely changed the flow of the debate, and laid the foundations of a new literature in India.” See “Tributes Paid to Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib of Qadian,” The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement for the Propagation of Islam, accessed August 10, 2019, http://aaiil.org/text/whatothr/mga/mgatrib.shtml.
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Of course, antagonism did not only exist among Hindus, Muslims, and Christians; it also existed among movements of the same religion. Arya Samaj waged their own wars against Hindu movements such as the Brahmo Samaj and Dev Samaj that were irritated by Arya’s insistence on the Vedas as the only trustworthy scripture to the exclusion of all other holy scriptures of ancient India. That was in addition to defenders of orthodoxy who were by no means less aggressive in attacking those movements while defending their religion against alteration. Rationalist Muslim movements also waged their own intrareligious wars. Most notably they opposed what they deemed aberrant Sufi practices such as pilgrimage to pir shrines and the belief in supernatural powers attributed to Sufi leaders. They subscribed to the view that reason and laws of nature were worthy of glorification rather than supernatural phenomena, which in pre-modern times were seen as a sign of religious superiority, not only in Islam but in all religions.35 The ultimate representative of that rationalist attitude was Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Captivated by the culture of the British, Sayyid Ahmad Khan was convinced that the restoration of Muslim glory depended upon the adoption of aspects of modern civilization, particularly education, science, and technology. He established the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College of Aligarh, which adopted a curriculum focused on Western learning and culture. Furthermore, to address accusations that the Qurʾān was the root of backwardness and to propagate the ultimate truth of the Qurʾān, Sayyid Ahmad Khan interpreted many supernatural phenomena such as angels, jinn, heaven, and hell allegorically. He also stressed that if there was a contradiction between the Qurʾān and
35
Maulana Abdullah Al-Imadi wrote at the death of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, “The death of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani is not such that one should just be patient while the passage of time effaces its memory, but valuable lessons should be learnt from it. Such people whose advent presages revolution in the world of religion and thought, appear very seldom in this world. They are the pride of the sons of history and are seen on the stage of the world infrequently. But whenever they appear, they leave behind a world revolutionized.” The President of Jamiat-e-Ahrar, Chaudhry Afzal Haq, wrote, “Before the coming into existence of the Arya Samaj, Islam was a lifeless body, absolutely devoid of missionary spirit. Swami Dayanand’s misgivings about Islam stirred Muslims temporarily, but as usual they fell into deep slumber again. No Muslim organization from any sect came forward to propagate Islam. However, there was one person whose heart was agitated by the oblivion of the Muslim community. By forming a modest organization around him, he came forward for the purpose of propagating Islam. Although Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib did not remain untainted by sectarianism, nonetheless he created such a zeal in his organization to propagate Islam, that it is worthy of emulation not only by the different sects in Islam but by all the organizations of the world.” See Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, iii, 96. Willfred Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India (Lahore: Minerva bookshop 1943), 14.
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natural laws, then the Qurʾān was misunderstood and had to be re-interpreted. That meant, according to Sayyid Ahmad, that there could never be a final word on the interpretation of the Qurʾān, but that, as science progressed, new meanings and insights would be gleaned.36 One of the obstacles to the spread of Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s ideas was “false Sufism.” Khan did not oppose Sufism per se, but he wanted to liberate Muslims from the irrationality that was profuse in the Sufi oral narratives of that time. Although many of these narratives could be interpreted to have a deeper moral, they were mostly celebrated for their supernatural element. In one story, the Sufi Sheikh showed a great karāma (miracle) when he saved his followers from sinking. His followers were making pilgrimage to Mecca, and their ship was hit by a strong storm. They said they saw their Sufi master in the water trying to raise the ship on his shoulder to save them. When they came back and told their Sufi master the story, he said that it was the soul of his late master who saved the ship, not him. He then asked his followers to make a pilgrimage to his master’s shrine and make an offering. In another story, the master was portrayed as a man of great spirituality. He was totally unconcerned about worldly matters even when he suffered from bugs in his ear. Eventually, after a doctor was called and poured medicine into his ears, he felt great sadness and pity for the hundreds of bugs that came out of his ear.37 In Kalimat alHaq (1849), Sayyid Ahmad clarified that he was not against attaching oneself as a disciple to a Sufi leader, but he was against rationalizing abnormal behavior.38 That was why Sayyid Ahmad Khan did not believe that supplications were answered and tried to explain revelation as an internal state, which brought him in conflict with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.39 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad staked his religious authority on the visions and dreams he purported to receive from God. Receiving revelation from God offered practical proof that Islam was alive, and its God was not dead or silent, and on that basis, the superiority of Islam could be claimed. However, to avoid charges of heresy, as Ahmad emphasized, he judged those messages against the Qurʾān, and only if they conformed to it would he accept them; otherwise, they were dismissed as satanic. Having suf36 37
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Shamim Akhtar, “Evolution of Saed Ahmad Khan’s Religious Thought: A Note,”Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 73 (2012): 1014. The master in these two stories is Banne Miya (d. 1912), a respected Sufi saint of the Biabani tradition. His master was the well-known Sufi saint Afzal Biabani; see Nile Green, “Transgressions of a Holy Fool: A Majzub in Colonial India,” in Islam in South Asia in Practice, ed. Barbara D. Metcalf (Princeton: Priceton University Press, 2009), 176, 77. See also J.M.S. Baljon, The Reforms and Religious Ideas of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, 2 ed. (Lahore: Orientalia, 1958), 61, 62. Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian.
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fered a loss of prosperity and status as well as the oppression of the pervasive missionary activities, Muslims were indeed looking for a hero. For some, that hero was none other than the Prophet Muhammad himself, who was seen as a model for Muslims in all life situations. That attitude was clear in the large number of biographies of the Prophet written by Indian Muslims. For example, the title and content of Khawaja Kamal-ul Din’s biography, The Ideal Prophet, which describes the various roles of Muhammad as a leader, a merchant, a husband, and a politician, reveals the view of the Prophet Muhammad as a model and hero. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was also a great hero for some Indian Muslims, but, as Chinnery and Haddon argued, “when people are imbued with religious fervor, the expected hero will be regarded as a Messiah.”40 After Ahmad’s death, his prophetic status was a point of contention among his followers. In April 1911, his son, Mirza Basheer-ul Din Mahmood Ahmad (1889–1965), published an article in which he stated that all Muslims who did not believe in his father’s mission were kāfir (outside the fold of Islam). In March 1914, Mirza Mahmood Ahmad became the second Khalifa of Ahmadiyya, which led to a split in the movement over ideological and leadership differences. The majority, led by the second Khalifa, believed in the prophetic status of the founder of Ahmadiyya. A small group, led by Maulana Muhammad Ali and Khawaja Kamal-ul Din, confirmed that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad saw himself as a muǧaddid (reformer), and not a prophet in the broad sense of the word. Apart from the controversial issue of prophethood, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s views were very consistent with the political and social context of British India. Like Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad believed that the interests of the Muslim community relied on the stability of the British rule. That was based in part upon his personal experience. As a child, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad witnessed first-hand the Sikhs’ oppression after they seized control of the Punjab. When the Sikhs captured Qadian, they confiscated the estates of Ahmad’s family, who were subsequently expelled from the town and had to live outside of Qadian for a considerable period of time. Beyond his family’s suffering, Sikh rule was a severe blow for Muslims. Mosques were turned into community centers and Sikh temples; calls for prayers were forbidden; and Islamic books were burned.41 There is no wonder
40
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Ernest William Pearson Chinnery and Alfred Cort Haddon, “Five New Religious Cults in British New Guinea,” The Hibbert Journal xv, no. 3 (1917). Quoted in Kenelm Burridge, “New Heaven, New Earth,” in A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, ed. Michael Lambek (MA: Blackwell, 2008), 433. Abdul Rahim. Dard, Life of Ahmad: Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement (Tabshir Publication, 1948), 12, 13.
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then that British rule was for Ahmad a “blessing of God.”42 Under the British, he was granted the freedom to propagate and serve Islam, and on that basis, he believed that jihad against the British did not serve the interests of Muslims. However, although Ahmad opposed jihad against the British in India, he did not oppose jihad altogether and did in fact support it in instances where force was used to annihilate Islam or prevent the dissemination of its message.43 That attitude toward the British was not different from the views of many Indian Muslims. Sayyid Ahmad Khan wrote prolifically in favor of Muslim support for the British during the Mutiny. He was even said to organize a celebration in honor of the triumphant Raj.44 Interestingly, Sayyid Ahmad Khan rationalized his attitude toward the British by citing the Qurʾān and Hadith. In one of his lectures, he claimed that in serving the British government, he was merely following the guidelines of the Qurʾān and Hadith: “Our true Prophet has ordered us to obey, to wish well and to be loyal to the government under which you are living. Thus, whatever service I have been able to render to the government has really been a service to my faith.”45 Both Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad viewed Islam as a pluralistic religion. Sayyid Ahmad Khan tried to show the similarity between Islam and Christianity and argued that the Bible was unaltered. The main difference between his thought and that of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was that the latter was keen to argue for the superiority of Islam over any other religion. For example, although both agreed that Jesus is dead, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad argued that his death proved the superiority of Islam over Christianity. It was one of the strategies of the Christian missionaries to exploit the widely held belief of Muslims that Jesus was elevated into heaven and would come back to lead the Muslims into a final victory. The Christian missionaries argued that if Jesus was alive and would come back to achieve victory of Islam, then he was superior to Muhammad who was dead and would never achieve a last victory for his religion. Muslims were torn between that compelling argument and their love for their Prophet. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s argument that Jesus had died and that the “Promised Messiah” was to be an inspired religious leader from the Muslim community not only won back wavering Muslims but also won over Christian missionaries.
42 43 44 45
Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. See Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. Jones, The New Cambridge History of India: Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, 64. K.K. Aziz, A Biography of Abdullah Yusuf Ali: A Life Forlorn (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2010), 292.
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It was not unexpected that Ahmad’s claim to be the “Promised Messiah” would stir the strongest controversy among orthodox Muslims. One of the most aggressive challengers of Ahmad was Maulana Muhammad Hussain Batalvi. The hostility between Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and Maulana Batalvi reached a climax after a series of articles were so abusive that the court had to intervene with a statement that each one was required to sign: In future no party in respect of its opponent will prophesy about death etc. or make hurtful statements; no one will call the other infidel, Antichrist, liar or fabricator; no one will invite the other for a prayer duel; Qadian will not be written with a small kaf nor Batala with toay and alif [to give derogatory meaning]; the parties will use gentle language with respect to each other; rude and abusive language will be shunned; and each party will, as far as possible, bind their friends and disciples to the same conditions. Further, the same conditions should be adhered to not only among the Muslims but also with the Christians.46 The controversy between Maulana Muhammad Hussain Batalvi, a leading member of the Ahl-i Hadith,47 and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad revolved around Ahmad’s claims to receiving messages from God. Although Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had been taught by a scholar of the Ahl-i Hadith, and like the Ahl-i Hadith he believed in unmediated access to the foundational texts, his interpretations were not literal as theirs were. The Ahl-i Hadith was also in discord with two other concurrent movements: the Barelawis and the Deobandis. The Barelawis were an oppositional group to the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandis, not a reformist movement.48 In response to criticisms of Sufism, they claimed to protect Islam from movements such as the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandis. They wanted to guard Islam from change, but the version of Islam they subscribed to was one that believed in the intercession of the pirs of the shrines. On the one hand, the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandis saw those beliefs and practices as backward. On the other hand, the Barelawis saw the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandis as the greatest danger to Islam and called
46 47
48
Ahmad, The Great Reformer: Biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. Ahl-i Hadith is a religious movement that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in northern India. They believed that the Qurʾān and Hadith are the only sources of authority. They believe in direct access to these texts without medieval interpretations. They also reject taqlid and favor ijtihad. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 296.
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them Wahhabis or even kāfir.49 Like Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandis accepted Sufism as a teaching relationship but rejected any authority of the pirs as mediators. The major difference between the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandis was on the role of ulama and Islamic law. Whereas the Deobandis were fully committed to the Ḥanafī school of law, the Ahl-i Hadith believed in direct access to the Qurʾān and Hadith. According to them, all Muslims, not only the ulama, were able to interpret the foundational texts. Although both wanted individual Muslims to take up their moral responsibilities and lead an ideal Islamic life that would be pure of any erroneous practices so as to regain the glory of the Muslim past, the Deobandis saw the law as the authority of ulama and limited it to the Ḥanafī school of law. Just as Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad stood out for their rationalist approach to the Qurʾān and their views on pluralism and jihad, Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi (1864–1943), a prominent Deobandi scholar, was long remembered for his detailed treatise on women. Like other reformers, Maulana Thanawi experienced the criticisms of the missionaries and his coreligionists as well as the dynamism of modern age. As a result, his views were critical and balanced between the Ḥanafī school of law, to which he was committed as a Deobandi, and an understanding of the modern age. His book Bihishti Zewar (Heavenly Ornaments), published in the early 1900s, was intended as a manual for Muslim women in modern times. According to Barbara Metcalf, who published her partial translation of that book under the title Perfecting Women, the book “has spoken with salience to large number of Muslims, women and men, down to the present.”50 Maulana Thanawi emphasized that both women and men should be equally responsible for leading a moral life inside and outside their homes. Husbands and wives should strictly observe their marital rights and obligations, and deal with their partners with due respect. He also warned men against oppression and excessive control over women although he saw the home as the primary place for women and emphasized that they had a duty to obey their husbands. Although his views might not be pleasing for contemporary supporters of women rights, they were a radical departure from the views of the ulama at his time. The book was also a typical example of the Deobandi school of thought. The Deobandis were known for their colossal numbers of legal opinions on all the issues that concerned 49 50
Jones, The New Cambridge History of India: Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, 71. Barbara D. Metcalf, Perfecting Women: Maulana Ashraf A̋ lī Thanawi’s Bihishti Zewar: a Partial Translation with Commentary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), viii.
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the Muslims in the fast-changing modern world.51 Maulana Thanawi addressed many of those new challenges and how women should deal with them.52 In an answer to her question, “Why has modern South Asia produced such a diversity of Islamic movements,” Barbara Metcalf emphasized the political and social environment.53 First of all, the “political loss” of South Asia was exceptional. The Mughal Empire, unlike the wounded Ottoman Empire, passed out of existence and dematerialized into mere nostalgia. Colonization was worsened by the presence of Christian missionaries who harshly criticized Islam and did their best to proselytize Muslims. The “particular form of colonial control established by the British” added to the trouble.54 The British supported the high cultures of Muslims and Hindus, which contributed to the emerging bifurcated and competing identities. They both joined the Christian missionaries in criticizing one another’s religions. Indian Muslims believed that the purity of the past was the only cure for the humiliation of the present. They believed that it was only through regaining the moral life of early Muslims that they could achieve any improvement in their situation. That attitude resulted in a diligent examination of the foundational texts with an eye to the complexities of modern life, and eventually a balanced reform between both. Their reform did not stop at the borders of India but spread all the way to Europe and America. This journey of Indian Muslim reform is best represented by the Indian Muslim English translations of the Qurʾān that were acts of connecting the horizons of the East and the West, tradition and modernity, as well as Qurʾān interpretation and the sociopolitical context of India. 51
52 53 54
They issued 269,115 fatwa in the first century; that is, as much as one fatwa every four hours; Jones, The New Cambridge History of India: Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, 61. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 146. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 7, 8. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 8.
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The Rise of Muslim Translations It should not be surprising that Islamic revival and Qurʾān translation in English in the nineteenth century started in India. Muslims from South Asia had contributed positively to tafsīr, fiqh, Hadith, Arabic linguistics, and poetry since the spread of Islam. “The language, the theories, the paradigms used by the South Asian Muslims,” as Barbara Metcalf says, “are precisely those that echo and reecho through Muslim history, from the Sudan to Sumatra, from the seventh century to the present.”1 Since the nineteenth century, Muslims of India had engaged in constant inter- and intra-religion negotiations, as they had to deal with the problem of modernity and threats of missionaries. These negotiations resulted in various movements. Sayyid Ahmad Khan wanted to purify religion from superstition and prove compatibility of the Qurʾān with natural laws. The Deobandis and Ahl-i Hadith stressed the importance of Islamic law in leading a moral life, whereas the Barelwis stressed piety and intercession of saints. All the reform movements, however, were conscious of the Islamic political loss and tasted the bitterness of Christian criticisms of Islam. As a solution to these dilemmas, revivalists affirmed the importance of return to pure Islam as it was lived and practiced by early Muslims and stressed that the personality and behavior of the Prophet Muhammad should be the primary guidance for any Muslim who want to live true Islam.2 Furthermore, European criticisms of the Qurʾān and Hadith made these foundational texts central in the Muslim–Christian struggle and necessitated their accurate translation by Muslims.3 The early non-Muslim translations of the Qurʾān insisted that Muhammad was the author of the Qurʾān and urged its readers to think critically of the truthfulness of the book.4 That attitude did not change in the nineteenth century when Christian missionaries arrived in India. The missionaries criticized Muslims in general for their mulish insistence
1 Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 7. 2 Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 349–350. 3 According to Usha Sanyal, it is this emphasis on authoritative texts that led to Muslim Qurʾān translations. Usha Sanyal, Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi: In the Path of the Prophet (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005), 20. 4 Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet: Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sier Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria, and newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desired to look into Turkish vanities, 4.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004543560_004 El-Hussein
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on the Qurʾān as the literal word of God and criticized Indian Muslims in particular for reciting the Arabic Qurʾān without understanding its meaning.5 Their debate with Muslims was a struggle to prove superiority over a religion that was seen violent, irrational, and patriarchal. Indian Muslim reformers on their part tended to see the problem as resulting from some Muslims’ practices and misconceptions about Islam and not true Islam itself. On the one hand, the Indian Muslim reformers highlighted the importance of individual reform and return to pure Islam to their fellowmen, and on the other hand, they used the same strategies that Christian missionaries introduced to India to explain and defend their religion. They were able to compete with Europeans in public debating and journalism, and little by little, as their English and their mastery of technology improved, they felt empowered to start a rigorous movement of English Qurʾān translation.
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Interpretation of the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān and the Bible
The first English Qurʾān translation by a Muslim, as far as records indicate, was produced in 1905 by Muhammad Abdul Hakim Khan.6 He was known as Dr. Abdul Hakim Patialvi as he grew up in Patiala, southeastern Punjab. Muhammad Abdul Hakim Khan was a surgeon and the author of The Medical Encyclopedia in English, which, as he described it, covered a number of branches of medical science in a short but thorough manner. In 1901, he published an Urdu tafsīr of the Qurʾān entitled Tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi-al-Qurʾān (Interpretation of the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān). As it is clear from the title, his approach was to show the internal relationship among Qurʾān verses and explain their meaning by comparing them to one another. In addition to a number of medical books, he also wrote several Islamic books in Urdu such as Taḏkirat al-Qurʾān (The Reminder 5 “Brethren, When You Go through Your Namaz,” writes George Henry Rouse (1838–1909), “do not repeat it like a parrot, without understanding its meaning. But understand its import … for this Fatiha which you are accustomed to repeat is a very good one.” He also describes al-fātiḥa as “short and very beautiful, and the eleventh tract shows its full meaning can be understood only by one who believes in Jesus and his atoning sacrifice;” quoted in Israel, Religious Transactions in Colonial South India: Language, Translation, and the Making of Protestant Identity, 46. 6 As Yūsuf ʿAli stated, “The First Muslim to Undertake an English Translation Was Dr. Muhammad ʿAbdul Ḥakīm Khān, of Patiala, 1905;” ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” in The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary (Lahore, India: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1937), xv. See also Abdur Raheem Kidwai, “Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan’s the Holy Quran (1905): The First Muslim or the First Qādyānī English Translation?,” Insight 2, no. 1 (2009).
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of the Qurʾān), Miftāḥ al-ʿArab (The Key to the Arab), and Al-Ḏikr al-Ḥakīm (Words of Wisdom). His book Al-Ḏikr al-Ḥakīm is particularly interesting as it clarified his relationship to the Ahmadiyya movement. Abdul Hakim Khan had been a follower of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad since the mid-1880s. In Volume 4 of Al-Ḏikr al-Ḥakīm, he mentioned that he used to read his tafsīr to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and Maulana Nur-ul Din, who would become the first Khalifa after Ahmad. When Khan published his translation in 1905, the Review of Religions—the main journal of Ahmadiyya—announced the publication of the translation in its October issue of 1905 and praised the translation for having new features and for depending on reliable commentaries.7 The translation itself is abundant in support for Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. One example is his footnote on Q 10:21 in which Khan compared the Meccan opposition to the Prophet Muhammad to the Muslim opposition to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.8 That verse, as he explained, refers to the drought that struck Mecca for seven years. Afflicted with that hardship, the Meccans implored the Prophet Muhammad to pray for his God, upon which the drought was removed immediately. That sign, which was sent from God to support his Prophet, was denied by the Meccans, who soon reverted to their opposition and called the Prophet an “imposter.” According to Khan, Muslims also denied God’s signs which supported Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. They gave “no regard to the vast number of prophecies … and to the miraculous phenomena occurring for him.”9 An important point to mention here is that the two Ahmadi translations in this study, Khan and Ali’s, reflected a belief in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a Sufi saint who received revelation from God. In this sense, the two Ahmadi translations were totally different from the Qadiani translation whose first part was published in 1915. For example, in its interpretation of Q 2:3, the Qadiani translation explained that the term “āḫira” means “the revelation which is to follow … it has reference to the revelations of the Promised Messiah whose advent was to mark the latter days of the world.”10 In his interpretation of the same verse, Muhammad Ali said, 7 8 9 10
The Review of Religions was a monthly journal published in English. It was launched in 1902 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. See Review of Religions, October 1902, p. 404. For more examples, see Kidwai, ““Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan’s the Holy Quran (1905): The First Muslim or the First Qādyānī English Translation?” Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes (Patiala: The Rajinder Press, 1905), 332. The Holy Qur-ān with English Translation and Explanatory Notes, etc.: Published under the Auspices of Hadrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, the Second Successor of the Promised Messiah, by Anjuman-i-Taraqqi Islam, Qadian, Punjab, India, vol. Part i (Madras: Addison Press, 1915), 11.
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It is quite unwarranted to take al-ākhira as meaning the message or revelation which is to come. The Qurʾān knows of no message coming to humanity after it. It is the last message; religion having been made perfect by it (5:3). The ākhira of this verse is plainly spoken of as the Last Day.11 Similarly, in his interpretation of “muttaqī” (God-fearing/God conscious) in Q 2:2, Khan gave five fundamental truths to be believed in: “Belief in God, in His angels, in revealed books, in His apostles, and in the final Judgement.”12 The Qadiani translation mentioned six characteristics of a God-fearing Muslim: “(1) belief in the Unseen, (2) worship of Allah, (3) kindness to God’s creatures, (4) faith in what was sent down to the Holy Prophet of Arabia, (5) faith in what was sent down before the Prophet, and (6) firm faith in what was yet to follow.”13 Khan continued as a member in the Ahmadiyya movement for twenty years and left it sometime after the publication of his English translation of the Qurʾān. On May 23, 1906, Abdul Hakim Khan published his book Al-Ḏikr alḤakīm Volume 4, in which he harshly attacked Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s leadership of Ahmadiyya as well as his claims as Messiah.14 In response, on May 15, 1907, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad published his book Ḥaqīqat al-Waḥī (known in English as The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) and gave a lengthy explanation of an initial theological disagreement with Khan over the possibility of achieving salvation without believing in the Prophet Muhammad.15 The spirit of the period, in which debate and conflict were the norm rather than the exception, turned this disagreement into a war. Khan’s Islamic books, including his tafsīr and his translation, which had been appreciated by Ahmad and Nur-ul Din, became unwelcome in the Ahmadi’s main library, and were returned to Khan.16 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom Khan saw as Mahdi and Messiah for twenty years, now became in Khan’s view a daǧǧal (deceiver) and his books heretical. Khan published another edition of his English Qurʾān translation in mid-1906 in which he criticized Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. In his footnote on Q 3:55, he pointed out that “it was mentioned previously in the note on this 11 12 13
14 15 16
Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 10. Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 12. The Holy Qur-ān with English Translation and Explanatory Notes, etc.: Published under the Auspices of Hadrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, the Second Successor of the Promised Messiah, by Anjuman-i-Taraqqi Islam, Qadian, Punjab, India, Part i, 7. Muhammad Abdul Hakim Khan, Al-Zikr Al-Hakim: Number 4. (India: Dar Matbaʾ Azīzi, 1906). Ahmad, Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation), 129–179. See Khan, Al-Zikr Al-Hakim: Number 4.
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verse that Jesus Christ who was the apostle of God has died and that Mirza Ghulam Ahmed of Qadian is the second Jesus who had to come. I entertained this belief for about 20 years, looked upon the misdoings of the Mirza as human frailties and never thought of making a critical examination of his claims and the so-called signs.”17 That footnote was extended over more than twenty pages of fierce criticism of Ahmad. Khan’s translation, like most of the early Indian translations, went unnoticed in spite of its strengths. Among these strengths is Khan’s approach. His style was highly pedagogical: he wrote as if “speaking” to the reader, he numbered his points to make them straightforward, and he employed diagrams to express his ideas. Khan’s work was also a clear representation of its context. Like Indian Muslim intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Khan emphasized the importance of the foundational texts of Islam. His views on the Qurʾān and Hadith were similar to those of Ahl-i Hadith, as he believed in direct access to those texts rather than gaining access through the interpretations of medieval scholars. That was why the opinions of medieval commentators had little, if any, role to play in Khan’s interpretation. He consistently tried to understand the Qurʾān in light of the Qurʾān itself.18 However, when he explained the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān, he did nothing but compiling the verses without commenting on the relationship among them or showing how they complement one another.19 Furthermore, in the early twentieth century, rational explanation and consistency with natural laws were considered essential for any trustworthy religion. Khan’s scientific knowledge, by virtue of his profession, helped him explain some verses in a way that conformed to the scientific spirit of the peri-
17 18
19
Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 111. Interpretation of the Qurʾān through the Qurʾān is a well-acknowledged approach to tafsīr. The first one who described that approach was Ibn Taymīya (d. 1328) in his book Muqaddima fī Uṣūl al-Tafsīr. For example, in explaining the meaning of Q 2:152: “So, remember Me, I will remember you,” he stated, “The Remembrance of Man Implies: (1) To invoke the Almighty Creator by his blessed names. ‘And for God are the excellent names, therefore invoke Him by those names.’ (2) To read the Qurʾān … ‘It is nothing but an admonition for man.’ (3) To ponder on the results of actions and the phenomena of nature. ‘Verily the virtues wash off the vices; this is a warning unto those who take warning.’ ” 11–114 (4) To apply oneself to virtues and devotions. “Therefore Run towards the Remembrance of God.” Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 60. The verses mentioned in points 1, 2, 3, and 4 are 7:180; 74:31; 11:114; and 51:50 respectively.
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od.20 He did not provide scientific exegesis in the broad sense of the word (i.e., showing the correspondence between the Qurʾān and scientific observations and theories), but he provided many scientific truths such as his lengthy comment on Q 2:195 as we will see shortly. However, in his attempt to make the Qurʾān sound true and rational, he modified his translation so that the Qurʾān in English translation may be consistent with what he perceived as historical facts. In his translation of Q 2:87 (“Do ye therefore, whenever an apostle cometh unto you with that which your hearts like not, proudly reject him and accuse some of imposture, and want to slay others”), he explained the addition as follows: “I added want to in the translation, for actually no apostle was slain.”21 Similarly, following Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s dismissal of miracles and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s rational explanation of them, Abdul Hakim Khan explained away Moses’ miracle of the rod by reference to the Bible: “And they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water.”22 Thus, he translated “iḍrib bi-ʿaṣāk al-ḥaǧar” (strike with your rod the rock) into “climb up the rock with thy rod.” The majority of medieval Qurʾān commentators explained that whenever the Jews were thirsty, Moses would strike a rock with his rod so that water would burst out of it. For Khan, that miracle did not occur, and Moses was simply asked to go to a place where there were twelve springs. Khan’s word choice is also interesting as it tells us something about the English education in India as well as his target readers. In translating a cultural item, a translator usually faces the dilemma of choosing either a familiar word that is already part of the knowledge of the reader or an unfamiliar word with the hope to attract the reader’s attention to the new concept behind the word.23 In India in the nineteenth century, many Western-educated Muslims had learned English in missionary schools where they were heavily exposed to Anglican religious texts. If the target readers were those Muslims, not to mention Christians, words like “mysteries” that Khan used as a translation of “ġaib”
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One interesting example is a diagram which he produced to explain the idea of man’s actions and the balance in the Day of Judgement. The diagram is straightforward and simple and only reflects the scientific spirit of the period, but also Khan’s pedagogical attitude. Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 36. Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 36. This view that “no apostle was slain” would contradict the opinion of the majority of commentators. Exodus 15–27. For more on these two strategies, see Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation.
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in Q 2:3 might well be more evocative for them than “the unseen.” However, being part of Christian theology, the word “mystery” has come to the Qurʾān loaded with concepts, and not as a mere neutral word. This is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, Christian readers will feel familiar with the Qurʾān, but on the other hand, the Qurʾān will lose part of its message.24 In addition to the use of Biblical vocabulary, Khan also used verses from the Bible to support his interpretation. In explaining, Q 2:195 (“and do not throw yourselves into destruction with your own hands”), he argued that the verse does not only cover measures for self-preservation such as wars and retaliation, but also covers healthy living. As he clarified, “Referring to the spiritual and physical hygiene, the Holy Qurʾān says- ‘Verily God loveth those who are very repentant and cleanly’ 2–222. The Bible says, ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’” He then commented on the current condition of Muslims: Every inspired religion of the world has been laying special stress on cleanliness, but by the run of ages the rational principles have degenerated into unreasonable superstitions, and hygiene is spoken of as worldliness and mistrust in God, even by the adherents of the truest religion, Islam. There are numerous ways of self-destruction, current nowadays: as, not keeping the houses, clothes and body properly clean; wearing clothes of unstable dyes, cumbersome ornaments in ears and noses and constricting bangles on wrists and ankles; fancy plays with cocks, pigeons and quails; indolent sedentary habits; taking too much spices, acids and stimulants in food; eating opium, arsenic, dhautura, Indian hemp and aconite habitually, indulgence in masturbation, sodomy, bestialism, and debauchery; too much eating, drinking, sleeping and smoking; and living in damp low and ill-ventilating houses. “He alloweth you what is good and wholesome and forbiddeth you what is unclean and pernicious” 7–157. “He sendeth down water from heaven that it may purify you” 8–11. Two points stand out in the above passage. First, it is clear that Khan, like revivalists of his time, believed that it was only through return to pure religion that Muslims could maintain a healthy life and protect themselves from destruction. Second, Khan was talking about all revealed religions, not only 24
For example, some commentators believe that “al-ġaib” in Q 2:3 refers to all that is unknown to man except through revelation, which is similar to the Catholic definition of “mysteries of faith,” but some others say that it refers particularly to the Qurʾān itself. Using a term like “the unseen” keeps the text open for various interpretations.
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Islam, which highlights his pluralist approach to religion, particularly in light of his intensive use of the Bible in the interpretation of the Qurʾān. Unfortunately, Khan’s work is abundant in reference and translation inaccuracies as the excerpt below shows: … but the descriptions of the true paradise are contrary to all these facts. “They shall enjoy therein whatever they desire and with us are pleasures above and over their imaginations” 5–35. “It is a place of eternal peace and rest.” “No troubles shall touch them therein, neither shall they be driven out of it” 15–48. “There is no vanity there and no sin” 52–23. “They won’t hear any vanity or lie there” 78–35. “Unto Him ascendeth the pure soul” 35–10. Imam Abū Hanifa and the companions of the prophet are of opinion that the garden was on the earth. The Bible places it in Eden. Genesis 2–18
There are three citation errors: Q 5:35 instead of Q 50:35, Q 78:35 instead of Q 56:25, and Bible 2:18 instead of 2:8. In addition, the translation per se suffers a number of problems. For example, translation of Q 50:35 is both inaccurate and confuses the Qurʾān with Hadith.25 Consistency is another problem in that translation. Not only does the same word (with the same contextual meaning) have different translations in different verses, but also the same verse has two different translations in the footnote and in the body of the translation. The Qurʾān translation itself includes numerous additions and unusual choices. Some of those additions are insignificant like the addition of “and” in the bismillah phrase, “In the name of Allah, the Allproviding and the most merciful.” Others are explanatory, such as the bracketed addition in “Expend (in charity) out of that which we have given them” (Q 2:3). Some other additions are excessive, as in Q 3:2: “Allah! There is none to be loved
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The Qurʾān says, “They Have Therein Whatever They Wish for, and We Have More” (50:35). In his translation, Khan inserted his own interpretation, which is far removed from the meaning of the verse. “And We Have More” was freely interpreted and translated into “and with us are pleasures above and over their imaginations.” The translation alludes to Hadith Qudsi which says, “Allah Almighty Says, ‘I Prepared for My Righteous Servants What No Eye Has Seen, No Ear Has Heard, and No Man’s Mind Has Ever Thought of’ ”. Khan translated Q 35:10 into, “Unto Him Ascendeth the Pure Soul,” whereas the verse says, “Unto Him Ascends (Al-Kalimu Al-Ṭaīyib) Good Expression.” It is not clear why Khan translated al-kalimu al-ṭaīyib (good expression) into “pure soul,” particularly that he translated it differently (“Unto Him Ascendeth the Holy Word”) in the body of his translation. Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 641.
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and none to be worshipped but He, the self-living and the fountain head of all life, the self-subsisting and the fountain head of all subsistence” (instead of simply translating it into, “God, there is no God but He, the Living, the SelfSubsisting”).
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Chronological Translation
In 1911, the second translation of the Qurʾān by a Muslim was published. This second translation was drastically different in quality from the first one. It was also the only Muslim English translation of the Qurʾān in chronological order. The translator was the Bengal-born Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl, who later moved to Allahabad in northern India. Abuʾl-Fadl had a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from Berlin. He also learned Arabic, Urdu, and English and published extensively in all those languages. In 1909, he presented a paper to the Convention of Religions in India, in which he introduced Islam as learned Muslims in modern India had come to understand it. He emphasized Islam as a reform, both religious and social. As a religious reform, it saw humanity as “one vast brotherhood”26 and “emphasized the teachings of each of the prophets who in their own age, and to their own people, taught in their own language, lessons of wisdom and of truth.”27 He stressed tolerance and asserted that Islam was against division, whether among religions or among groups within religions. It was also a rational religion, “best suited to the natural bent of a free, unbiased mind.”28 As a social reform, Islam respected women, limited polygamy, allowed marriage only after puberty, abolished slavery, and permitted war in self-defense only. More particularly, however, Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl, like many Muslim intellectuals of his time, believed in the importance of the foundational texts of Islam and the life of Prophet Muhammad as a model. Besides numerous Islamic books, his key publications included Sayings of Prophet Muhammad, which was a collection of Hadith in English, Ġarīb al-Qurʾān fī Luġat al-Furqān, which was a glossary of Qurʾanic terms in Urdu, and The life of Mohammed.29
26 27 28 29
Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl, “Islam: Its Aims and Scope,” in Cultural and Religious Heritage of India, ed. Suresh K. Sharma and Usha Sharma (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1909), 44. Abuʾl-Fadl, “Islam: Its Aims and Scope,” 42. Abuʾl-Fadl, “Islam: Its Aims and Scope,” 42. For a relatively complete list of publications, see Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl, Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad: Edited and Translated from the Original Arabic with an Introduction (Allahabad: Reform Society, 1924), v.
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Abuʾl-Fadl was the only Muslim to produce a chronologically ordered English translation of the Qurʾān. He also inspired his disciple, Hashem Amir-Ali (1903–1987), to produce a translation and tafsīr of the Qurʾān in chronological order.30 In his book, which came out in 1974, Hashim Amir-Ali described how Abuʾl-Fadl led him to rediscover the preeminence of the Qurʾān. For many readers in the modern age, particularly non-native speakers of Arabic, the Qurʾān may sound repetitious and disconnected, and it became meaningful only through a chronology that indicated the relationship among verses and chapters: … (it was in the holy month of Ramadan …) at Abul Fazl’s insistence, I read through a very halting Urdu translation of the Qurʾan. Whether I reached the last Sura Nas I do not remember. But what I do remember is that I had found the translation irksome. The subject matter appeared to be inchoate, disconnected, repetitious, dealing over and over again with stories and situations which did not concern or interest me. I swore never again to waste my time in trying to discover the glory of the Qurʾan. But I had sufficient courage to tell him of my impression when he asked me, more than once, whether I had read through it. To my surprise, he smiled—a smile that used to light up his dark complexion—and went over with me, in the original Arabic, some of the passages that I had found particularly annoying. That smile had lighted a thin candle somewhere in the interstices of my mind. What exactly I was able to see in the Qurʾan with its faint glimmer I cannot recall. But, like a moth going round and round a candle, I have been encircling that dim light ever since. What Abuʾl-Fadl instilled into Amir-Ali was a perspective “in which the message of the Qurʾan became meaningful.” As he stated, “If we succeed, no matter to what little extent, in focusing the mind of the twentieth century on the message of the Qurʾan, delivered in the seventh century, we shall have more than achieved our aim.”31 Abuʾl-Fadl made use of Nöldeke’s chronological order, but he did not subscribe to Nöldeke’s views that Muhammad was the author of the Qurʾān or that his style varied according to circumstances. Nevertheless, AbuʾlFadl definitely saw the chronological order as a valid perspective for understanding the message of the Qurʾān. 30 31
Hashem Amir-Ali, The Message of the Qurʾan Presented in Perspective (Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1974). Amir-Ali, The Message of the Qurʾan Presented in Perspective.
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There were also three pivotal points that Amir-Ali stressed in his epilogue. First, any attempt to see the Qurʾān in a new light is actually based upon the effort of the first Muslims who compiled the Qurʾān and kept its message alive in spite of the limitations under which they worked. It is only through return to the message of the Qurʾān as early Muslims understood it that Muslims could regain their eminence. However, comprehension of the Qurʾān became a difficult task due to the poor command of classical Arabic. As a result, the gap between what early Muslims understood of the Qurʾān and what Muslims in the twentieth century came to understand was huge. That gap in understanding necessitated constant effort from scholars to comprehend and communicate the message of the Qurʾān, even though their effort might sound blasphemous to ordinary people. Second, Amir-Ali noted that the limitations under which early Muslims worked no longer existed. Modern Muslims should adopt technology and modern tools of analysis to facilitate the study of the Qurʾān. Third, it was through interaction with the West that Muslims had re-examined and re-discovered the message of the Qurʾān. As Amir-Ali stated, “Thanks, ironically, to those who set out to convert us, and also to many lovers of truth in both East and West, the light of thought has been slowly dawning, at least on the Muslims exposed to the objective thinking of the West, for the last hundred years.”32 These three points were very true for Abuʾl-Fadl, who believed in the importance of the foundational texts of Islam, technology, and interaction with the West. Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation consciously integrated Western knowledge into the Qurʾān. It used the outcome of Nöldeke’s theory while trying to convey the accurate message of the Qurʾān from a Muslim perspective. Nöldeke’s most influential work, The History of the Qurʾān, whose second edition was revised by Friedrich Schwally (d. 1919), tried to create a chronology of the Qurʾān by applying linguistic analysis, thus departing from traditional Muslim chronologies which were based upon medieval reports on asbāb al-nuzūl (causes of revelation) and exegeses. Nöldeke criticized Muslim chronologies as being based upon paradoxical reports, and although any chronology of the Qurʾān would be a mere informed academic speculation, Nöldeke was brave enough to produce a radical list that impacted many prominent Muslim scholars such as AbuʾlFadl and Amir-Ali. Following Muslim scholars, Nöldeke initially divided revelation into Meccan and Medinan periods, identifying stylistic features of each. He also recognized intermediate suwar (plural of sūra) that served as a transition between the two
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Amir-Ali, The Message of the Qurʾan Presented in Perspective, 84.
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major periods. Eventually, he created a chronology with four phases: first, second, and third Meccan periods, and a Medinan period. An important feature of that model, which came to be known as the Nöldeke–Schwally model, was that it took the sūra as a unit even though some verses may belong to a different period. Abuʾl-Fadl followed Nöldeke’s order with two exceptions: Chapter 105 was placed as the fourth chapter followed by 106, 108, 104, 107, and 102, whereas the order in Nöldeke’s was 106, 108, 104, 107, 102, and then 105. The second exception was chapters Ninety-Three and Ninety-Four, which came in that order in Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation, but Ninety-Four was followed by Ninety-Three in Nöldeke’s list. Unfortunately, Abuʾl-Fadl did not provide any explanation for that change. It was the coherent message of the Qurʾān that Abuʾl-Fadl aimed at when he presented his translation in chronological order. Furthermore, to instill that message in the reader’s mind, he introduced each chapter with an abstract. Through the abstract, each chapter became an organic unit and part and parcel of an overall message. Take, for example, the abstract of the first chapter (Chapter 96 in the present arrangement of the muṣḥaf ). The chapter consists of three interrelated themes. The first theme from verse 1 to 5 is the call of Muhammad to deliver God’s message; the second theme from verse 6 to 13 is the severe opposition to Muhammad’s mission, particularly from Abū Ǧahl; and finally, from verse 14 to 19, God’s judgement of those who oppose Muhammad’s mission. The abstract creates a clear link among the verses of the chapter and helps to show how these themes are connected to other themes in the Qurʾān. Similarly, if we look at the abstracts of the first few chapters, we can see an outline of the development of Muhammad’s mission as well as a spiritual thread among the chapters. The chapters start with the call of Muhammad and how he is opposed by Abū Ǧahl (Chapter 96), al-Walīd ibn al-Muġīra (Chapter 74), and Abū Lahab and his wife (Chapter 111). All those who oppose Muhammad’s mission will have the same fate as Abraha, the Ethiopian general who attacked Mecca and who was avenged terribly (Chapter 105). After that, the theme changes to signs of God’s favor, reward, and punishment. Chapter 106 is a warning: the Quraysh are favored with commercial facilities and safety and are warned against disobedience. Chapter 108 shows God’s favor on Muhammad, who is comforted against the cruel reflections of the unbelievers. Then, backbiters (Chapter 104) and hypocrites (Chapter 107) are denounced, and lovers of wordily pleasures are warned (Chapter 102). Put together, these abstracts make the development and spiritual message of the chapters clear. They move smoothly from the mission and opposition to reward and punishment in life and in the Day of Judgement.
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However, the message of shorter abstracts is much clearer than the longer ones. This is due to two main reasons. First, Abuʾl-Fadl did not summarize the big chapters. He grouped verses together under titles. As a result, his titles might give an impression of disconnected themes. The second reason is that he focused on small segments of verses, so he ended up with many small titles as seen in the following abstract of Chapter Fifty-Three (the number in brackets is the number of the starting verse): (1) The inevitable Judgement. (8) The blessed. (9) The damned. (10) Those who strive after righteousness. (15) Their pleasures. (41) The state of the damned. (45) Their works in this world. (49) The Judgement inevitable. (51) The suffering of those who deny the Hereafter. (57) Proofs in creation of the power of God. (75) The revelation of the Qurʾan. (83) The helpless condition of a dying man. (88) His condition hereafter according to his merit. The above abstract would have benefited from focusing on larger themes and putting them in a narrative form as Maulana Muhammad Ali did. The following is his introduction to the same Chapter: The Event referred to in the first verse, from which the title of this chapter is taken, is the time of the meting out of reward and punishment to the faithful and their opponents respectively. It begins by stating that people will be divided into three classes: the foremost among the faithful, the other believers and the opponents. Then it speaks of the judgment upon them, the three classes each receiving what they deserve. The chapter is an early revelation at Makkah. Furthermore, introducing the abstract in the content page and not immediately before each chapter is both a strength and weakness. It is helpful to read all the abstracts together as this makes the overall message—and probably the development of themes—clearer. However, one may need to go back and forth between the chapters and the content every time one needs to check the themes of a chapter. The translation is accompanied with notes that are given at the end of Volume ii. These notes are useful as they give background information on many of the events and characters about which the Qurʾān speaks. However, like Khan’s notes, they are brief and rarely discuss any issues of language, translation, or tafsīr. In comparison to Khan’s, Abuʾl-Fadl’s work avoids many of the omissions, additions, and substitutions that found their way freely into Khan’s
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translation.33 As Abuʾl-Fadl briefly describes his approach to translation, he tries “to render it as literal as possible sometimes even at the risk of being hardly understood.”34 In many instances, Abuʾl-Fadl manages to achieve the hard balance between equivalent meaning and effective, clear language. For example, in the very first verses of Chapter Two, where most translators have to reorder the components of the sentences to produce a readable target text, Abuʾl-Fadl abides by the original order but succeeds in producing a powerful text: “That is the Book, there is no doubt therein,—a guide to the pious, who believe in secret, and are steadfast in prayer, and of what We have given them do spend” (2:2–3).35 In particular, his translations of many short chapters are impressive: Perish the hands of Abu Lahab, and perish he! His wealth shall not avail him, nor his gains. At the flaming Fire he shall be burned, and his wife also, laden with wood, and a rope of palm fibre on her neck. (cxi) Not only the short chapters, but also fair chunks of the long chapters can be among the highest quality translations. However, following a strictly literal approach can prove to be counter-productive. Translators who follow a literal approach out of respect to the source text sometimes end up with a translation that is not fair to it. A small change, then, can do a great service to the target text, although it may deviate from the literal approach, as in the following example: We recite to thee from the history of Moses and Pharaoh in truth, for a people who believe. (xxviii: 3; added emphasis) In the above example, a rearrangement of the semantic components would lead to a smoother text. In particular, the prepositional phrase “in truth” needs
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Here’s one example to compare Khan and Abuʾl-Fadl’s translations. Notice the addition of “He Did Otherwise” in Khan’s translation. Khan (Q 5:48): “And if God do pleased, He would have made you one nation, but He Did Otherwise that He may prove you in what He hath given you; therefore strive to excel one another in righteousness.” Abuʾl-Fadl (Q 5:48): “And if God pleased, He would surely have made you one people,—but that He might try you in what He has given you. Strive then to excel each other in good works.” Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl, The Qurʾân: Arabic Text and English Translation Arranged Chronologically with an Abstract, vol. 1 (Allahabad: G.A. Asghar and Co., 1911), v. Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation of “bi-al-ġaib” into “in secret” confirms Qurṭubī’s preference: “It was said that bi al-ġaib means in their consciousness and hearts contrary to the hypocrites, and this is a sound opinion;” Abu ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abi Bakr alQurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAbdullah ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī (Beirut: Al-Risāla Publication, 2006), 1, 252.
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to move closer to the verbal phrase: “We recite to thee in truth …” But AbuʾlFadl is right when he says that even when literal translation is difficult to read, context can make it comprehensible, which applies perfectly well to the above example. The reader can easily realize that “in truth” modifies the verb “recite” and analyze the sentence accordingly. In fact, sometimes when Abuʾl-Fadl deviates from his literal approach, his translation becomes vague.36 Take for example, “iqraʾ” (“read”) at the beginning of Chapter Ninety-Six. Many Orientalists believe that Muhammad could read and write and that he had studied the Bible, which they take as the source of the Qurʾān. Contrary to Sunni Muslims, Shiʿa Muslims, like Abuʾl-Fadl, also believe that Muhammad could read and write. They see illiteracy as a weakness that does not befit a prophet and not, as many Sunni Muslims like to see it, proof that the Qurʾān is a revelation from God and not written by Muhammad. Being aware of the controversy over the meaning of “iqraʾ,” Abuʾl-Fadl imposes his interpretation into the text and translates “iqraʾ” into “cry,” which not only changes the meaning of the text, but also makes it ambiguous. Again, adopting a rationalist approach to the Qurʾān, he translates “ṭair abābīl” (“flocks of birds one after another”) into “augury of evil.” In his footnotes, he explains that Abraha’s army has been destroyed by smallpox, quoting Muslim medieval reports as well as historical evidence. Although that translation makes the target text more rational, it definitely limits the range of meanings of the source text.37 Like Khan’s work, Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation would have benefited from serious editing. Typos and errors in Abuʾl-Fadl’s work are fewer than in Khan’s translation, but they are far more serious since some of them occur in the body of the Qurʾān in Arabic. Abuʾl-Fadl is the first translator to produce the Qurʾān in Arabic side by side with his English translation. This is particularly useful for English-educated people, as well as many Muslims who are non-native speakers of Arabic who might read the Qurʾān in Arabic without understanding its meaning. With Abuʾl-Fadl’s contribution, they can read the Qurʾān in Arabic and understand its meaning in English. However, many Muslims would regard an error in the printing of the Qurʾān in Arabic unforgiveable, even though at
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37
Generally speaking, Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation cannot be deemed a literalist one since there are many examples in which he aimed at explanatory translations, as shown by the example of iqraʾ (“read”). Similarly, in the verse, “So when they saw Our violence (baʾsanā), they said, We believe in the One God, and we disbelieve in what with Him we did join,” (xl: 85) Abuʾl-Fadl translated baʾsanā (“Our might, power, strength”), into “violence,” but the Arabic word “baʾsanā” is far more general than “violence” or even “vengeance.”
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that early stage of printing, editing was a difficult problem. In fact, it is still a tough task even today, despite all the advancement of technology. In particular, editing an Arabic copy of the Qurʾān (muṣḥaf ) is most difficult, not only because of the diacritic marks surrounding each word, but also because editors are usually familiar with the Qurʾān and read what is on their minds rather than what is written. Fortunately, the typographical errors in Abuʾl-Fadl’s copy of the Qurʾān do not seriously change the meaning.38 A further weakness of Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation is its chaotic table of contents. It is even more chaotic than Rodwell’s. In his criticism of Rodwell’s translation, Sarwar says, One reason why Rodwell’s translation is not so popular as it deserves to be is its awkward arrangement of the sūras. The reader gets confused because the original and the translation do not follow each other, and every time one has to refer to Rodwell’s translation one has first to hunt the contents for the place where to find any particular sūra, or chapter, and when one has done that one has again to hunt up the particular verse—a tedious and tiresome process, and when the reference to the sūra is wrong the task of finding a required verse is well-nigh hopeless.39 The same problem persists with Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation, but it worsens with the Roman numerals that Abuʾl-Fadl uses for the chapters instead of the Arabic numerals. Those weaknesses should by no means diminish the great effort put into these early Muslim translations. In fact, they introduced many new features that later translations would utilize. For example, Khan was the first translator to include the title of the sūra and the number of the ǧuzʾ (part) in the header. That feature would be utilized later by many translators. Additionally, unlike the European translators who translated the Qurʾān into paragraphs without giving a number to each verse, Khan numbered the verses in English, which would resonate among all future translators. Abuʾl-Fadl was the first to insert the Arabic text with the translation and to group the verses under titles to clarify the message behind them. Again, these features had proven to be useful and were either reproduced or improved upon by later translators.
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Examples include “linnāsi” (instead of “lilnāsi”) p. 450 (Q 2:118 in his translation); “nisāʾ” (instead of “al-nisāʾ”) p. 696 (Q 4:3 in his translation); and “ataynā” (instead of “atayna”) p. 711 (Q 4:30 in his translation). Sarwar, “Introduction,” xxiii.
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Collaborative Translation
Between 1912 and 1916, Mirza Hairat (1850–1928) published his translation (a translation performed by a group of scholars and edited by Mirza Hairat) under the title The Koran, prepared by various oriental learned scholars and edited by Mirza Hairat.40 The only copies I have been able to find of this translation are from the British Library dated 1916 (Volume One only) and the McGill University library dated 1916 (three volumes).41 In the preface, the editor Mirza Hairat said that he published the first volume of the translation with the hope that the two remaining volumes would come out shortly. He said that the translation was complete and ready in the hands of the printer and would be published soon after a rich merchant had secured publication funds. He then expressed his intention to publish a separate introduction as a commentary on the translation and asked readers to send their subscriptions by December 1916. This means that in 1916, only the first volume came out, the two remaining volumes would follow, and an introduction to the whole work would soon be compiled. The footnotes of the translation make general references to the introduction, which means that the introduction had already been completed and was waiting for funding to print. Given confirmation from other scholars that the translation had been published in 1912, there is a possibility that 1916 was a typographical error (for 1912) or that Volume One was printed in 1912, whereas in 1916, a second edition of Volume one, followed by Volumes Two and Three, was published.42 Whether the translation came out in 1912 or 1916, chronologically speaking, it followed Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation and preceded Maulana Muhammad Ali’s. Mirza Hairat was a prolific writer and translator in Urdu, Persian, and English. His books included Afsāna-e Karbala (“The legend of Karbala”), Sīrate Muḥammadiyya (“History of Muḥammadīya”), Ilhām wa Wahi (“Inspiration and Revelation”), Khalīfat-e Osmāni (“The Ottoman Caliph”), Sīrat-ur Rasūl (“Biography of the Messenger”), Ḥayāt Ṭayyiba (“A Good Life”), and Muqaddime Tafsīr ul Furqān (“Introduction to Qurʾān Interpretation”). The last two books are significant for this review. Ḥayāt Ṭayyiba is a biography of Shah Ismāʿīl Šahīd and Sayyid Ahmad Barelawi. In that book, Hairat criticized Wahhabism
40 41 42
Abdur Raheem Kidwai, “Translating the Untranslatable: A Survey of English Translations of the Quran,” The Muslim World Book Review 7, no. 4 (1987). The earliest copies on WorldCat are 1916. See also Herbert Berg, who confirms that he found Volume One of the translation in the British Library dated 1912. Herbert Berg, Elijah Muhammad and Islam (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 156.
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and Shiʿism and showed a sympathetic attitude toward the British government, thus giving us an idea of his general reformist thoughts. His views were close to Sufi groups like the Barelawis as far as Wahhabism and Shiʿism were concerned, and to the political views of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his group as far as the British were concerned, although I do not think he formally joined either of these groups. In his book, Muqaddime Tafsīrul Furqān, Hairat explained his approach to tafsīr, which was not different from the majority of Sunni commentators of the Qurʾān. He consulted the Qurʾān and Hadith, as well as acknowledged major Qurʾān commentaries. He lay special emphasis on linguistic and stylistic analysis of the Qurʾān, probably due to his interests as a translator.43 Although Muqaddima Tafsīrul Furqān, which was published in 1899, included refutations of Orientalist criticisms of the Qurʾān, Mirza Hairat had the intention, as he stated in his preface to the translation, to publish a separate introduction to the translation that would “form a complete and exhaustive reply to the manifold criticisms of the Koran by various Christian authors, such as Drs. Sale, Rodwell and Palmer and Sir W. Muir.”44 Unfortunately, that introduction, like many of Hairat’s writings, is difficult to get hold of; more likely, it was never published.45 Even though the introduction is not available to review, his translation as a stand-alone text can still be analyzed as a conscious re-interpretation of the Qurʾān in light of Orientalists’ criticisms, even though it is, in that context, relatively limited compared to other early Muslim translations. In that context, Mirza Hairat’s footnotes are indispensable because even in those examples where the translation is clearly motivated by Orientalists’ criticism, it is only through the footnotes that we can understand the translation. One example is his translation of Q 2:106. Some Orientalists believed that without a theory of abrogation, the Qurʾān would not survive as a divine revelation due to the numerous contradictory law-giving verses it encompasses. To solve that problem, Muhammad, the author of the Qurʾān, invented and consecrated a theory of abrogation to disguise the mistakes. As a response, Mirza Hairat translated “nansaḫ” (Q 2:106; “We abrogate”) into “We cancel:” “We cancel no verse, nor cause it to be forgotten, but We bring a better one than it, or, one like it.” In
43 44 45
Mirza Hairat, Muqaddima Tafsīrul Furqān (Delhi: Nizāmi, 1899). Mirza Hairat, ed., The Holy Qurʾan: English Translation, vol. 1 (Delhi: I.M.H. Press, 1916), ii. There is also a probability that the introduction was never published. As Yūsuf ʿAli stated, “The Commentary Which He Intended to Publish in a Separate Volume of Introduction Was, as far as I Know, Never Published.” ʿAli, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” xv.
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the footnote, Mirza Hairat explains that the reference is to “those orders which were given to the Jews, but which were cancelled by the Koran.”46 Similarly, to refute accusations of irrationality, Hairat confirmed that some miracles could be interpreted variously. In his footnote on Moses’ miracle of the rock, he stated, “This is an allusion to Exod. xvii 5.6. But those who think it to be an allusion to Exod. xv. 27 translates it thus: We said, ‘Go with thy people to the hills,’ because the word ‘Zaraba’ [ḍarab] means both ‘to strike’ and ‘to go’ while the word ʿAsa [ʿaṣa] means ‘a rod’ as well as ‘a crowd of men,’ while ‘hajar’ [ḥaǧar] means a ‘stone’ as well as ‘a hilly tract.’”47 Furthermore, in response to the Indian context, Mirza Hairat translated the title of Chapter Two into “Ox,” and not “Cow,” out of respect for the sentiments of the neighbor community of the Hindus. Although some medieval commentators confirmed that the animal in Chapter Two is female, others—supported by linguistic analysis of the word “baqara,” which can refer in Arabic to both male and female—expressed doubt about the gender of the animal.48 The footnotes, like those of previous translations, were brief and scanty, probably because the editor intended to publish an introduction that would serve as a commentary on the translation. Unlike Khan and Abuʾl-Fadl’s notes, Hairat’s footnotes focused on issues of language and translation rather than theology and tafsīr. For example, he explained in his notes that the translation of recurring words may vary depending on the context. That is to say, his translation is communicative as he gave the intended meaning and not the literal one. For example, in Q 2:14, he translated “šayāṭīnihim” (“their devils”) into “their elders:” “And when they meet those who believe, they say, ‘We believe,’ but when they retire to their elders, they say, ‘We are with you, we only jest with them.’” Similarly, he translated “šuhadāʾukum” (“your witnesses”) in Q 2:23 into “your helpers:” “And if ye be in doubt about what We have sent down unto Our servant, then bring a chapter like it, and call your helpers, other than God, if ye be truthful.” In Q 3:7, the difficult terms “muḥkamāt” and “mutašābihāt” were explained rather than translated: “He it is, who hath sent down unto thee, the Book in which there are some verses which give directions. These are the basis of the Book; and some are figurative; but they, whose hearts are crooked, follow the figurative therein, wishing for discord, and seeking their own interpretation but none knoweth its (true) interpretation save God.” There is also a clear tendency to produce a translation that is easy to understand. See, for example, the following verses: 46 47 48
Hairat, The Holy Qurʾan: English Translation, 17. Hairat, The Holy Qurʾan: English Translation, 10. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʾ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 178.
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Verily, the number of months with God is twelve, in the Book of God, since the day, He created the heavens and the earth. Of these four are sacred. This is the right practice. So in these, do no wrong unto your own selves. But fight the idolaters, all of you, as they fight with you, one and all, and know that God is with the pious. To change these sacred months for others, is an excess, ( forged) by the infidels. Those who do not believe are misled thereby. They make it lawful one year, and forbid it another year, to make it accord with the number, God hath made sacred. Thus they make lawful what God hath forbidden. Their evil deeds look comely to themselves. But God doth not guide an unbelieving people. (9:36–37; emphasis added) The term “nasīʾ” (“manipulating the calendar of pre-Islamic Arabia”) is paraphrased into “to change these sacred months for others.” The phrase “forged by the infidels” is an explication. Similarly, in the first verse, “in these” and “but” are added to make the text easier to understand.49
49
The term “nasīʾ” was defined variously by commentators as well as translators. Maulana Muhammad Ali translated the term into “postponing (of the sacred month),” (Q 9:37). In his footnotes, he explained that, According to most of the commentators, nasīʾ means postponement, and the reference here is to the practice of postponing observance of the sacred month, thus allowing an ordinary month to be observed as sacred and a sacred month to be treated as ordinary. This practice interfered with security of life which was guaranteed in the sacred months, and is, therefore, denounced. According to others, nasīʾ means addition (of a month), and refers to the practice of the intercalation of a month every fourth year. ah [Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalusī] prefers the first, and says that the three successive months of Dhu-l-Qaʿdah, Dhu-l-Ḥajjah and Muḥarram seemed too long for them to refrain from their depredations and bloodshed, and therefore they violated the last of these, keeping sacred instead the next month. Yūsuf ʿAli also preferred the first explanation. He translated Q 9:37 into Verily the transposing (Of a prohibited month) Is an addition to Unbelief The Unbelievers are led To wrong thereby for they make It lawful one year, And forbidden another year, In order to adjust the number Of months forbidden by God And make such forbidden ones Lawful. The evil of their course Seems pleasing to them But God guideth not Those who reject Faith.
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Sometimes, however, he gives the dictionary meaning rather than the contextual meaning as in his translation of “ṭuġyānihim” (Q 2:15). He translated it into “excesses” (“letteth them go on in their excesses blindly”), whereas Khan translated it onto “transgression” and Abuʾl-Fadl into “rebellion.” Occasionally, he failed to give the communicative meaning or even the literal contextual meaning. In Q 2:94, he translated “min dūn al-nās” (“to the exclusion of other people”) into “beside” which actually gave the opposite meaning of the verse: “Say if the future house with God be purely for you, beside mankind, then wish for death, if ye be truthful.” Compared to this translation, Abuʾl-Fadl’s rendition was more optimal as it aimed to strike a balance between literalism and readability. He translated Q 2:94 as follows: “Say thou, If there be for you the abode of the Hereafter with God exclusive of the rest of mankind, then do ye desire for death, if ye are true.”50 Mirza Hairat’s translation was the first Muslim collaborative translation of the Qurʾān. Group work, most probably following a variation of the translate– edit–proofread model,51 contributed positively to correcting errors and made that translation unique among early Muslim translations. However, group work had its own problems in translation. One problem is term consistency. Initially, Mirza Hairat warned the reader that some terms were given different translations depending on the context to facilitate clarity and readability. The strategy of contextual translation contributed positively to the work. A good example is the word “maṯalan” (“example,” “parable,” or “simile”), which he translated into “parable” in (Q 16:112): “And God setteth forth the parable of a town, which was secure and at ease. Its food came to it abundantly from every place, but it denied the blessings of God, so God made it taste extremes of hunger and fear, for what they had wrought,” and into “instance” in (Q 66:11): “And God setteth forth for those who believe, the instance of the wife of Pharaoh.” The contextual
50
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Recent scholarship (e.g., Axel Moberg) seems more convinced of the second interpretation (intercalary month or intercalation). For a discussion of the term, see Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 407, N. 37a. ʿAli, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” 451, N. 1297. Axel Moberg, “Nasīʾ,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman et al. (2: Brill, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573‑3912_islam_SIM_5816. F.A. Shamsi, “The Meaning of Nasīʾ: An Interpretation of Verse 9:37,”Islamic Studies 26, no. 2 (Summer 1987). Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 14. Abuʾl-Fadl, The Qurʾân: Arabic Text and English Translation Arranged Chronologically with an Abstract, 1, 404. See Julia Makoushina and Hendrik Kockaert, “Zen and the Art of Quality Assurance: Quality Assurance Automation in Translation: Needs, Reality and Expectations,” Proceedings of the Thirtieth International Conference on Translating and the Computer Conference Information: Translating and the Computer (2008), http://www.mt‑archive.info/Aslib ‑2008‑Makoushina.pdf.
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meaning of “maṯalan” is different in these two verses since the former teaches a lesson, namely appreciating God’s blessings, whereas the latter is intended to set an example of believing women. However, some other terms are definable independently of the context. That is to say, they have the same meaning in different contexts. One example of such terms is “al-mušrikūn” (“the polytheists”). It is interesting that “al-mušrikūn” was translated consistently into “those who join others with God” in Chapter Two and consistently into “idolater” in Chapter Nine. In Chapter Six, however, it is translated into “those who join others with God” in (Q 6:23), “idolaters” in (Q 6:121 and 137), and “those who give peers unto God” in (Q 6:161). More seriously, “al-Raḥmān” was translated into “the Kind God” in Chapters Nineteen and Twenty, and into “the Merciful God” in Chapter Thirty-Six. This is quite confusing since Mirza Hairat translated “Bism Allah al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm” into “in the name of God, the Kind, the Merciful.” Additional confusion of term translation can be found in Chapter Thirty-Six, where both “al-Raḥmān” and “al-Raḥīm” were translated into “the Merciful” (Q 36:15 and Q 36:58). This lack of consistency probably goes back to the fact that the translation is a collaborative work in which more than one translator participated. In spite of that, Mirza Hairat succeeded in many instances to achieve what he aimed at, namely, to produce an easy-to-understand English translation of the Qurʾān that could refute the Orientalists’ views at that time. Before concluding this chapter, I need to stress a few important points. First, the first three Muslim English translations of the Qurʾān, which are usually disregarded as insignificant and have received a little attention in research, introduced important features to English Qurʾān translation as I have argued above. They represent a clear example of interconnectedness of Qurʾān translation. On the one hand, they imported some useful features from the European translations such as language accessibility, the brief and concise notes, providing prefaces and introductions as frameworks to understand the Qurʾān, and the focus on the general message of the Qurʾān. On the other hand, they developed and introduced some more features that were utilized by later translators. More significantly, these early translations offered a reading of the Qurʾān that addressed Muslim problems in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They viewed translation not only as conveying the same meaning in another language, but also as capable of hosting interpretation. Translation as interpretation contributes to the lively message of the Qurʾān, whose form in Arabic is unchangeable and timeless, and whose translations are adaptable and capable of solving contemporary social problems. This is what Abuʾl-Fadl stressed when he inserted the Arabic text side by side with the English translation following a long-standing tradition of Qurʾān translation into Persian.
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These three early Muslim translations paved the way for the more prominent translations that I will discuss in the next chapters, namely, Maulana Muhammad Ali, Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar, and ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli, which constituted an apex in the development of Muslim English Qurʾān translation and had a clearer impact on later translations.
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Indian Muslim Translations: An Apex The translations of Maulana Muhammad Ali in 1917 and Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar in 1929 took the Indian translations to another level of development. By the time Muhammad Ali published his translation, there were a number of Qurʾān translations into English, but none of them included comprehensive scholarly notes, probably with the exception of George Sale. It is true that some translators, like Rodwell and Khan, produced valuable notes, but the sources they used were either very few or lacked systematic and clear references. Muhammad Ali was the first Muslim translator to include extensive scholarly notes that served his translation as well as some of the following Indian translations. Sarwar’s translation was a breakthrough as well. He used rhythmic language to convey part of the spirit of the Qurʾān. Translating the Qurʾān as prose and without numbering the verses as it was the case in the early European translations was problematic. It aggravated the problem of coherence that Rodwell tried to solve by offering a chronological translation. Muhammad Ali with his notes and Sarwar with his poetic language brought the Indian translations to its highest level of development. In addition, Yūsuf ʿAli, as we will see next chapter, toned down Muhammad Ali’s tenacious rationalist approach and brought the Indian translations closer to what was considered orthodox by most Muslims.
1
Extensive Notes
In 1891, in his Urdu book Izala Awham, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad expressed his wish to counter the Christian missionaries and present true Islam to the West through English Qurʾān translation and commentaries.1 In 1905 Khan, who was at that time an Ahmadi himself, published his translation. It seems, however, that the quality of the work did not convince the community, who did not show much enthusiasm in their announcement of the publication: “It is the first attempt of a Muhammadan at an English-translation and must receive encour-
1 Zahid Aziz, Centenary of Maulana Muhammad Ali’s English Translation of the Quran: Background, History and Influence on Later Translations (UK: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore Publications, 2017), 5.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004543560_005 El-Hussein
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agement from the English-knowing Muhammadan public.”2 In August 1907,3 the editor of Al-Hakam, the Ahmadiyya Urdu newspaper, expressed the need for an English translation of the Qurʾān, describing the skills and attitudes that a person undertaking such a translation should possess. The translator should know Arabic and English, but more importantly he should be a devoted Muslim who felt bitter about the condition of Islam, was fully aware of the objections raised against it, and knew how to refute them.4 What is interesting about these qualifications is that they reflected the cultural context of India and presented translation of the Qurʾān as an act of resistance and reform more than anything else. The article of Al-Hakam recommended that Maulana Muhammad Ali (1874– 1951) do the translation. Born in the Punjab, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1894 from the Government College, Lahore, with a major in mathematics and was hired by the Islamia College as a lecturer of mathematics at the age of nineteen. While teaching, Ali continued his education at the Government College, and in 1896 he obtained a master’s degree in English and began a Bachelor of Law, which he completed in 1899. In 1897, he left the Islamia College and took a job as a professor of mathematics at Oriental College till 1899.5 Muhammad Ali also studied Persian and Arabic. When he had mastered these two languages, his teachers gave him the honorific, though informal, title Maulvi. Upon completion of law school, his qualifications prepared him to start a successful career as a lawyer, but Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya, recruited him for the service of Islam. In 1900, Ali decided to stay in Qadian in the service of Ghulam Ahmad. Soon, he would become the first editor of the Review of Religions, the English magazine founded by Ahmad to introduce Islam to the West. He would also become the Ahmadiyya’s secretary and a member of its governing body. But his major role in the development of Ahmadiyya would not start before the death of the first Khalifa, Maulana Hakim Nuruddin. Maulana Hakim Nuruddin became the first Khalifa after the death of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1908. In April 1911, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s son, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, published an article in Tashhīz Azhān in which he called Muslims who did not believe in the mission of his father kāfir (outside
2 Review of Religion, Oct-1905, 404. 3 At that time, Khan had left the Ahmadiyya. 4 Aziz, Centenary of Maulana Muhammad Ali’s English Translation of the Quran: Background, History and Influence on Later Translations, 9. 5 Muhammad Ahmad and Mumtaz Ahmad Faruqui, A Mighty Striving, trans. Akhtar Aziz and Zahid Aziz (Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore USA, 2004), 4–5.
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the pale of Islam).6 During his life Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was asked whether or not a Muslim who did not believe in his mission was a kāfir, and he said that according to a Hadith by Prophet Muhammad anyone calling a believer kāfir himself became a kāfir. He was referring to Muhammad Husain of Batala who prepared a fatwa to call Ahmad a kāfir.7 But Mirza Bashiruddin meant something else. In his book Truth about the Split, he confirmed that his father was a prophet who received revelations from God, and so anyone who did not believe in him was rejecting God’s revelations.8 A few Ahmadis, including Khawaja Kamal-ul Din and Maulana Muhammad Ali, did not subscribe to Bashiruddin’s views. They believed that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had been a reformer and that anyone reciting the kalima (There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God) was a Muslim. They also disagreed with Bashiruddin on administrative issues such as the role and authority of the governing body of the movement and its relationship to the Khalifa. After the death of Nuruddin, Mirza Bashiruddin was elected as the second Khalifa. That news was not received well by Maulana Muhammad Ali, who had to leave Qadian and establish the Lahore Ahmadiyya. Both the Lahore and Qadian groups continued the missionary work and produced outstanding literature to introduce Islam to the West, but their disagreement on the prophetic status of the founder of Ahmadiyya made the Lahore Ahmadiyya rather more palatable to Sunni Muslims. Thus, a number of books by Maulana Muhammad Ali were approved by al-Azhar including The Religion of Islam, to which the late Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy (1928– 2010) wrote a foreword in which he appreciated the book for “the useful and valuable information it includes for every Muslim.”9 Maulana Muhammad Ali was a prolific writer, whose writings in “Urdu and English, if out together, will form a fair-sized library” as Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar said.10 Thanks to the Ahmadiyya’s active publication program, he was the only early translator whose writings were fully preserved: “83 major books on Islam and comparative religion … 96 tracts and booklets … a collection of Friday ser6
7 8 9
10
Maulana Muhammad Ali, Heresy in Islam or a Refutation of Declaring a Muslim an Unbeliever, trans. Muhammad Tufail (England: Maulana Tufail Memorial Literacy Trust, 1995), 33. Ali, Heresy in Islam or a Refutation of Declaring a Muslim an Unbeliever, 35. Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, Truth about the Split, 4 ed. (England: Islam International Publications ltd, 2007), 60. See Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Religion of Islam: A Comprehensive Discussion of the Sources, Principles and Practices of Islam, 4 ed. (USA: The Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, 2009). Sarwar, “Introduction,” xxxvi.
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mons in 25 volumes … and a collection of articles in 20 volumes.”11 He was well-known, however, for his two major works: The Religion of Islam and his English Qurʾān translation. The reformist ideas of Muhammad Ali clearly reflected a modern understanding of Islam dictated by the very particular context of India and the history of Ahmadiyya movement. As Noman Malik stated, It establishes unity among Muslims by prohibiting takfīr of a Muslim who recites the kalima (or confession of faith). It firmly establishes the absolute finality of prophethood by presenting the view that no prophet can appear after the holy prophet Muhammad … It establishes the unity of mankind and religious toleration on the basis of Quranic verses which declare that all revealed religions are from God and their founders are messengers of God even though they may not be mentioned in the Holy Quran. It presents the correct concept of Jihad as primarily a spiritual struggle, with physical fighting allowed only in self-defense under strictly limited circumstances. It clearly establishes that there is no punishment of death for apostasy. It establishes the primacy of the Holy Quran in deciding all religion matters. It proves that the door of ijtihad (using of reasoning) is still open.12 In the preface to the 1917 edition, Muhammad Ali explained how he benefitted from the European scholarship in his translation. Besides important works such as Lane’s Lexicon, he had the chance to study various aspects of the European criticism of Islam. As an editor of the Review of Religions, he also studied criticisms of Christianity and religion in general. He became cognizant of higher criticism of religion in general as well as narrower criticisms leveled at certain religions. In 1909, Muhammad Ali started the project of translating the Qurʾān. It took him six years to finish the first draft. In September 1915, the Islamic Review published a sample of the translation and announced that the Woking Mission had received a complete copy to prepare for publication.13 The 1917 February– March issue of the Islamic Review announced on its cover the printing of the translation, and from that issue on and until the 1935 February issue, the cover of the journal hosted an advertisement for the translation. The first edition was 11 12 13
Noman Malik, “A Mighty Striving,” The Light and Islamic Review 91, no. 3 (2014): 7. Malik, “A Mighty Striving,” 9. Khwaja Kamaluddin and Maulvie Sadruddin, “An English Translation of the Holy Quran,” Islamic Review and Muslim India 3, no. 9 (1915).
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printed four times before Muhammad Ali decided to revisit it. In his second revised edition, which came out in 1951, Muhammad Ali updated his notes to show how the Qurʾān could solve post-Second World War problems.14 He also updated some Hadith references and used additional Hadith to support his interpretation. But the most significant difference between the two editions is how the language was corrected and simplified. Many of the mistakes and ambiguous passages quoted in Sarwar’s review of Ali’s translation were corrected in the 1951 edition.15 For example, the following passage (Q 2:240) from the 1917 edition consists of one long sentence that is difficult to understand without reference to the Arabic text: And those of you who die and leave wives behind, (making) a bequest in favour of their wives of maintenance for a year without turning (them) out, then if they themselves go away, there is no blame on you for what they do of lawful deeds by themselves, and Allāh is Mighty, Wise. In the 1951 edition, the passage was simplified by dividing the long sentence into shorter ones: And those of you who die and leave wives behind, should make a bequest in favour of their wives of maintenance for a year without turning (them) out. Then if they themselves go away, there is no blame on you for what they do of lawful deeds concerning themselves. And Allāh is Mighty, Wise. In some other instances, Ali failed to identify the error and carry out the desired change. The following passage, “And of men is he who takes instead frivolous discourse to lead astray from Allah’s path without knowledge” (31:6), which Sarwar cited as an example of ambiguous translation, did not change in the 1951 and 2017 editions.16
14
15 16
i-1. See also Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar’s introduction in which he compares the two editions and included some of the translation errors which were corrected in the 1951 edition; Sarwar, “Introduction.” Sarwar, “Introduction,” xxxvi–xlii. Sarwar translated the verse as follows: “And there is one who buys idle talks in order to cause people to lose god’s path without any knowledge and in order to take them (the verses of the Book of wisdom) as a mockery.”
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Maulana Muhammad Ali received the proofs of the second edition on his death bed, and he died five days after he had finished the proofreading. After his death, revision and reprinting of the translation did not stop. In 2002, a new edition came out in which some errors were corrected, and inconsistencies in verse translation between the body of the translation and the footnotes were mended.17 In 2010, further changes to the translation were carried out. The editor aimed at modernizing the language by replacing some words and expressions that had become less familiar to the general readership. These included the archaic second person singular forms such as thou, thee, and thy and the archaic negative form, e.g. You see not. However, these changes were reversed after the Lahore Ahmadiyya disapproved of them. The 2010 edition was printed once and then became available only on-line. The one currently in print is the 2002 edition. The 2002 edition featured better footnote numbering and an expanded index. In his introduction, Muhammad Ali clarified his approach to Qurʾān translation and interpretation. He emphasized that the best way to understand the Qurʾān is through the Qurʾān itself. He explained that the Qurʾān contained plain teachings (muḥkamāt) besides metaphors, parables, and allegories (mutašābihāt) and stressed that the greatest principle that he adhered to was that no word should have an interpretation that contradicts the plain teachings. Next to the Qurʾān were the practice and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad which, when included in reliable reports, were according to Ali the best commentary on the Qurʾān. Beyond the Qurʾān and Hadith, Ali consulted earlier authorities, which he respected, but he set them on an equal footing with iǧtihād (reasoning). As he stated, the present tendency of Muslim theologians to regard the commentaries of the Middle Ages as the final word on the interpretation of the Holy Qurʾān is very injurious and practically shuts out the great treasures of knowledge which an exposition of the Holy Book in the new light reveals. A study of the old commentators, to ignore whose great labour would indeed be a sin, also shows how freely they commented upon the Holy Book. The great service which they have done to the cause of Truth would indeed have been lost to the world if they had looked upon their predecessors as uttering the final word on the exposition of the Holy Qurʾān, as most theologians do today.18 17 18
Translating verses differently in the body of the translation and in the footnotes was also a drawback in Khan’s work. Maulana Muhammad Ali, “Preface to the Revised Edition,” in The Holy Qurʾān with English
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The meaning of a word was adopted only when it was supported by the context as well as Arabic lexicons and/or literature. Stories that were accepted by earlier authorities were only integrated if they were consistent with historical evidence and/or supported by reliable Hadith. Similar guidelines were also employed in the translation. As Ali clarified, he studied earlier translations, but he did not adopt an interpretation except after taking earlier Muslim authorities into consideration. He tried to avoid additions to the text, and when they were unavoidable due to the linguistic differences between the two languages, he added them between brackets. Furthermore, whenever he departed from the ordinary meaning of a word, he supported his views from authorities. Muhammad Ali’s general summary of the whole Qurʾān, given in his introduction, is among the strengths of his work. He argued that the present arrangement of the Qurʾān contributes positively to a more logical and coherent message of the Qurʾān. He stressed that the Qurʾān is not a book of laws or stories, but a book of spiritual guidance, and so the intermingling of Meccan and Medinan verses has a deeper signification. He believed that the first step towards understanding the significance of the chapter order in the Qurʾān was to contrast the features of Meccan and Medinan verses. He rejected the legal approach that Muslim Medieval scholars had favored, as well as the linguistic approach of scholars like Nöldeke. Instead, he emphasized the spiritual advancement that the Qurʾān is meant to achieve. Meccan revelations, he claimed, mainly deal with the relationship of man to God, whereas Medinan revelations deal with the relationship of man to man: one with faith, happiness in communion with God, and promises of victory; the other with deeds, comfort in following God’s laws, and fulfillment of prophecies. It is reasonable, then, to have them intermingled just as they should be in one’s life. For him, the arrangement of the Qurʾān is compatible with the scientific mentality of the modern man. It starts with a preface (al-Fatiḥa) which contains the essence of the Qurʾān. This is immediately followed by a statement of the aims of the Holy Book in Chapter Two. Since the aim is to reform religion, the first four chapters deal with the teachings of Islam and how they are different from Judaism and Christianity. The summary continues to show the relationship among chapters and groups of chapters till the end of the book. Similarly, the introductory notes of Maulana Muhammad Ali do not just list the themes and topics of each chapter but try to show its development and its relationship to preceding and following ones.
Translation and Commentary (USA: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaʿat Islam Lahore Inc., 2002), i-12.
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When Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi (1892–1977) read the translation, which had won him back to Islam, he wondered why this work was compelling. “The very same explanations,” he said, “which, when expressed in Urdu, had no effect on me and seemed uninspiring, in English garb, they became effective and life-giving.”19 That was due to Ali’s style of writing as well as his focus on spirituality. Ali was trained as a lawyer, and his legal mentality was clearly reflected in his writing style. His notes heavily relied on authorities, which were varied, whether in time (Medieval and contemporary), orientation (Eastern and Western), or readership (specialized works and encyclopedias).20 He also used a clear and consistent system of citation, which contributed positively to reliability. This is in addition to a persuasive analysis that did not confuse the reader with different interpretations but focused on the most plausible interpretation and backed it up with sufficient proof. He did not analyze or criticize the other view as much as he analyzed and supported his own. Such strategies made Ali constantly concentrate on the message while composing convincing and focused footnotes. Another aspect of Ali’s footnotes is his focus on the spiritual growth of the individual, which again reflected the cultural context of India. Defending Islam, for Ali as well as for many reformists of his time, started with reforming individual lives. He believed that return to the purity of Islam and regaining its glory was only possible through individual reformation.21 In his comment on the translation of the word “Rabb,” Ali explained that
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Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi is an acknowledged Indian Muslim writer, who translated the Qurʾān in 1941 and produced outstanding commentaries on the Qurʾān in Urdu and English; see Aziz, Centenary of Maulana Muhammad Ali’s English Translation of the Quran: Background, History and Influence on Later Translations, 38–39. His footnotes make use of medieval and contemporary dictionaries such as the wellknown dictionary of Qurʾanic terms Al-Mufradāt fī Ġarīb al-Qurʾān by al-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1108), Asās al-Balāġa, the outstanding dictionary of figurative language by al-Zamaḫsharī, and the valuable dictionary by Edward William Lane (d. 1876). Lane’s Lexicon is imperative because it is the only reference accessible for an English-speaking reader who may not be able to check Ali’s Arabic authorities. Other European sources that Ali made use of include Cruden’s Bible Concordance, Encyclopedia Biblica and Encyclopedia Britannica. He also supported his views by well-known grammarians such as Maʿmar ibn al-Muṯannã (728–824) and Abū Manṣūr al-Azharī (895–981). Well-known Hadith collections such as Sunan Abū Dāwūd, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī and Musnad Aḥmad and acknowledged Medieval Qurʾān commentaries such as Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, Anwār al-Tanzīl, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān and Tafsīr Ibn Kaṯīr were referenced by Muhammad Ali. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, 4.
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There is no single word in English carrying the significance of the word Rabb—Nourisher unto perfection would be nearest; but the word Lord has generally been adopted for the sake of brevity. Rabb or Nourisher to perfection, however, includes both the physical and spiritual sides so far as man is concerned, His Word being the spiritual nourishment through which man is brought to perfection … The law of evolution is, in fact, working spiritually as it is working physically in this vast creation.22 By stressing the spiritual growth of the individual, Ali emphasized individual responsibility and encouraged everyone to work hard to attain perfection in this life. Those who wasted their opportunity in this life would be punished in the Hereafter, not forever, but only until they were purified and attained perfection. “It is for this reason,” Ali explained, “that the Holy Qurʾān makes a difference between the abiding in paradise and the abiding in hell, allowing a termination in the latter case but not in the former.”23 God, then, is not interested in torture, but in purification, which starts in this life.24 Muhammad Ali saw Islam as a universal religion that not only embraces all other religions but is also capable of solving the problems of the world. In his comment on Q 32:21 “And certainly We will make them taste the nearer punishment before the greater chastisement, that haply they may turn,” he stated that God’s punishment in this life “manifestly applies to modern world conditions, when materialism has taken hold of the minds of men. The wars at present raging in the world are the fire of this life, and, however much the warring nations may desire to get out of them, they are brought back into them.”25 In his review of The Religion of Islam by Maulana Muhammad Ali, Marmaduke Pickthall, the well-known British translator of the Qurʾān, said “Probably no man has done longer or more valuable service for the cause of Islamic revival than Maulana Muhammad Ali of Lahore.”26 He was also highly praised for his Qurʾān translation. Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar, whose Qurʾān translation is discussed next, said “The English translation of the Holy Qurʾān is not the only book he has written, but it is the one by which he will perhaps become an immortal amongst those who have written about the Holy Qurʾān.”27 Abdul 22 23 24 25 26 27
Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 4–5 See Footnotes 1a and 3b. Ali, “Introduction,” i-49. Ali, “Introduction,” i-43. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 821. Aziz, Centenary of Maulana Muhammad Ali’s English Translation of the Quran: Background, History and Influence on Later Translations, 43. Sarwar, “Introduction,” xxxvi.
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Majid Daryabadi, who published his Qurʾān translation in 1941–1957, wrote in the Urdu newspaper Such (Truth), “To deny the excellence of Maulvi Muhammad Ali’s translation, the influence it has exercised and its proselytizing utility, would be to deny the light of the sun.”28 The editor of the 2010 edition stated that “Maulana Muhammad Ali’s translation was not merely an academic or literary exercise. It was done to refute the vast mass of misrepresentations of Islam by its Western critics, … to show how Islamic teachings are applicable to solving the problems of modern times, and to teach and guide both the Western-educated Muslims and English-speaking new Muslim converts.”29 The significance of Maulana Muhammad Ali’s Qurʾān translation is clear also in the way it was received by later translators such as Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar and ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli.
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Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar was born in Lahore, India (now Pakistan). As a young boy, his father enrolled him at a religious school, where he was able to memorize the whole Qurʾān, and at the age of eleven, he became a ḥāfiẓ.30 At the age of twenty, he graduated from the Government College in Lahore with a ba in humanities and art. A year later, he got an ma from the University of Punjab with a First in English. Upon receiving a Gilchrist scholarship, he moved to Britain to study philosophy, mathematics, and science at St. John College in Cambridge University. He also studied Advanced Arabic at the Imperial Institute of Modern Languages. After graduation from Cambridge in 1896, he was offered a position in the Straits Civil Service and few months later, he was appointed a Cadet of the Malayan Civil Service by the Secretary of State. Among the posts he held while in Malayan Civil Service were Magistrate (Penang Supreme Court), mufti (Penang), and Civil District Judge (Singapore). He retired from the Malayan Civil Service in 1928. Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar was a prolific writer who spoke and published in a number of languages including English and Malay. Some of his important works include The Philosophy of the Qurʾān (1938), Muhammad, The Holy Prophet (1949), and Translation of the Holy Qurʾān (1929).31 Among the major themes
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Aziz, Centenary of Maulana Muhammad Ali’s English Translation of the Quran: Background, History and Influence on Later Translations, 38. Aziz, “Preface,” i-1. A ḥāfiẓ is someone who can recite the whole Qurʾān from memory. For a detailed outline of Sarwar’s life and philosophy, see Wazir Jahan Karim, “Hafiz Ghu-
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of Sarwar’s writings is the unity of humanity and Islam’s tolerance. In his article, “The unity of God and the brotherhood of mankind,” Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar summarized his philosophy of the universal brotherhood of mankind: “The whole world need not become Muslims, but as long as they believe in one God and worship Him alone and regard Muslims as their brethren, Muslims are bound by the Holy Qurʾān to regard them as such.”32 Besides worshipping God, the purpose of religion is to make sure that goodness overcomes evil so that the society may continue to grow and progress. This means that the future is not separate from the present and the past. This continuity between the past, present, and future provides explanation of how good deeds of individuals and groups contribute to their future advancement. Like Indian reformists, Sarwar believed in the importance of individual reform. Like Muhammad Ali, he believed that it is through the spiritual evolution of the individual that the whole society can experience its own evolution. Another recurrent theme in his writings is the compatibility of religion and science. For Sarwar, both Islam and science have the same aim, which is the progress of humanity through incessant search for truth and reality. He understood religion, however, to be far more general than science. Wazir Jahan Karim, Sarwar’s granddaughter, explained that Sarwar’s interpretation of the Qurʾan “reflects his practical yet spiritual understanding of the Origin of Science to be beyond science, and beyond logic, transcending the complexities of human understanding that there is a logic of scientific reasoning in everything which affects us on earth.”33 In other words, the Qurʾān, for Sarwar, embraces the principles of all sciences. To appreciate Sarwar’s translation of the Qurʾan, one needs to be familiar with his philosophy of religion, his approach to the interpretation of the Qurʾān, as well as Orientalists’ criticisms of the Qurʾān. One example is his translation of the opening passage of Chapter Two, “Who believe in the (Great) Unseen … And who believe in what has been sent to thee (O Muhammad), and what was sent before thee, and full faith have they in the Future.” Sarwar’s translation of “al-Āḫira” (the Hereafter) into “the Future” is not clear unless one is familiar with his philosophy which sees the future as inseparable from the
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lam Sarwar (1873–1954): Philosophies of lslam, Civil Society and Civilisations,” in Straits Muslims: Diasporas of the Northern Passage of the Straits of Malacca, ed. Wazir Jahan Karim (George Town: Straits G.T., 2009). Quoted in Karim, “Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (1873–1954): Philosophies of lslam, Civil Society and Civilisations,” 151. Karim, “Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (1873–1954): Philosophies of lslam, Civil Society and Civilisations,” 154.
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present and the past. The two bracketed additions: “Great” and “O Muhammad” are explicable in light of Sarwar’s approach to Qurʾān translation. As Sarwar clarified in his introduction, additions were used only when explanations and alternative meanings were necessary, or when additions were inevitable for producing equivalent “grammar,” “idiom,” or “style.”34 Thus, “O Muhammad” was added to clarify the reference in the preceding pronoun “thee,” and “Great” specified the meaning of the “Unseen.” The reason why “Great” was added to the “Unseen” (as an equivalent to “al-ġaib”) is found in Muhammad Ali’s footnotes. Like Edward Palmer, who believed that he could refer his readers to Sale’s notes, Sarwar left many things unexplained in his translation because they were introduced in Muhammad Ali’s notes. In his footnotes, Ali stated, “Al-ġaib is that which is unseen or unperceivable by the ordinary senses … the Unseen here stands for Allah, a belief in Whose existence is the cardinal principle of religion,” (Original italics).35 However, what Ali provided in his footnote is one interpretation of the meaning of “the unseen” and is better kept for a footnote rather than imposing it into the translation. Sarwar started the translation in 1920; the proofs were ready in 1928; and the first edition came out in 1929. The translation was published in Unwin Brothers press in Woking, the same house that published Muhammad Ali’s translation.36 Also, it became obtainable from the Woking Mosque, where Ali’s translation was also available. In November 1929, The Spectator, the British weekly magazine, briefly announced and reviewed the translation, describing it as an “important contribution to a great subject,” that had “suffered at the hands of Christian writers.”37 The translation was printed twice: in 1929 in Britain, and in 1973 in Pakistan. The reprints were identical. By the time Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar undertook his translation project, there had already been several Muslim and non-Muslim translations. Despite that, he insisted on the need for a new translation, arguing that the existing ones were not satisfactory considering the original’s smoothness and magnificence. In his introduction in which he assessed previous translations of the Qurʾān, he criticized Sale for distorting the message of the Qurʾān by paraphrasing, Rodwell for fragmenting it by re-ordering the chapters, and Palmer for literalism. Muhammad Ali’s translation, the only Muslim translation available to him, was weak and needed re-writing, as he thought.
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Sarwar, “Introduction,” xliv. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 9. P.9. Aziz, Centenary of Maulana Muhammad Ali’s English Translation of the Quran: Background, History and Influence on Later Translations, 35. P.35. “Some Books of the Week,” The Spectator 30 November 1929, 828.
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Sarwar’s hope to put “a translation of the Holy Qurʾān in the hands of every sixth-form boy and girl which he and she may read without the help of a teacher” summarizes his translation approach.38 To achieve that goal and avoid the shortcomings of previous translations, he aimed for three qualities: “clearness, ease, and accuracy.”39 For clearness and ease, he employed a poetic style in which he divided sentences into shorter phrases, and whenever there was a pause in the original, he started a new line. In addition, he got rid of “a great many long words that are used by Sale, Rodwell, and Maulvi Muhammad Ali.”40 Still, he was not satisfied and promised to produce a smoother and more modern version if he had a chance to revise his first edition. His strategies to achieve accuracy were also straightforward. He claimed that the main difference between him and other translators was that he examined the meanings of words of the Qurʾān at the time of revelation. As he confirmed, Those who follow and adopt later and looser meanings of the words used in the Holy Book are digging traps for themselves and their readers. Sale, Palmer, and even Rodwell have all fallen into this error. Maulvi Muhammad Ali is free from this defect, and it is for this reason that his translation would be better appreciated (especially if its English put into proper shape) than it has been hitherto.41 In the introduction to his Qurʾān translation, Yūsuf ʿAli also raised the same issue of language change. Enlisting the problems that interpreters of the Qurʾān may face, Yūsuf ʿAli believed that Arabic, like all living languages, underwent transformations that some Qurʾanic words acquired new meanings and/or shades of meanings that were not present at the time of revelation. That necessitated accepting the conclusions of the Companions and early commentators, especially when they were unanimous. When they were not unanimous, the commentator could use his judgment to choose among them, but that by no means meant “devising new verbal meanings.”42 Sarwar emphasized that the best way to understand the meaning of the words of the Qurʾān is through the Qurʾān itself. His strategy was to collect
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Sarwar, “Introduction,” xlii. Sarwar, “Introduction,” xliii. Sarwar, “Introduction,” xliii. Sarwar, “Introduction,” xliii. On studying the language of the Qurʾān as an ethnography of daily life in the 7th century Arabia, see E.A. Rezvan, “Translation of the Qurʾān and Ethnography of Daily Life,” Manuscripta Orientalia 19, no. ii (2013). ʿAli, “Commentaries on the Qurʾān,” x.
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all the verses where a certain word is mentioned and study them together. In addition, he consulted previous translations to arrive at the real meaning of Qurʾanic words and their best equivalent, and when in doubt, he consulted the most reliable Arabic dictionaries. As he stressed, “I have ever tried to translate a single word or phrase of the Holy Qurʾān differently from the others, unless I knew that my translation was supported by the very best of authorities, past and present, the greatest authority being the Holy Qurʾān itself.”43 That is to say, he had not tried to translate the Qurʾān differently from the others, unless he knew that his translation was supported by the very best of authorities. That is how the effect of previous translations is manifest in Sarwar’s work, not in the negative sense of plagiarizing other’s renderings, but in the positive sense of learning from their mistakes. Whereas other early Muslim translators started with a view on the real meaning of the Qurʾān and how that was mistranslated by others, Sarwar started with how previous translators translated the Qurʾān and whether their translations conformed to the meaning of the Qurʾān or not. This is quite clear from the process of translation he described in his introduction. For example, after reviewing the different translations of bismillah, and consulting Maulana Muhammad Ali’s explanation of the particle “bi” (in), Sarwar decided that the best translation was provided by Lane in his lexicon. Lane translated the phrase into “I begin with the name of God.” In his translation “We commence with the name of god,” Sarwar selected a more formal verb “commence” and changed the subjective pronoun “I” into the plural “we” because, as he said, the prayers in the first chapter to which bismillah is prefixed are in the plural. Based on the themes in each Chapter, Sarwar, like Muhammad Ali, divided the chapters into sections. Unlike him, however, he collected all the summaries together at the beginning of the translation so that they may form together a summary of the whole book. Unfortunately, like Abuʾl-Fadl, his summaries lack coherence because he focused on small segments of verses, so his sentences sounded more like disconnected titles than a summary. This leaves Ali as the only early Indian translator of the Qurʾān to produce a coherent introduction to each chapter that outlines its themes as well as its relationship to preceding and following chapters. Unlike Ali’s, Sarwar’s translation is not annotated. For him, notes and commentaries only make the Qurʾān, which is “easily understood” and “recollected,” “cumbersome and difficult.”44 To compensate for that, his introduction in-
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Sarwar, “Introduction,” xlix. Sarwar, “Introduction,” xlii.
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cludes few translation remarks, some of which are indeed indispensable to understand how he came to his translation. For example, he justified his translation of “al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm” by a report in which the Prophet Muhammad purportedly said, “Ar-Rahman is the attribute of god whose love and mercy are manifest in the creation of the world, and Ar-Rahim is the attribute of god whose love and mercy are manifest in the state that comes after.”45 Accordingly, he translated “al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm” into “The most Merciful (to begin with), The most Merciful (to the end).” The addition between brackets is inexplicable and ambiguous without Sarwar’s comment. He also explained in the introduction his approach to the word “Allah,” which had always posed a problem for the Indian translators. Khan inconsistently translated it into “God” and “Allah,” Abuʾl-Fadl and Hairat translated it into “God,” and Muhammad Ali translated it as “Allah.” Sarwar used three forms of the word “god:” (a) with a capital letter to refer to the One God, (b) with a small letter to refer to multiple gods, and (c) all capitalized “god” as a translation of “Allah,” which is a proper noun.46 Nevertheless, Sarwar’s translation would greatly benefit from annotations.47 Words such as “Allah,” “al-Raḥmān,” “al-Raḥīm,” “Iblīs,” “Šaiṭān,” among others, are global issues that are repeated all over the Qurʾān and are best discussed in a general introduction. But verse-specific comments such as the translation of “balāʾ” in Q 2:49 (which he translated into “discipline”) or “fa-iqtulū anfusakum”
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The Hadith is mentioned in Jāmiʿ al-Bayān by al-Ṭabarī. The Prophet reportedly says, “alRaḥmān is the Raḥmān (Merciful) in this life and the Hereafter; al-Raḥīm is the Raḥīm (Merciful) of the Hereafter.” Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabari: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy alQurʾān, 1, 126. Sarwar did not give the source of the Hadith, so he was either using a different version of the Hadith or his translation is not exact. Sarwar was definitely influenced by Sale in his all-capitalized-god approach. Sale was certainly following a practice in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, where “the Lord” in small caps is used to translate yhwh/Adonai, the Hebrew proper name of God that the Jews consider too holy to pronounce and that the early English translations of the Bible mis-transcribed as Jehovah. It is actually a rather nice way of dealing with the problem of translating the proper name “Allah,” though contemporary readers would probably miss the point. I am thankful to Prof. John Walbridge, Indiana University, for this comment. Nida’s comment on the translation of yhwh might also explain Sarwar’s approach. As Nida asserts, “Despite All the Arguments for yhwh Being a Proper Name, There Has Nevertheless Been This Persistent “Feeling” that there must be something more intimate and personal, i.e., more “expressive,” than is communicated in a strange personal name.” Nida and Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation, 25, 26. In his comment on Sarwar’s translation, Yusūf ʿAli states, “I think such notes are necessary for a full understanding of the text. In many cases the Arabic words and phrases are so pregnant of meaning that a translator would be in despair unless he were allowed to explain all that he understands by them;” ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, xv.
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(literally “kill yourselves”) in Q 2:54 (which he translated into “and mortify each one his soul”) are better given in a footnote. Such verse-specific notes are not suitable for the introduction, not only because the reader may not remember them by the time he reads the verse, but also because too many of them make the introduction tedious. In general, Sarwar succeeded in producing a clear, simple, and poetic text, but in a number of instances he only partially achieved what he promised in terms of exactness. Nevertheless, Sarwar’s translation, as Yūsuf ʿAli stated, “deserves to be better known than it is,” and a fair assessment of its characteristics is momentous and exigent.48 The simple poetic style of Sarwar was taken a step further by the next Qurʾān translator, ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli. ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli’s impressive style and poetic English won him the reputation of one of the best Qurʾān translators of all times. In the following section, I pay close attention to his approach to Qurʾān translation while I continue my argument of the interdependence of Qurʾān translation and context of production, whether social or personal. 48
ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, xv.
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Interconnectedness of Qurʾān Translations ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation included several features that were not novel in the legacy of Indian Qurʾān translation, but together in one work they constituted an apex of the Indian translations. Like Abuʾl-Fadl’s and Muhammad Ali’s, the translation was accompanied by the Arabic text. Like Muhammad Ali’s, the Arabic and the English translation ran in parallel columns followed by a series of notes on the lower half of the page. As Pickthall explained in his biography, producing a translation of the Qurʾān accompanied with the Arabic text was very expensive.1 One can also imagine how difficult it was at a time when technology was not as advanced as today. Back then, there were no computergenerated Qurʾān fonts, and the Qurʾān had to be hand-written. The beautiful calligraphy in Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation was written by Pīr ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd. The calligraphy was clear and easy to read. Signs for rukūʿ, wuqūf, and saǧda were all beautifully marked in the right margin next to the Arabic text. Again, like Muhammad Ali, the long chapters were divided into sections (rukūʿ),2 and like all Indian translations, the translation was preceded by a general introduction and an introduction to each chapter. The introduction to each chapter takes the form of a poetic summary which is among the noteworthy features of Yūsuf ʿAli’s work. The summary is an impressive short sermon that is both practical and spiritually deep. By highlighting the message of the Qurʾān in each section, it shows the reader how to lead a highly ethical life guided by the Qurʾān in every aspect. Furthermore, the summary gives the reader important contextual information as in the summary of Chapter 111, where Yūsuf ʿAli told the reader who Abū Lahab and his wife were and what they did to the Prophet, and Chapter 105, where he gave sufficient historical background to Abraha’s attack on the Holy House of Mecca. Yūsuf ʿAli made use of both Eastern and Western scholarship. The three essential kinds of sources he relied on were Qurʾān commentaries, Qurʾān translations, and dictionaries and general references. Among the commentaries he consulted were the works of al-Ṭabarī (839–923), Ibn Kaṯīr (1301–1373), al-Zamaḫsharī (1075–1144), al-Rāzī (1149–1209), and al-Ǧalālain, in addition to
1 Anne Fremantle, Loyal Enemy (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1938). 2 Rukūʿ (singular of rukūʿāt) is a division of the Qurʾān shorter than the rubʿ (a quarter), and it is usually based upon the completeness of meaning.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004543560_006 El-Hussein
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contemporary commentaries in Urdu, Persian and Arabic such as Tafsīr alManār by Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905) and Rašīd Riḍā (1865–1935). The dictionaries included some produced in the East such as al-Rāġib’s al-Mufradāt and Ibn Manẓūr’s Lisān al-ʿArab, together with Western dictionaries such as Lane’s Lexicon and J. Penrice’s Dictionary and Glossary of the Koran. He also used encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Encyclopedia Britannica. In his preface to the first edition, Yūsuf ʿAli explained how he approached Qurʾān commentary. His approach was not different from what all other Indian translators claimed. As he explained, he adopted the meaning given by earlier commentators because they were closer to the time of revelation and understood the Arabic language before any change befell it. Only when those commentators differed among themselves would he use his reason to choose an interpretation. In this context, Yūsuf ʿAli distinguished between manqūlāt (matters of report) and maʿqūlāt (matters of reason). The distinction was between what actually happened and who said what, on the one hand, and what the bearing of all that on our lives on the other hand. It is the latter that should be subject to reform since each generation has the right to find solutions based upon their circumstances and experience. He believed that God’s laws are mediated by human interpretation, and in that sense, “God’s purpose is eternal, and His plan is perfect, but man’s intelligence is limited,” and so its product is subject to reform. Yūsuf ʿAli, like many Indian Muslim writers who experienced the bitter European criticisms of Islam, was addressing the modern rational man, whether Muslim or non-Muslim. For example, Chapter One, al-Fātiḥa, is a short chapter which opens with praise to God followed by prayer for guidance. After stating that the chapter is the essence of the Qurʾān that Muslims must repeat at least as many times as the five obligatory prayers, Yūsuf ʿAli commented that: “God needs no praise … He needs no petition for He knows our needs better than we do ourselves and His bounties are open without asking to the righteous and the sinner alike. The prayer is for our own spiritual education, consolation and confirmation.”3 Yūsuf ʿAli’s comments perfectly show the mystical and spiritual property of ʿAli’s work and turn it into a model for how to behave as a true Muslim and why.4 Yūsuf ʿAli also did not include in his notes theological con-
3 ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 14, Note 18. 4 The following are some of his highly spiritual sentences: – “It is Nobler to Fight for Truth Than to Seek Worldly Gain,” – “To Be True in Word and Deed Is to Hold Our Selfish Desires at Bay,” and – “Our Striving Should Include Study and Teaching for the Brethren’s Benefit.”
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troversies or polemical arguments, not only because they should belong to a separate work, but also out of respect to the Holy Book. This again reflects his highly spiritual view of the Qurʾān.5
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Spirituality in Yūsuf ʿAli’s Translation
ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli was born in Bombay. His ancestors belonged to the Dāwūdī Bohra community, a sect of Ismāʿīlī Shiʿa. Most likely, however, Yūsuf ʿAli’s family belonged to the Bohra who crossed over to the Sunni persuasion in the fifteenth century.6 His father cared about his son’s education, and the boy read the Qurʾān at the age of four or five. Even when it was time to send the boy to school, the father did not want his son to receive traditional education in the Bohra seminary, al-Ǧāmiʿa al-Saifīya, and decided to send him to the Anjumani Islam in Bombay. In order to understand the impact of Yūsuf ʿAli’s education on his life and ideas, we need to understand the history and educational system of the Anjuman-i Islam. The Anjuman-i Islam was established as part of emerging Muslim associational culture, which emerged in Bombay in reaction to the missionaries.7 The main feature of that culture was the establishment of religious societies and schools and funding them by donations. The missionaries established their first school in Bombay in 1813, and within a few years, it had hundreds of students. Muslim enrolment, however, remained very low in those schools since most Muslims preferred the traditional maktab and madrasa. Those traditional institutions thought that the best way to deflect Christian missionary efforts was to train students in a traditional curriculum that stressed the Qurʾān and Muslim culture. That curriculum was not enough to prepare Muslim students in the modern age. In 1874, Badr al-Dīn Taīyibī (1844–1906), a Bohra Muslim, established the Anjuman-i Islam as a reformist association to serve the Muslim community. Shortly, funds were collected to establish the first Anjuman school. The curriculum of Anjuman schools combined components from both the Islamic traditional curriculum and the European curriculum. It taught Arabic and Qurʾān recitation besides English and modern sciences. Like the Anglo-Mohammadan College in the north, the Anju-
5 ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli, “Preface to the First Edition,” in The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary (Lahore, India: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1937), v. 6 Ḫūršīd K. Aziz, A Biography of Abdullah Yusuf Ali: A Life Forlorn (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2010), 2. 7 Nile Green, Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 32.
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man schools separated the social from the political and thus gained the Raj support. It also tried to instill rationality in its students’ minds, and by so doing it produced generations who associated themselves with a rationalized Islam.8 Yūsuf ʿAli spent six years at Anjuman-i Islam, and in 1884, he joined the school of the Free Church of Scotland in Bombay. Thus, Yūsuf ʿAli moved from an education that was Qurʾān-based at the age of six, to Islamic modernist education in Anjuman, to exclusively British education in the Free Church school. At the age of fifteen he joined Bombay University. Four years later, and in recognition of his academic brilliance, Yūsuf ʿAli received a scholarship from the British government of India to study law at St. John’s College, Cambridge. Before graduation, he sat for the India Civil Service test held in August 1894 and was one of the top scorers. The exams showed his capacity for languages as his performance was outstanding in English composition, Urdu, and Arabic. After graduation, Yūsuf ʿAli was commissioned to serve in Agra and Oudh. He not only maintained an excellent career as an official, but also established himself as a scholar, publishing his first book, A Monograph on Silk Fabrics Produced in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh in 1900. Like many Muslim intellectuals in British India, Yūsuf ʿAli was pro-British. In his biography of Yūsuf ʿAli, Ḫūršīd Aziz argued that intellectual Muslims’ loyalty to the British was not a defect in their characters and did not imply any sense of anti-nationalism.9 Indian Muslims had two choices: either to be loyal to the Hindus or to the British. Since they were not as progressive as the Hindus, their loyalty to the Hindus might mean more oppression and backwardness, especially if they also lost the sympathy of the British. Muslim elite chose the British. That choice reasserted itself in various occasions. As a delegate to the second Round Table Conference in 1931, Maulana Shaukat Ali (1873–1938), the Indian Muslim leader of the Khilafat Movement, wrote, “Islam would stand with Britain … Should Hindus and Muslims live together a thousand years, there is no chance of the two cultures merging into one.”10 The British policies in India eventually led to lack of trust between Hindus and Muslims. In addition, Muslim intellectuals who were Western educated greatly admired the English language and literature and felt closer to the English than the Indian culture.
8 9 10
Green, Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915, 38. Aziz, A Biography of Abdullah Yusuf Ali: A Life Forlorn, 291–303. Maulana Shaukat Ali (1902–1998) was a leader of the khalifate Movement, which supported the Ottoman Caliphate. He was known together with his renowned political leader Mohammad Ali Jauhar as the Ali Brothers. The quotation is from Aziz, A Biography of Abdullah Yusuf Ali: A Life Forlorn, 298.
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Yūsuf ʿAli married twice, both times to English women. He married Teresa Mary Shalders in 1900 during a short visit to Britain and brought her to the United Provinces. Five years later, his furlough was due, and he lived in England for two years from 1905 to 1907. By that time, Yūsuf ʿAli had four children; the eldest was six and the youngest, a baby girl, was two or three months old. Rejoining the service in India, Yūsuf ʿAli left behind his wife and his four children, not knowing that in a few months, he would return to them as an aggrieved husband and unwise father. Shortly after returning to India, he received the troubling news that his wife had an affair, and he had to hurry back to Britain. As his wife had an illegitimate son, Yūsuf ʿAli had to take the case to the court, where he divorced his wife and received custody of his four children. Left alone with four children, Yūsuf ʿAli had to take one of two bitter decisions, either to take them back to India where he worked all day, and no one would take care of them or to leave them in England in the care of a governess. By choosing the latter solution, he nourished their bitterness against him. Back in India, Yūsuf ʿAli resigned from the India Civil Service in 1914. In 1919, he married Gertrude Anne Mawbey in England and had his son Rasheed from her. However, he had to go back to India and look for job openings. Between 1920 to 1928, he served in the government of the Nizam of Hyderabad, Islamia College, and Aligarh Muslim University, but none of these positions lasted long or had been free of troubles. Between 1929 and 1932, he travelled to the USA, Canada, and various countries in Asia, and as he said in his preface to the Qurʾān translation, he was working on the translation during that tour. He spent the whole of 1933 revising the finished part of his translation which appeared in 1934. In 1937, he had to return to Lahore to give the publisher the index of the complete version of the Qurʾān and arrange for the publication of the second edition. In his article in The Moslem World in 1940, Arthur Jeffery described Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation as “the most considerable work on the Qurʾān that has appeared from India in recent years.”11 That was due to two reasons. He “writes English with much greater ease and distinction than those others of his fellowcountrymen.” Not only did he see the Qurʾān as a solution to the problems of Muslims in modern times as other Indian translators had seen it, but he also saw it as a solution to personal problems such as those he himself had experienced:
11
Arthur Jeffery, “Yusuf Ali’s Translation of the Qurʾan,” The Moslem World 30, no. 1 (1940): 54.
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This broad sympathy with the problems of life in the experience of men is the characteristic note of his work. … If we look on it as the mature reflections on the significance of the Qurʾān for the life of Islam, offered by a pious Muslim, who has been in the best sense a man of the world, who has felt in his own experience these problems of life, and has, out of a rich acquaintance with men and things, found some values which he can offer to his fellow-believers, we shall best understand what this work has to offer.12 When Yūsuf ʿAli started his translation, probably between 55 and 60 years old, he had already gone through the bitter experience of marital infidelity and loss of his children. As he said in the preface to the first edition: A man’s life is subject to inner storms far more devastating than those in the physical world around him. In such a storm, in the bitter anguish of a personal sorrow which nearly unseated my reason and made my life seem meaningless, a new hope was born out of a systematic pursuit of my long cherished project. Watered by tears, my manuscript began to grow in depth and earnestness …13 Yūsuf ʿAli found in the Qurʾān consolation and inspiration to understand life and extract values from its hardship. He interpreted all the suffering and injustice in life in terms of the eternal peace and ultimate justice of the Hereafter. “This life,” he said, “is a preparation for the Eternal Home to which we are going which is far more important than the ephemeral pleasures which may possibly seduce us in this life.”14 In another place, he said, “Sorrow and suffering may (if we take them rightly) turn out to be the best gifts of God to us … Through suffering, we learn humility, the antidote to many vices and the fountain of many virtues. But if we take them wrong way, we grumble and complain, we become faint hearted, and Satan gets his opportunity to exploit us by putting forward the alluring pleasures of his Vanity Fair.”15 At the age of sixty-eight, Yūsuf ʿAli put down his will. He had previously transferred the ownership of his house to his second wife. In addition, he left her the
12 13 14 15
Jeffery, “Yusuf Ali’s Translation of the Qurʾan,” 54–55. ʿAli, “Preface to the First Edition,” iv. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 297, Note 855. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 299, Note 861.
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household furnishings and forty British pounds every quarter until she remarried. He donated his library to Aligarh Muslim University, but gave his wife the right to keep any books she liked. He left his son, Rasheed, forty British pounds every quarter and a lump sum of £3,000. The bulk of his estate was to go to the University of London to set up a fund in his name for the benefit of Indian students. His children from the first wife were excluded from any benefit. In 1941, he separated from his second wife and moved to a small house in Westminster. After the Second World War, the post-war hardships were affecting everyone, and for an old man the burden was double. He could not afford a decently heated home, and there was nobody to take care of him. In one cruel cold winter night, a police officer found him on the steps of the house and took him to the hospital where he spent the night. In the morning, he was discharged and taken to a house for the elderly. News about the health condition of Yūsuf ʿAli reached Mirza Abu al-Hassan Ispahani (1902–1981), the Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK at that time. According to Ḫūršīd Aziz, Ispahani might have used numerous solutions to help the old man including helping him from his own money as he was a millionaire, but he chose the surest and slowest solution: bureaucracy.16 He sent an urgent dispatch to the Prime Minister asking for “a small allowance,” “a few pounds,” “for a person known to me,” “sufficient to keep him in a cheap boarding allowance.” Such phrases in a diplomatic dispatch were enough to secure negligence rather than assistance. Humiliating as they were, these phrases were political rather than superficial or innocent. As Ḫūršīd Aziz concluded, Yūsuf ʿAli was not part of the Pakistan movement, and the ruling establishment did not consider intellectual achievements sufficient for inclusion. More to the misfortune of the old man, Yusuf ʿAli was dying with no one from his family at his side. His four children’s ill-will grew up with them, and even when their father was old and in need of their help, they were never able to forgive him. His son from a second marriage, Rasheed, was never close to him either. Finally, before the High Commissioner to the UK received a response from the Pakistani Prime Minister, another dispatch had to be sent to Pakistan. It read as follows: “In continuation of my letter of yesterday regarding Allama Abdullah Yusuf Ali, I write to advise you with regret that the poor man died in hospital at eight last night. It pains me to think that so able and eminent a gentleman should have met with so pathetic an end. May his soul rest in peace.” To appreciate Yūsuf ʿAli’s approach to Qurʾān translation, we need to understand how he personally saw the Qurʾān. Yūsuf ʿAli’s experience of the Qurʾān
16
Aziz, A Biography of Abdullah Yusuf Ali: A Life Forlorn.
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was very personalized. He believed that there was one true voice that he had to listen to and apply to his experience again and again. That voice, as he said, “comes to the heart in rare moments of ecstasy.” It was not simply a matter of studying and analyzing the Qurʾān but living the Qurʾān and allowing it to perfuse the soul. Yūsuf ʿAli’s aim was not simply to make the English Qurʾān easy to understand like other Indian translators; he wanted the reader to go through a spiritual experience and apply that experience to problems of life that were beyond the analytical capacity of man. Faced with suffering and injustice in their lives, readers may turn to the Qurʾān for immediate relief and for a deeper understanding of these afflictions as worldly tests that may lead to greater rewards in the Hereafter. This view of the Qurʾān and its translation requires “understanding the original, and reproducing its nobility, its beauty, its poetry, its grandeur, and its sweet practical reasonable application to everyday experience,”17 particularly those that posed problems of meaning such as injustice and suffering.18 As a result, Yūsuf ʿAli aimed at “the best expression [he] can give to the fullest meaning which [he] can understand from the Arabic text.”19 But that did not mean that Yūsuf ʿAli tended to depart from the literal meaning of the Qurʾān or what is seen as its orthodox interpretation. In fact, whenever he departed from the original sense of a word to express the spirit of the text, he explained that in the notes.20 Yūsuf ʿAli’s notes are comparable to those of Abdul Hakim Khan and Muhammad Ali. All the three used copious notes that were didactic, highly spiritual, and demonstrated the translators’ concern with how Muslim readers could live a true religious life. On his comment on the title of Chap-
17 18
19 20
ʿAli, “Preface to the First Edition,” iii. According to Clifford Geertz, the primary purpose of religion is to help resolve the fundamental problems of meaning in personal and collective life. He believes that the role of religion is to make the world comprehensible, and that when religion fails to do that, new religious movements appear. See Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays by Clifford Greetz (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1973). ʿAli, “Preface to the First Edition,” iv. For example, he commented on his translation in cases where a word has different meanings in different contexts, when a word and its equivalent have different associations, and when the meaning of a word can only be conveyed by a phrase in the target language. In Note 26, he outlined three meanings of the word “taqwā” (Q 2:2): fear of God, guarding oneself against evil, and righteousness, and he selected the one that is most fitting to the context. Similarly, in Note 156 on Q 2:152, he explained that the associations of the Arabic word “ḏikr” were far more than its English counterpart “remembering.” In Note 247 on Q 2:222, he explained why he translated “aḏan” into “a hurt and a pollution” since the concept expressed by the Arabic word could only be conveyed by more than one word in English. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary.
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ter Twenty-Three, “The Believers,” Khan said, “Simple expression by the tongue without a like confession of the heart, is no belief at all.”21 A similar meaning in a more impressive style was expressed by Yūsuf ʿAli: “Everything around and within us points to … God. Yet there are foolish persons … [who] do lip service to God, but their heart is in their fetish—unlike the heart of the righteous who are wholly devoted and absorbed in the love of God.”22 In his comment on Q 1:6 (“Those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favours”), Muhammad Ali went a step further to explain that one’s spirituality impacts also one’s actions: “The chief aim of [a Muslim’s] life thus being not only his own spiritual perfection but to try also, and lay down his very life, for the spiritual perfection of others. He thus also prays for the Divine favours which were vouchsafed to the righteous in the uprooting of evil and establishing good in the world.”23 Nevertheless, Yūsuf ʿAli’s notes were different from Muhammad Ali’s since Yūsuf ʿAli did not focus in his notes on grammatical or philological analyses. As he said, “On these points I consider that the labours of the vast body of our learned men in the past have left little new to say now. There is usually not much controversy, and I have accepted their conclusions without setting out the reasons for them.”24 Although Yūsuf ʿAli did not say who the commentators were on whom English readers of the Qurʾān could depend, it was obvious that he meant Muhammad Ali as he was the only Muslim translator at that time who had produced extensive scholarly notes. Just as the early European translators trusted Sale’s notes and referred their readers to them, the Indian translators felt no urgency to produce extensive notes on their translations after Maulana Muhammad Ali, whose work was appreciated by Yūsuf ʿAli as “a scholarly work, and is equipped with adequate explanatory matter in the notes and the Preface, and a fairly full Index” even though the Qurʾān translation itself “is decidedly weak, and is not likely to appeal to those who know no Arabic.”25 Yūsuf ʿAli’s spirituality is perhaps most apparent in his comment on Qurʾanic parables and stories. He took these stories as a good opportunity to draw moral lessons. Commenting on the Jews’ claim that they would suffer only a short period in Hell (Q 2:80), Yūsuf ʿAli concluded that
21 22 23 24 25
Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 520– 521. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 65, note 167. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 5, Note 6a. ʿAli, “Preface to the First Edition,” v. ʿAli, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” xv.
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If Unfaith claims some special prerogative such as race, civilization, political power, historical experience, and so on, these will not avail in God’s sight. His promise is sure, but His promise is for those who seek God in Faith and show it in their conduct.26 In fact, Muhammad Ali’s notes were not less didactic than Yūsuf ʿAli’s, but textuality, i.e., systematic references to dictionaries, grammar books, Hadith collections, and other sources, made Muhammad Ali’s notes sound less homiletic and more academic. Yūsuf ʿAli was not a scholar of Islam in the narrow sense but rather an intellectual. His works were more concerned with Muslim public issues as it is clear from the titles of his books such as Life and Labour of the People of India, The Making of India, India and Europe, Islam as a World Force, The Fundamentals of Islam, Personality of Muhammad (pbuh), Imam Husain and his Martyrdom, and Religious Polity of Islam, among others. He also wrote a book on AngloMuhammadan law, and as he explained in the Preface to the first edition of his Qurʾān translation, there was no need to include technical details of Islamic law in the notes as they were discussed in that book. The main characteristic of the translation per se is the use of poetic rhythmic language and the division of the translation into short lines with a capital letter at the beginning of each line. That technique worked very well with the shorter chapters in which the Arabic sentences are already short as in Chapter 112: Say. He is God, The One and Only, God, the Eternal, Absolute, He begetteth not, Nor is He begotten, And there is none Like unto Him. However, since Yūsuf ʿAli did not translate the Qurʾān into verse, that division is not justifiable, especially that sometimes it does not serve the meaning. One example is Q 32:5:27
26 27
ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 38, note 85. I borrow that example from Jeffery, “Yusuf Ali’s Translation of the Qurʾan,” 56.
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He rules (all) affairs From the heavens To the earth: in the end Will they (all) go up To him, in a (single) Day, The space whereof will be (As) a thousand years Of your reckoning. Since Sarwar was using the same technique as ʿAli, we may compare the two translations: He plans the command from the space above to the earth (below) And then it rises towards Him in a day the length of which is a thousand years according to your reckoning. Although ʿAli’s language is magnificent, the way he divided his phrases made his translation unclear. Contrary to Yūsuf ʿAli, Sarwar’s line division is more natural. Sarwar started a new line every time there is a pause in the source. That is, each line is relatively a meaningful unit. But Yūsuf ʿAli was not source-oriented in that matter, and his focus was on the target text that he wanted to sound poetic. Furthermore, Yūsuf ʿAli’s spirituality and poetic style, which is closer to Shakespearean English than for example the Book of Common Prayer, was more likely to attract a wide secular readership than any of the earlier Indian translations. However, like all European and Indian translations of the Qurʾān, Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation is abundant with additions. Some of these additions are indispensable to produce an equivalent idiom to Arabic. The following phrases from a single page all include vital bracketed additions: “about (the fact) that” (Q 22:7), “lead (men) astray” (Q 22:9), “of burning (Fire)” (Q 22:9). But some other additions are unnecessary and can be interpreted as motivated by the translator’s ideology. For example, Arthur Jeffery believes that some additions in Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation are “purposely homiletical” such as the addition of “Eternal” in Q 3:2 “al-Ḥayy al-Qayyūm,” which he translated into “the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal,” in which “Eternal” is unjustifiable addition. Khan had also a problem in translating the same phrase, and his addition was excessive: “the self-living and the fountain head of all life, the self-subsisting and the fountain head of all subsistence.” It seems that the problem was to convey the implied meaning of “Ḥayy” (eternally alive) as well as the intensity in the hyperbolic noun “Qayyūm.”
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Although Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation is probably the closest in meaning to the source, it still suffers from additions that continue to be a major problem in all early European and Indian translations. Apart from that, Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation distinguished itself for its highly literary style and its spirituality. Both these features secured to Yūsuf ʿAli a wider secular readership. He freed his translation of apologetics and intensive religious scholarship, and his style was closer to English poetry than to the English Bible.
2
The Spiral of Influence in Qurʾān Translations
Among the early English translators of the Qurʾān, Sale and Rodwell are the most influential linguistically, whereas Muhammad Ali is the most influential hermeneutically. Muhammad Ali developed many of Khan’s notes,28 and by virtue of his vast knowledge of the classical sources, he produced scholarly notes that would greatly help later translators. Muhammad Ali argued convincingly in his introduction that Pickthall had adopted a number of his interpretations. Muhammad Ali’s precedence is also confirmed in Sarwar’s introduction. Recently, Bruce Lawrence pointed out the indebtedness of Pickthall, Sarwar, Yūsuf ʿAli, and Muhammad Asad to Muhammad Ali.29 The relationship between the early European and Indian translations is complex, but the chain of influence can be simplified as follows: (a) Ross influenced Sale, (b) Sale influenced Khan, (c) Khan influenced Muhammad Ali, (d) Muhammad Ali influenced Sarwar and Yūsuf ʿAli. The relationship between these translations takes the form of adopting while also criticizing, modifying, correcting, and developing any given predecessor. The translations of Chapter One below indicate the chain of influence. Notice how the various translators rendered the phrases and words underlined below: ross: Praised be God, gracious and merciful; King of the Day of Judgment. It is thee whom we adore; it is from thee we require help. Guide us in the right way, in the way of them that thou hast gratified; against whom thou hast not been displeased, and we shall not be mis-led.
28 29
See, for example, Khan and Muhammad Ali’s notes on 6:128 and 72:1. Bruce B. Lawrence, The Koran in English: A Biography (Priceton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 64, 65. See also Nidhal Guessoum, who argued for the interconnection between Yūsuf ʿAli and Muhammad Asad. Nidhal Guessoum, “The Qurʾan, Science, and the (Related) Contemporary Muslim Discourse,” Zygon, 43, no. 2 (2008).
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sale: Praise be to god, the lord of all creatures; the most merciful, the king of the day of judgment. Thee do we worship, and of thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray. rodwell: Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, The compassionate, the merciful. King on the day of reckoning. Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help. Guide Thou us on the straight path. The path of those to whom Thou hast been gracious,—with whom thou art not angry, and who go not astray. palmer: Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds, the merciful, the compassionate, the ruler of the day of judgment! Thee we serve and Thee we ask for aid. Guide us in the right path, the path of those Thou art gracious to; not of those Thou art wroth with; nor of those who err. khan: All the praises are for Allah, The Lord of all creatures, the allproviding, the most Merciful and the Master of the day of judgment. Thee do we worship and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right path, in the path of those upon whom thou hast been gracious, not of those who are the object of wrath, nor of those who go astray. abuʾl-fadl: Praise to God, Lord of the worlds! Merciful Compassionate! King on the Day of Judgment! Thee we worship, and Thee we ask for help! Guide us on the straight path—The path of those Thou art gracious to, With whom Thou art not angry, and such as go not astray! hairat: Praise be unto God, Lord of the worlds, The Kind, the Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgement, Thee alone we worship and Thee alone we ask help of. Guide us to the straight path, The path of those Thou hast blessed, With whom Thou are not angry, and who do not err. muhammad ali: Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, The Beneficent, the Merciful, Master of the day of Requital. Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for help. Guide us on the right
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path, the path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favours, Not those upon whom wrath is brough down, nor those who go astray. sarwar: All praise belongs to God, Lord of all the worlds, The most Merciful (to begin with) The most Merciful (to the end) Master of the day of Judgment. Thee alone do we serve, And Thee alone do we ask for help. Guide us on the Right Path, The path of those upon whom be Thy blessings, Not of those upon whom be (Thy) wrath, Nor of those who are lost. yūsuf ʿali: Praise be to God, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds, Master of the Day of Judgment Thee do we worship, And Thine aid we seek Show us the straight way, The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, Those whose (portion) Is not wrath, And who go not astray. There are some immediately obvious differences between the translations, but the similarities are striking. For example, the word “King” in the phrase “the King of the day of judgement” was used by Ross, Sale, and Rodwell. Khan was the first to come up with “Master,” which was then used by most Indian translators. Similarly, Ross translated the first part of 7:1 into “against whom thou hast not been displeased,” and Sale into “against whom thou art incensed,” but Khan used “wrath,” which was then used by most Indian translators. Sale was the first to use “go astray,” and other translators followed his steps. For the translation of the first part of 5:1, most translations adopted “worship,” introduced by Sale or “serve,” used by Muhammad Ali. To make the comparison easier, the phrases underlined above are listed in the tables below: (a) Ross, Sale, and Khan are grouped together to show the
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The influence between Ross, Sale, and Khan, Q 1:1–7
Ross
Sale
Khan
– King of the Day of Judgment – adore – require help – Guide us in the right way – displeased
– the king of the day of judgment – worship – beg assistance – Direct us in the right way – incensed
– the Master of the day of judgment – worship – beg assistance – Direct us in the right path – object of wrath
table 2
The influence between Khan, Muhammad Ali, and Sarwar, Q 1:1–7
Khan
Muhammad Ali
Sarwar
– the Master of the day of judgment – worship – beg assistance – Direct us in the right path – Wrath
– the Master of the day of Requital – serve – beseech for help – Guide us on the right path – wrath
– the Master of the day of Judgement – serve – ask for help – Guide us on the right path – wrath
influence from Ross to Sale to Khan, and (b) Khan, Muhammad Ali and Sarwar are grouped together to show the influence from Khan to Muhammad Ali to Sarwar. As Table 1 and 2 show, Ross introduced the word “King” until Khan changed it into “Master.” Similarly, the word “worship,” introduced by Sale, was dominant until Muhammad Ali changed it into “serve.” Khan was the first to use “path” and “wrath,” and he was followed by others. The translation of Q 3:110 includes key terms such as “umma” (nation, folk, people, community), “taʾmurūn” (bid, command, enjoin), “maʿrūf ” (reasonable, just, right, good), and “munkar” (evil, wrong).30 Here’s the translation of the full verse followed by Table 3 and 4 for comparison. According to our chain of influ-
30
For a discussion of this verse, see Khalid Yahya Blankinship, The Inimitable Qurʾān: Some Problems in English Translations of the Qurʾān with Reference to Rhetorical Features (Brill, 2019), 63–66.
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ence, we need to examine the interconnectedness between (a) Ross and Sale, (b) Sale and Khan, (c) Khan and Muhammad Ali, and (d) Muhammad Ali and Sarwar and Yūsuf ʿAli. Notice how most of the new translations were introduced by Ross, Sale, Khan, and Muhammad Ali. ross: There hath appeared no Nation on the Earth that hath followed a better way than you; forbid ye to do that which is not reasonable, and believe in one only God. sale: Ye were the best of nations brought forth unto man. Ye bid what is reasonable, and forbid what is wrong, believing in God. rodwell: Ye are the best folk that hath raised up unto mankind. Ye enjoin the Just, and ye forbid the Evil, and ye believe in God. palmer: Ye were the best of nations brought forth unto man. Ye bid what is reasonable, and forbid what is wrong, believing in God. khan: Ye are the best nation that hath been raised unto mankind; ye command that which is right and forbid that which is wrong and believe in God. abuʾl-fadl: You are the best people brought forth to mankind; ye bid what is right and forbid what is wrong, and ye believe in God. hairat: Ye are the best of nations which have risen among men. Ye enjoin the reasonable and forbid the wrong, and ye believe in God. muhammad ali: You are the best nation raised up for men: you enjoin good and forbid evil and you believe in Allah. sarwar: Of all the communities raised amongst mankind you are the best, (For) you bid them do good And you forbid them doing wrong, And you believe in god. Yūsuf ʿAli: Ye are the best Of peoples, evolved For mankind, Enjoining what is right,
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The influence between Ross, Sale, and Khan, Q 3:110
Ross
Sale
Khan
– nation – [deleted] – reasonable – not reasonable
– nations – bid – reasonable – wrong
– nation – command – right – wrong
table 4
The influence between Muhammad Ali, Sarwar, and Yūsuf ʿAli, Q 3:110
Muhammad Ali Sarwar
Yūsuf ʿAli
– nation – enjoin – good – evil
– peoples – enjoin – right – wrong
– communities – bid – good – wrong
Forbidding what is wrong, And believing in God. As Table 3 and 4 indicate, the word “nation” was introduced by Ross, who was followed by Sale, Khan, and Muhammad Ali, whereas Sarwar was the first to use “communities.” “Bid” and “enjoin” were introduced by Sale and Muhammad Ali respectively and were used by other translators. “Right” and “good” were introduced by Khan and Muhammad Ali respectively. “Wrong,” introduced by Sale, dominated over “evil” that was introduced by Muhammad Ali. The pattern can best be described as a spiral of influence. As with any spiral, the implication is that a departure from one point will often return to a similar point at a later stage, further down the spiral. Thus, the spiral image can explain the evolution of Qurʾān translation as it represents a connectivity with the past. When a new and better translation is produced, the old translation goes down the spiral, but its influence never disappears, and it shows either in the immediate translation or may surface in later translations.31 The spiral of influence 31
For example, as Table 3 and 4 show, the word “reasonable” was used by Ross and Sale, but
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table 5
The influence of Rodwell and Palmer on Abuʾl-Fadl, Q 5:3
Rodwell
– This day have I perfected your religion for you – and fulfiled upon you is my favour, – and I am pleased for you to have Islam as a religion.
Palmer Palmer
Abuʾl-Fadl Abuʾl-Fadl Abuʾl-Fadl
– This day have I perfected for you your religion – and have fulfilled My favour upon you, – and I am pleased for you to have Islam as a religion
is apt at showing the influence between a cluster of translations, rather than comparing only two translations as we would more usually consider. Indeed, the spiral of influence sometimes makes a translation look like a mere composite of previous translations. Compare, for example, Rodwell, Palmer, and Abuʾl-Fadl’s translation of Q 5:3. rodwell: This day have I perfected your religion for you, and have Filled up the measures of my favours upon you and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion. palmer: To-day is perfected for you your religion, and fulfiled upon you is my favour, and I am pleased for you to have Islam as a religion. abuʾl-fadl: This day have I perfected for you your religion, and have fulfilled My favour upon you, and I am pleased for you to have Islam as a religion. The table above makes the influence from Rodwell to Abuʾl-Fadl, and from Palmer to Abuʾl-Fadl clearer: The following is another example from the translations of Q 3:115 by Sale, Khan, Muhammad Ali, and Yūsuf ʿAli. sale: And ye shall not be denied the reward of the good which ye do; For god knoweth the pious.
it went down the spiral once Khan used “right.” It is also possible that an old translation reappears in the spiral. For example, Yūsuf ʿAli went back to Khan’s translation and did not use “good” which is used by Muhammad Ali and Sarwar.
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The influence of Sale, Khan, and Muhammad Ali on Yūsuf ʿAli, Q 3:115
Sale Khan Muhammad Ali
– of the good which ye do – it shall not be rejected unto them – those who keep their duty
Yūsuf ʿAli Yūsuf ʿAli Yūsuf ʿAli
– Of the good that they do – Nothing will be rejected of them – Those that do right
khan: And whatever good they do, it shall not be rejected unto them; and God knoweth the pious. muhammad ali: And whatever good they do, they will not be denied it. And Allah knows those who keep their duty yūsuf ʿali: Of the good that they do, Nothing will be rejected Of them, for God knoweth well Those that do right. Table 6 shows the similarity of the phrases of Sale, Khan, and Muhammad Ali on the one hand and Yūsuf ʿAli on the other hand: Reading the translations together illustrates the obvious influence of previous translations. Nevertheless, it is fascinating that even though each translation is influenced by previous ones, it is still unique, when read as a whole, and has innovative features that outweigh any influence and present each translation as a highly original work in itself. In the following two chapters, I examine these translations as a singular project that addresses Muslim problems in modern times. I highlight the response of these translations to Western modernity. In particular, I focus on their interpretation of jihad, how the Qurʾān came to be seen as a rationalist pluralist book, and how Islamic views on science and the status of women could be rationalized. Analyses of these topics indicate the indispensable nature of the cultural context of India in understanding these translations. They also indicate that the relationship between Muslims and modernity is by no means a straightforward relationship of either blind imitation or rejection, and that the possibilities between these two extremes are endless.
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Toward a Modernist Interpretation of the Qurʾān In this chapter, I give examples of how Qurʾān translations in India were affected by the encounter with the West and modernity. I have already argued that Qurʾān translations in India were not produced in a vacuum and that the project itself was not possible without the introduction of the English education in India. Furthermore, the introductions to these translations and the footnotes are abundant with examples in which the Indian translators either responded to European criticisms or criticized the early European translations and claimed to correct them. The Indian translators also made use of all the modern tools that were made accessible to them through their interaction with the West. However, it is hard to classify the Indian translators as modernists or traditionalists. Rather, they fall somewhere between these two poles. On the one hand, they supported their interpretations by opinions and reports from medieval commentators, but on the other hand, they stressed the need for new interpretations and that the medieval readings were not the final word on the interpretation of the Qurʾān. Similarly, they departed from the commonly known readings of the Qurʾān, but their interpretations, even the most shocking ones like the universalism of prophethood and salvation,1 were not completely innovative as there were always hints of them in earlier commentaries. Furthermore, it is difficult to classify a whole translation as modernist or traditionalist since some verses were interpreted and translated in a traditional way, whereas others were clearly modernist. Sarwar, for example, who argued for the tolerance, pluralism, and spirituality of the Qurʾān was traditional when it came to verses concerning women. He even produced errors based upon his biases such as his translation of Q 33:59, where he translated ǧalabībihin (their outer garments) into “their head coverings.” In fact, the Indian translators produced modernist translations mainly for those aspects of the Qurʾān that were criticized by the Europeans. Their translations were simply an attempt to solve the cultural problems they found themselves in because of colonization. Qurʾān translations, then, whether the early European or Indian translations, 1 Following Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of Ahmadiyya, the two Ahmadi translators, Muhammad Khan and Muhammad Ali, believed that older religions such as Hinduism and Confucianism were revealed messages from God and their founders were prophets. They also claimed that salvation in the Hereafter is accessible for everybody and that Hell is not eternal.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004543560_007 El-Hussein
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were the outcome of their contexts. This is clear from the fact that jihad was the most discussed topic, whether in the European translations that were produced during the Crusades and then later when the Ottoman Empire was a threat to Europe or in the Indian translations which were concerned with European criticisms and colonization. Pluralism, tolerance, jihad, peace, and war provided the most frequent occasions for criticizing Islam, and they received the most apologetics in the Indian translations of the Qurʾān.
1
The Pluralist Qurʾān
The early Indian translators’ understanding of the word “Islam” gives us an idea of their attitude toward other religions. In their translation of Q 3:19, “the religion before God is Islam,” Khan, Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli understood Islam to be submission to God and not the proper name of their religion, which was the interpretation that had been adopted by Sale. In his comment on Q 3:19, Sale affirmed that the term Islam is “the proper name of the Mohammadan religion, which signifies the resigning or devoting one’s self entirely to god and his service.”2 Sale was quoting Baiḍāwī in his comment although the majority of commentators understood Islam in the verse as obedience to God rather than a proper name.3 Sarwar seemed to adopt the same interpretation as Sale. He used two translations of the term “Islam:” “Al-islam” and “Islam.”4 It is unfortunate that Sarwar did not explain these two forms. However, we have a clue to these two forms from his approach to the translation of what he took to be the proper name of Muslims’ God, “Allah.” Following Sale, Sarwar used “god” with small capital letters as a translation for “Allah,” and “God” with an initial capital letter as an equivalent to “deity.” “Al-islam,” then, with small capital letters was used as an equivalent to the proper name of the religion of Muslims. “Islam” with an initial capital letter was used with the general sense of “submission to God.” Sarwar used “Al-islam” for Q 3:19, 5:3, and 3:84 where Sale also used a small capitalized “islam.” He used “Islam” for Q 6:125, 39:22, and 61:7 where Sale used “the faith of islam,” “the religion of Islam,” and “islam” respectively. In contrast to Sale and Sarwar’s reading of Q 3:19, both Khan and Yūsuf ʿAli emphasized their understanding of the term “Islam” as “submission to God.”
2 Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, 36. 3 See Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5, 68. 4 There is variation in the letter case of Sarwar’s translation of “Al-Islam.” Sometimes, it is written in small capital letters as in Q 5:3, and sometimes it is only initially capitalized as in Q 3:85. But I take this variation as typographical errors rather than a purposeful usage.
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Yūsuf ʿAli translated the verse into “The Religion before God is Islam (submission to His Will).” The parenthetical addition explains and emphasizes the general sense of “Islam.” Khan also used addition, but his addition is longer and more pedagogical: “Verily the true religion in the sight of God is Islam, viz, entire resignation and submission to God.” In His comment on Q 3:19, Muhammad Ali highlighted two significant points about Islam. First, Islam is the religion of the Israelite prophets who are described in the Qurʾān as allaḏīna aslamū (those who submitted to God). Second, Islam does not only mean “submission,” but also “entering into peace.” This is supported by Q 10:25 in which paradise is described as dār al-salām (the abode of peace). Furthermore, both “salām” and “Islam” are from the same root, and both signify peace. According to Muhammad Ali, the goal of Islam is not only the peace of the afterlife, but the peace of this world too. As he stated, “Islam, in fact, makes even this world an abode of peace for a true Muslim; he makes his peace with his Lord, and he lives at peace with his fellow-men.”5 1.1 Universalism of Prophethood The two Ahmadi translators argued further for a stronger version of pluralism. Based on Q 35:24, “And there is not a people but a warner has gone among them,” they saw Islam as representing “the universality of a Divine message to the whole of mankind.”6 Muhammad Ali took Q 35:24 as an evidence for the truth of Islam as well as its pluralism. According to him, the great truth that a prophet was raised among every nation remained hidden from the wisest and greatest men of the world until the Qurʾān revealed it. Muhammad, who was an unlearned Arabian and who did not even know the nations that existed before him or their scriptures, could only have this truth revealed to him by God. Since the Prophet Muhammad recognized truth in the religions and beliefs of all nations, he was the only one who could unite all of them. Muhammad Ali’s interpretation was not unorthodox. It was supported by medieval interpretations such as Ṭabarī, Ibn Kaṯīr and Qurṭubī (1214–1273), who all confirmed the Qurʾanic meaning that God sent prophets to the different nations before the Prophet Muhammad.7 Although nothing is mentioned in the two Ahmadi translations about the identity of those prophets or the nations they were sent to, Bashir Mallal mentioned in his book Trial of Muslim Libel Case in 1928 that one of the charges 5 Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 437. 6 Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 861, note 24a. 7 See Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 1553. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʾ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 17, 340. Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 19, 360.
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against the Ahmadis was their claim that there were prophets among the Hindus.8 In their defense, the Ahmadis quoted Q 4:164, which confirms that the Qurʾān mentions only some of the prophets, and not all of them, and Q 16:36, which reiterates that a prophet was raised among every nation. They claimed that they did not name any prophet and just applied those verses to Hinduism. This attitude to Hinduism and other religions was not foreign to the Indian subcontinent. It began to materialize as early as the Mughal Emperor Akbar (1542–1605), who reigned the Indian Subcontinent from 1556 to 1605. Akbar’s court, unlike any other Muslim court at that time, was not only a center of culture, but also a center of religious freedom and discussion. The concept resurfaced in the eighteenth century when the great Indian Muslim reformer, Shah Walīy Allāh postulated the concept of the unity of religion (waḥdat aldīn), and in the nineteenth century, the Ahmadiyya claimed that many of the older religions were revealed messages from God according to Q 4:164, 10:47, 16:36, and 35:24.9 This belief that God sent a prophet to every nation was an essential part of a theory of unity that Muhammad Ali took to be the main message of the Qurʾān. The Qurʾān preaches the unity of God more than anything else, and this unity of God implies unity of humanity—that is to say, one God, one humanity.10 It is a unity that comprehends everything and attributes everything to the Author of all existence.11 According to Muhammad Ali, the Qurʾān does not speak of the Lord of a particular nation. He is not the Lord of the Arabs or the Muslims, but the Lord of the worlds (Q 1:1), the Lord of the heavens and of the earth (Q 37:5), and the Lord of the Eastern lands and of the Western lands (Q 70:40). Similarly, Khan and Yūsuf ʿAli stressed that God cares about all the people, creatures, and worlds that He has created. 8 9
10
11
Bashir A. Mallal, ed., Trial of Muslim Libel Case (Singapore: C.A. Ribeiro & Co., Ltd, 1928), 70–71. That led some Muslims of India to argue that Krishna, Ram, Confucius etc. were prophets, and hence, their texts were sacred. Their messages, however, which were valid at their time were superseded by Islam. This understanding, which is different from modernism that tends to argue for equal validity of all messages, explains conversion efforts by Muslims as well as the competition among religions in India. See Ziauddin Sardar, Reading the Qurʾan: The Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). According to Muhammad Ali, This idea of the unity of humanity “was as entirely lost to the world before the Qurʾān as the idea of the Unity of God.” Maulana Muhammad Ali, Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qurʾān (USA: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaʿat Islam, Lahore, 1992), 44. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 1191, note 4034.
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1.2 Universalism of Salvation The Indian translators did not set Muslims and their God aside from the rest of humanity. They best represented this attitude in their reading of Q 1:1. Yūsuf ʿAli translated the word “rabb” (Q 1:1) into “The Cherisher and Sustainer,” and so he instilled Khan and Muhammad Ali’s opinion that the word “rabb” which is usually translated into “Lord” does not really have a single equivalent in English. Muhammad Ali quoted al-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī, who pointed out in his well-known dictionary of the Qurʾān, Al-Mufradāt fī Ġarīb al-Qurʾān, that the word “rabb” signifies “the fostering of a thing in such a manner as to make it attain one condition after another until it reaches its goal of completion.” Thus, according to Muhammad Ali, God has one goal for the entire humanity, and his teachings, as Yūsuf ʿAli stated, “is one in all ages.”12 This equality was a strong basis for pluralism. As Muhammad Ali said, “How could there be any unity of the human race when each nation considered itself to be the only favoured nation, the only recipient of Divine revelation, to the exclusion of all other nations who were forever condemned to the wrath of God?”13 Fanatics in every religion claim that their co-religionists are the only people to be saved.14 These views do not find much support in the Indian translations, particularly Muhammad Ali’s. His universalism and pluralism “extends the recognition of religious validity not just to followers of other religions, but to every sinner,” and so his philosophy is similar to other Muslim thinkers such as Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240), who did not envision eternal punishment even for Pharaoh himself.15 For Muhammad Ali, hell serves as a second opportunity “under the inevitable law which makes every man taste of what he has done,” sinners will “be subjected to a course of treatment for the spiritual diseases which they have brought about with their own hands, and when the effect of the poison which vitiated their system has been nullified and they are fit to start on the onward journey to the great goal, they will no more be in hell.”16 To support his view, Muhammad Ali compared Q 11:106–107 and Q 11:108. These verses are identical in wording.17 They employ a series of identical 12 13 14 15 16 17
ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 56, note 138. Ali, Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qurʾān, 44. As the Qurʾān tells us, both the Jews and the Christians asserted that they are the only people to be saved (Q 2:111). For some Muslims too, Islam is the exclusive path to salvation. Carl W. Ernst, “The Limits of Universalism in Islamic Thought: the Case of Indian Religions,” The Muslim World 101 (2011): 19. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 1109, n. 8a. Muhammad Ali translated the verses as follows: Q 11:106–107 “Then as for those who are unhappy, they will be in the Fire; for them therein will be sighing and groaning—Abiding
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phrases to describe paradise and hell. The dwellers of paradise as well as of hell will dwell “therein so long as the heavens and the earth endure, except as thy Lord please.” The only difference between the two verses is the very last phrase: “Surely thy Lord is Doer of what He intends,” in the case of hell, but “a gift never to be cut off,” in the case of paradise. In the case of paradise, then, the Qurʾān states that there is no limitation upon its eternity since it is “a gift never to be cut off.” In the case of hell, however, the Qurʾān affirms that God does “even those things which seem impossible to others” like bringing humanity to “perfection” after taking those in hell out and setting them “on the road to spiritual progress.”18 Muhammad Ali confirmed that meaning in his comment on Q 78:23 in which the adverbial “aḥqāb” is used to describe the duration of hell. He quoted Edward William Lane, who clarified in his Lexicon that “aḥqāb” is the plural of “ḥuqub,” which signifies some long period of time being eighty or seventy years. “The use of a word which signifies a limited period in the case of the punishment of hell, while such words are never used regarding the bliss of heavenly life, is a clear indication that the latter will never come to an end, while the former shall.”19 In order to emphasize that meaning Muhammad Ali translated “Aḥqāb” into “long years,” whereas all other Indian translators translated it into “for ages.” Although “aḥqāb” signifies “a period of time,” the majority of commentators saw the implication differently. Qurṭubī, for example, believed that “aḥqāb” (in the plural form) emphasizes eternity of hell rather than set limitations on it.20 Muhammad Ali supported his view by a Hadith from Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī, the most trusted Hadith collection for Sunni Muslims, and another from Kanz al-ʿUmmāl fī Sunan al-Aqwāl wa-al-Afʿāl (best known in English as Treasures of Doers of Good Deeds) by al-Muttaqī al-Hindī (1480–1567). The two sayings stress respectively the mercy of God Who will take the last sinners out of hell, and that there will be time when hell is totally empty.21 This interpre-
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therein so long as the heavens and the earth endure, except as thy Lord please. Surely thy Lord is Doer of what He intends.” Q 11:108 “And as for those who are made happy, they will be in the Garden abiding therein so long as the heavens and the earth endure, except as thy Lord please—a gift never to be cut off.” Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 473, no. 107a. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 1171, n. 23a. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʾ li-Ahkām al-Qurʾān, 22, 16. As Muhammad Ali states, Various sayings of the Holy Prophet corroborate the statement made above. For instance, the concluding portion of a Hadith which is met with in one of the most reliable collections runs thus: ‘Then will Allāh say: The angels and the prophets and the
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tation was also mentioned by Ṭabarī. Ṭabarī quoted both Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn Masʿūd, the authoritative companions of the Prophet, in support of that view although he personally favored the interpretation that hell is eternal, and those who will be taken out are the sinners from among the believers.22 The majority of commentators including Ibn Kaṯīr, Baiḍāwī and Qurṭubī supported the same view, but whereas Ṭabarī, Ibn Kaṯīr, and Baiḍāwī spoke of the sinners among those who believed in the oneness of God, Qurṭubī spoke of the sinners from among the Muslims alone.23 Zamaḫsharī strongly defended the position that both reward and punishment in the Hereafter are eternal, and that the exception has to do with the kind of torture sinners suffer in hell, i.e., the verse deals with eternity of a single punishment that lasts except as God pleases.24 Although Yūsuf ʿAli did not express his views concerning eternity of hell as he did not want to enter this “tremendous controversy,” his comments still included few clues. For example, he noted in his comment on Q 11:107 that the word “ḫālidīn” (forever) is “definitely connected with two conditions,” namely, as long as the heavens and the earth last, and as God pleases. In another comment, he raised doubts about human perception of terms like “eternity” and “infinity,” which are “abstract terms” and indeed “have no precise meaning in our human experience.” He argued that such abstract terms become more intelligible when they are modified by phrases such as “except as God wills,” which should be understood not only in terms of God’s justice, but also in terms of God’s mercy.25
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faithful have all in their turn interceded for the sinners, and now there remains none to intercede for them except the most Merciful of all the merciful ones. So He will take out a handful from the Fire and bring out a people who never worked any good’ (B. 97:24). According to this Hadith, such people are called Ṭulaqā al-Raḥmān, or the freed ones of the Beneficent, Who exercises His mercy towards those who have done nothing to deserve it. There are also other sayings in the Kanz al-ʿUmmāl: ‘Surely a day will come over hell when it will be like a field of corn that has dried up after flourishing for a while’; and again: ‘Surely a day will come over hell when there will not be a single human being in it’ (vol. vii, p. 245). There is also a saying of ʿUmar on record: ‘Even if the dwellers in hell may be numberless as the sands of the desert, a day will surely come when they will be taken out of it’ (fb [Fatḥ al-Bārī fī Šarḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī]). Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 473, n. 107a. Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 24, 22–27. Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr Al-Qurʾān Al-ʿAẓīm, 1954. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʾ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 22, 15– 18. Nāṣir al-Dīn Abū al-Khayr ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad al-Baiḍāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāṯ al-ʿArabī), 5, 279–280. Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿUmar al-Zamaḫsharī, Al-Kaššāf ʿan Ḥaqāʾiq Ġawāmiḍ alTanzīl wa ʿuyūn al-ʿAqāwīl (Riyad, Saudi Arabia: al-ʿUbaikān, 1998), 6, 299–300. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 327, note 951.
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These various views on hell influenced the early European and Indian translations. All European translators expressed the orthodox view that hell is eternal by including the adverb “forever” whenever the phrases “ḫālidīn fī-hā” (abiding therein) and “ḫālidīn fī-hā abadan” (abiding therein forever) occur. In fact, “ḫālidīn fī-hā” can mean both “abiding therein” and “abiding therein forever,” and so both translations are accurate. The Indian translators tried to be more accurate than the European translators by distinguishing between “ḫālidīn fī-hā” and “ḫālidīn fī-hā abadan,” but they were not consistent as they sometimes added “forever” with “ḫālidīn fī-hā.” This may mean that they were not against the reading that hell is eternal. This also applies to Yūsuf ʿAli although he stressed God’s mercy in his notes. Muhammad Ali is a particular case. As an Ahmadi Muslim, Muhammad Ali was against the view that hell is eternal, and so he consistently translated “ḫālidīn fī-hā” into “abiding therein” and “ḫālidīn fī-hā abadan” into “abide therein for a long time,” (e.g. Q 4:169 and Q 33:65) and “abide therein for ages” (e.g. Q 72:23). Only when “ḫālidīn fīhā abadan” describes paradise did he include “forever” in his translation (e.g. Q 4:57, 122; 5:119; 9:22; 64:9; 65:11; and 98:8). 1.3 Muslims, Superiority and Humanity Some commentators read Q 1:7 and Q 3:110 to support Muslim superiority. Q 1:7 describes three groups of people in their relationship to God. The first group are those who were favored with God’s blessings, the second group are those who deserved God’s anger, and the third group are those who went astray. Neither the verse nor the chapter identifies any people with any group and leaves that open to interpretation.26 According to Qurṭubī, the majority of commentators believed that those who deserved God’s anger were the Jews, and those who went astray were the Christians. That interpretation was supported by a Hadith quoted by Tirmiḏī (824–892) and Abū Dāwūd (d. 889).27 Responding to a question by ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim, the Prophet reportedly confirmed that those who deserved God’s wrath were the Jews and those who went astray were the Christians. That was also supported by the Qurʾān. Q 2:61 describes how the Jews could not endure their hard life that was necessary to prepare them to con-
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In his tafsīr, al-Qurṭubī mentions several interpretations for each group. As for the first group, those whom God blessed are those who followed the way of al-nabīyīn (the prophets), al-ṣiddīqīn (the sincere), al- šuhadāʾ (the witnesses), and al-ṣāliḥīn (the righteous) as confirmed in Q 4:69: “And whoever obeys God and his messenger is in the company of those whom God blessed,—of the prophets, the sincere, the witnesses, and the righteous, and what a good company!” Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1, 229–230. Tirmiḏī and Abū Dāwūd are well-known Persian Islamic scholars and collectors of Hadith.
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quer the holy land and asked Moses for more food and easy life, and so they deserved God’s anger. Similarly, Q 5:77 describes the Christians as having gone astray from the straight path after they exaggerated in their religion beyond the truth. In addition, Qurṭubī mentioned three other interpretations. First, those who deserved God’s anger were those who associated partners with God, and those who went astray were the lukewarm. Second, those who deserved God’s anger were those who believed that the prayers were still valid without reciting al-Fātiḥa, and those who went astray were those who could not see its significance. Thirdly, those who deserved God’s anger were those who adopted innovations in religion, and those who went astray were those who deviated from the practice of the prophet. Qurṭubī supported the last interpretation although he said that the saying of the prophet that the two groups were the Jews and Christians is higher in importance, soundness, and rank (awlā waaḥsan wa-aʿlā).28 Baiḍāwī mentioned that those whom God blessed included the prophets and the faithful who preceded the Prophet Muhammad as well as the Jews and Christians at the time of their primitive purity. Contemporary Jews and Christians belonged to the groups of those who deserved God’s anger and those who went astray respectively because “they had deviated from their respective institutions.”29 This is the interpretation Sale adopted. But Baiḍāwī seemed to support another interpretation that is more general and more tolerant of other religions. He explained that those who deserved God’s anger were the disobedient and those who went astray were those who were ignorant of God. He further clarified that those who were blessed were those who not only had knowledge of truth, but also applied that knowledge in life. The opposite of that group was those who suffered a deficiency either in their knowledge or in their practice.30 The Indian translators adopted two different grammatical analyses of the verse. Khan and Sarwar dealt with the two clauses “ġair al-maġḍūb ʿalaihim” (not those who deserved God’s anger) and “wa-lā al-ḍāllīn” (and not those who went astray) as adjectival clauses for “al-ṣirāṭ” (the path). That is, as in Sarwar’s translation,
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Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1, 230–233. Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, 1. According to Baiḍāwī, those who suffer deficiency in knowledge are ignorant and going astray. This is supported by Q 10:32, which says, “What Is beyond Truth except Going Astray.” Those who are deficient in action are disobedient and deserve God’s anger. This is supported by Q 4:93 which describes the intentional murderer as deserving God’s wrath. al-Baiḍāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl, 1, 31.
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The path of those upon whom be Thy blessings, Not of those upon whom be (Thy) wrath, Nor of those who are lost. According to medieval commentators, with such grammatical analysis, the prayer is to guide the Muslims to the path of the blessed, not the path of those who deserved God’s anger, nor the path of those who went astray.31 As Šāṭibī noted in his book al-Iʿtiṣām, one of the first books on bidʿa (innovative practices and beliefs in Islam), the Jews and Christians were just one category, but the verse could apply to other categories including some Muslim sects.32 The verse, then, should not be understood as a statement about the Jews and Christians, but as a statement about those who follow God’s guidance and those who do not. This interpretation, which includes disobedient Muslims among those who deserved God’s anger and went astray, is even clearer with the second grammatical analysis that was adopted by Hairat, Abuʾl-Fadl, Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli. They dealt with the two phrases “ġair al-maġḍūb ʿalaihim” (those who did not deserve God’s anger) and “wa-lā al-ḍālīn” (and those who did not go astray) as adjectival phrases for “al-laḏīna anʿamt ʿalaihim” (those whom You blessed). Yūsuf ʿAli translated the verse as follows: The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, Those whose (portion) Is not wrath, And who go not astray. Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation makes the whole verse about one group of people. That group of people is described as blessed, not subject to God’s anger and did not go astray. As Muhammad Ali said, “The Muslims are warned here that even after receiving Divine favours they may incur Divine displeasure and go astray from the path which leads to the goal of perfection, and this is what the prayer of v. 7 aims at.”33 The fact that four out of six Indian translators adopted this less com-
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See, for example, Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 73–74. See Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā al-Šāṭibī, Al-Iʿtiṣām, vol. 1 (cairo: Maktabat Al-Tawḥīd, n.d.), 239. Al-Šāṭibī also raised doubts about the authenticity of the Hadith that is always quoted in the interpretation of this verse, stating that the two groups are the Jews and Christians. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 5.
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mon grammatical analysis, which renders the verse more pluralist, shows how the Indian translators saw the Qurʾān as a message for the whole humanity. The Indian translators did not see the Jews and Christians as the opposite of Muslims, but as belonging to one universal divine message. Accordingly, without working hard for the human brotherhood, Muslims cannot claim to be the best community raised among mankind, as Q 3:110 may be read: “You are the best of Peoples, evolved for mankind.” This pluralist reading of Q 3:110 may not find much support in well-known medieval commentaries such as those of Ṭabarī and Ibn Kaṯīr.34 In his comment on this verse, Ṭabarī mentioned four opinions. The community referred to in the verse could be (a) the immigrants from Mecca to Medina in early Islam, (b) all Muslims as far as they commit themselves to the three conditions stated in the verse, i.e., enjoining the right, forbidding the wrong, and believing in God, (c) the early Muslim community in general in which the majority of people accepted Islam, and (d) Muslims in general because they believe in the final message from God. Pluralist thinkers would agree to the first three interpretations as they do not really single out Muslims as much as they single out a righteous community, and so the privilege is based upon deeds and not identity. The fourth interpretation is problematic because it clearly privileges Muslims not because of their righteousness but because of their identity. Unfortunately, this is the interpretation favored by Ṭabarī. Ibn Kaṯīr also believed that the verse is general, and it refers to all Muslims although the best generation is the generation of the companions of the Prophet according to the Hadith. Qurṭubī adopted a more pluralist interpretation as he confirmed that the praise of the Muslim community in the first part of the verse is conditioned by the three statements given in the second part of the verse.35 In their interpretation of this verse, the Indian translators shifted attention away from Muslims and their practices to pristine Islam. Like traditionalists, the Indian translators believed that the glory and revival of Islam reside in the principles laid in the Qurʾān, life and character of the Prophet Muhammad, and the practices of the early Muslim community. According to Muhammad Ali, if Muslims were the best people, that would go back to their great teacher, Muhammad, who purified them from the worst vices. “No prophet ever found a people in a worse condition, and none ever raised his people to such eminence.”36 For Yūsuf ʿAli, it is logical that Islam is the foundation for 34 35 36
Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 5, 671–677. Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 388–393. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʾ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5, 259–264. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 167.
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the best community. Contrary to Ṭabarī and Qurṭubī, who took the first part of the verse as a result of the second part, Yūsuf ʿAli took the second part as an implication of the first. By virtue of following Islam, believers enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in one God. Yūsuf ʿAli saw Islam as an ideal that would lead any community to be the best as far as it is followed strictly. Ironically, Alexander Ross’ translation reflected similar significance as it shifted the focus of the verse from Muslims to Islam: “There hath appeared no Nation on the Earth that hath followed a better way than you.” Apart from Ross, who changed the meaning, all other translators represented one of two views. By inserting a full stop after the first part of the verse, Rodwell, Palmer and Hairat created a statement that is complete by itself, thus confirming the traditionalist view that Muslims are the best community by virtue of their religious identity and regardless of the three conditions set in the second part of the verse. Others, who are the majority, linked the two clauses in a single sentence, and so they highlighted the cause-effect relationship between the two clauses. Sale and Muhammad Ali on the one hand, and Khan and Abuʾl-Fadl on the other hand used a colon and semicolon respectively to show that the two clauses are connected, but at the same time they are of equal significance. As such, their translations can have more than one interpretation including the cause-effect relationship between the two parts of the verse. This is in fact the closer equivalent to the Arabic text which may have more than one interpretation as outlined above. Sarwar and Yūsuf ʿAli stressed the cause-effect relationship of the two clauses. Sarwar connected the two clauses by using the conjunction “for,” whereas Yūsuf ʿAli used an ingparticiple clause. Both emphasized the reading that the status of Muslims as the best community is dependent upon the three conditions mentioned in the second part of the sentence.37
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The following are examples of the different translations. – Sale: “Ye are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind: ye command that which is just, and forbid that which is unjust, and ye believe in god.” – Hairat: “Ye are the best of nations which have risen among men. Ye enjoin the reasonable and forbid the wrong, and ye believe in God.” – Sarwar: Of all the communities raised amongest mankind you are the best, (For) you bid them do good And you forbid them doing wrong, And you believe in god. – Yūsuf ʿAli:Ye are the best Of peoples, evolved For mankind,
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This last reading means that there were other communities that could have the same status as Muslims. This is supported by Q 3:115 which deals with the Jews and Christians. Q 3:115 includes a pronoun which can be interpreted in two different ways: either “they” (referring to the Jews and Christians) or “you” (addressing converts to Islam). Depending on how to read the pronoun, the verse may mean: (a) the Jews and Christians in general will not be denied whatever good they do, or (b) those Jews and Christians who became converts to Islam will not be denied whatever good they do.38 The Indian translators adopted the reading with “they,” which refers to the pious from among the Jews and Christians. Khan, for instance, translated the verse as follows: “And whatever good they do, it shall not be rejected unto them; and God knoweth the pious.” According to Muhammad Ali, this reading emphasizes the fact that “the Qurʾān does not deny that there is good in others.”39 Furthermore, as Yūsuf ʿAli emphasized in his comment on Q 4:169, God recognizes all good in people and takes no pleasure in punishing anybody.40 Again, in his comment on Q 4:147, “What can God gain by your punishment,” Muhammad Ali confirmed that “There is no pleasure nor advantage to God in punishing His own creatures over whom He watches with loving care. On the contrary, He recognizes any good—however little—which He finds in us and delights to give us a reward beyond measure.”41 1.4 The Politics of Otherness This section on pluralism cannot be complete without the Indian translators’ commentaries on Q 3:64. According to Imam Buḫārī, this verse was part of a letter written by the Prophet Muhammad to Heraclius six years after his flight to Medina. In the verse, the Jews and Christians were called upon to accept three essential principles of the faith of Abraham:
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Enjoining what is right, Forbidding what is wrong, And believing in God. (Hairat’s translation of Q 3:110) According to Qurṭubī, the reading with “they” is adopted by al-Aʿmaš, Ibn Waṯṯāb, Ḥamza, al-Kasāʾīy, Ḥafṣ, and Khalaf. This reading is also the reading of Ibn ʿAbbās and the choice of Abi ʿUbaid. The rest of the Qirāʾāt schools, namely, Nāfiʿ, Abu Jaʿfar, Ibn Kaṯīr, and Ibn ʿĀmir adopted the reading with “you” except Abū ʿAmr, who recited both variants. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʾ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5, 270. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 168–169. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 233. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 226.
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O People Of the Book! come To common terms As between us and you That we worship None but God, That we associate No partners with Him, That we erect not, From among ourselves, Lords and patrons Other than God. In his comment, Yūsuf ʿAli stated that, “In the abstract, the People of the Book would agree to all three prepositions. In practice, they fail.”42 Yūsuf ʿAli criticized the Jews, Christians as well as Hindus for “consecrated Priesthood.” As Muhammad Ali clarified, “The reference in the sentence ‘some of us shall not take others for lords’ is to the practice prevailing then both among Jews and Christians, and at present among Muslims too, to take religious leaders as invested with Divine powers.”43 Those Muslim saints, as Yūsuf ʿAli said, “may be pure and holy but no one can protect us or claim Lordship over us except God.”44 Here and elsewhere the Indian translators’ criticism of Muslims is completely different from their criticism of adherents of other religions. In fact, the cultural context of India created a strong competition among religions so that even though the Indian translators recognized validity in every religion, and even though they did not see the Muslim community as advanced as other communities, they insisted that Islam is the best religion. They took Q 3:85, “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him,” not to argue that other religions do not include truth or that Islam is the exclusive path to salvation, but to argue that Islam embraces the whole truth as revealed to all mankind before it. This is because humanity evolved spiritually and became ready for the final and most advanced message only at the time of Islam.45 Therefore, whereas Muslims were invited to go back to the correct
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ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 139. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 156. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 139. Ali, Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qurʾān, 44, 162, n. 85a. See also ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 145, n. 418.
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understanding of their religion, followers of other religions were invited to convert to Islam as it includes the ultimate truth and the more advanced law that complete all other religions. The only difference [between Islam and other religions] is that a Muslim’s is a purer monotheism … a conception which cannot reasonably be criticized by anyone who admits a belief in a Supreme Being. A Muslim’s conception of Divine revelation is wider than that of the follower of any other religion … A Muslim, therefore, admits the truth of all the prophets and revelations, and the follower of any other religion has nothing to lose but everything to gain by accepting Islam.46 This apparent contradiction can be explained in terms of the cultural context of India. The Indian Qurʾān translations were produced when religious nationalism in India was still in the process of formation. At that early stage, one can notice two different attitudes to pluralism in the Indian translations of the Qurʾān: (A) The divisive elements of religion were alleviated, which created a case for plurality. Islam and Hinduism were claimed to be equally revealed messages from God, or at least shared divine truth, and therefore they could form the basis for Indian nationalism. That attitude was extended to include the Jews and Christians, but the Jews and Christians were criticized far more than the Hindus because they were not national partners and the political sensitivity of criticizing them was much less than the sensitivity of criticizing the Hindus. The Indian translators followed two strategies to maintain pluralism. First, they distinguished between a religion and its followers believing that modern followers of old religions were no longer following their guidance and light.47 That allowed them to show great respect to all other religions and claim that their truth is part of the complete truth of Islam. Besides, that allowed them greater 46
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Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 793, n. 46a. Stressing the same meaning, Muhammad Ali concluded in his comment on Q 5:48, “the Qurʾān is … the only Book which should be followed.” Yūsuf ʿAli too claimed that diversity “tests our capacity for Unity (waḥdānīyat) still more, and accentuates the need of Unity and Islam.” Abdul Karim Soroush, the Iranian thinker, makes a similar distinction between religion and understanding of religion. Whereas the former is sacred and free of contradiction, the latter is neither sacred nor free of fallacies. He uses this distinction to argue for a plurality of interpretations of sacred texts. See A. Soroush, The Expansion of Prophetic Experience: Essays on Historicity, Contingency and Plurality in Religion (Brill, 2009).
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freedom of expression as they were criticizing people’s understanding of their religion, and not the religion itself. Second, they included Muslims in their criticism, and so they set Muslims with other communities of faith as members of one humanity that needed reform. (B) Islam was distinguished, and its superiority over other religions was stressed. By focusing on differences and dissimilarities between Islam and other religions, the Indian translators distinguished themselves from adherents to other religions and claimed that Islam alone is the perfect religion. Historically speaking, it is the second attitude which gained prominence. Stress on religious differences rather than on similarities and unity led of course to the partition of India.48 1.5 Contemporary Views on Pluralism English Qurʾān translations produced in India and Pakistan around and after the partition time were more reluctant in their confirmation of pluralism and tolerance than earlier translations.49 Two clear examples are Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi and Maulana Abū al-Aʿlā Maudūdī (1903–1979).50 In 1941–1957, Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi, published his translation The Holy Qurʾan, English Translation. Daryabadi adopted a more traditionalist approach to Qurʾān interpretation. He translated 3:19 into “Surely the true faith with Allah is Islam.” In his notes, he confirmed that “No religion is acceptable with God save Islam, which consists in acknowledging the Unity and Soleness of God
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However, Bangladesh which had a majority of Muslims like Pakistan also preferred partition. Among these translations are two Qadiani Ahmadi translations. The first was published in 1936 by Maulvi Sher Ali, and the second was published in 1970 by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan. Typical of Ahmadiyya, these two translations expressed strong attitudes toward pluralism, tolerance, and spiritual jihad. Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi was born in Daryabad, India. He is well known for his English translation of the Qurʾān as well as an extensive tafsīr of the Qurʾān in Urdu. Maulana Abū al-Aʿla Maudūdī (1903–1979) was a colonial Indian and Pakistani Islamist. He was a revivalist who wanted Muslims to go back to true Islam as he saw it. After the partition of Pakistan, he became more involved with politics as he supported making Pakistan an Islamic state and applying Shariʿa. Maudūdī was a prolific writer, but his most wellknown work is his 6-volume Tafhīm al-Qurʾān, which was written in Urdu and translated into English under the title Towards Understanding the Qurʾān. Sayyid Abul Aʾlā Maudūdī, Towards Understanding the Qurʾān, trans. Zafar Ishaq Ansari (London: The Islamic Foundation, 1988).
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and embracing the Code which Muhammad (peace be on him!) brought.”51 He also confirmed that the prophets that the Qurʾān does not mention (according to Q 4:164) were the minor prophets among the Children of Israel, and so they were not, as the Ahmadi translators claimed, sent to any other old religion such as Hinduism.52 Again he asserted that Muslims are the best community ever according to Q 3:110, and they were sent to mankind to benefit humanity with their “precept and practice.”53 These views failed to find a common ground between Islam and other religions as the early translations did. Maulana Abū al-Aʿlā Maudūdī was even more dogmatic. In his interpretation of Q 3:110, he asserted that “The followers of the Holy Prophet are being reminded that they have been appointed to the leadership of the world from which the children of Israel had been deposed on account of their incompetence. The Muslims have been appointed to that office because they possess those moral qualities which are essential for just leadership.”54 The Muslims that Maudūdī referred to were those who applied “true” Islam as he saw it. That Islam was a comprehensive system encompassing all aspects of human existence. Thus, he translated Q 3:19 into “Indeed, Islam is the only right way of life in the sight of Allah.” He confirmed that it is not simply Islam as a religion in the ordinary sense, but Islam as a whole way of life that is accepted by God. Such a view of religion as a dividing rather than unifying force was the exact opposite of what the early Indian translators of the Qurʾān argued for, and it hinted to a future when Pakistani religious minorities would struggle to live a normal life.55 Contrary to these views, Muhammad Shahrur (1938–2019), the Syrian thinker and Islamic scholar, believed that Islam was an important stage in the history of the development of humanity. He compared between pre- and postIslam communities using the two terms: “ṯaqāfat al-qarya” (the culture of the village) and “ṯaqāfat al-madīna” (the culture of the city). According to Shahrur, the Prophet Muhammad ended “the culture of the village” that is characterized by one community of faith or one ethnic group living together and replaced it
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Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi, Tafsir-Ul-Qurʾan: Transation and Commentary of the Holy Qurʾan, 1 ed., vol. 1 (Pakistan: Darul Ishaat, 1991), 211. Daryabadi, Tafsir-Ul-Qurʾan: Transation and Commentary of the Holy Qurʾan, 1, 398, n. 65. Daryabadi, Tafsir-Ul-Qurʾan: Transation and Commentary of the Holy Qurʾan, 1, 255, n. 76. Sayyid Abul Aʿlā Maudūdī, Tafhīm al-Qurʾān: The Meaning of the Qurʾan. See Maria-Magdalena Fuchs and Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, “Religious Minorities in Pakistan: Identities, Citizenship and Social Belonging,” Journal of South Asian Studies 43, no. 1 (2020).
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with “the culture of the city” where people of different religions and different ethnicities form one community. After Muhammad immigrated to Medina, he had “Mīṯāq al-Madīna” (Constitution of Medina) drawn up in order to end the bitter tribal wars of Medina and ensure that the competing groups could coexist. The constitution stressed two key features of the emerging society: freedom of religion for all the parties involved whether Muslims, Jews, or pagans and equal duties and rights for all of them. According to Shahrur, there is only one place left to remind us of “the culture of the village.” That is, the ḥaram of Mecca (the consecrated space around the Kaaba), which is the only place that could be termed “qarya” (i.e., village in the cultural sense he explained). Uniformity is the main feature of that space: only Muslims are allowed there, they dress similarly, and they move in the same direction around the Kaaba. It is properly called “umm al-qura” (the mother of villages) in the Qurʾān (Q 6:92) not only to stress its uniqueness, but also to remind Muslims how the rest of the world should look like, i.e., pluralist, and diverse.56 Pluralism remains a crucial point of contention among Muslims to this day. What makes the early Indian translations of the Qurʾān relevant to this discussion is that (a) they offered a consistent view of pluralism based upon the different verses of the Qurʾān and (b) they offered this view as an inseparable element from their translations, which is a double sword. On the one hand, it is compelling and convincing, but on the other hand, it requires a highly critical reader to understand that each translation is one among many readings of a text that always requires a human interpreter. This not only applies to pluralism, but also to other concepts such as jihad, which I discuss in the next section.
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Peaceful Jihad
Probably no other words created more misconceptions in Islam than jihad, and the translation of the word by the early European and Indian translators show how that word was the area of great contention in the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries. As John Esposito says, “The history of the Muslim community from Muhammad to the present can be read within the framework of what the Quran teaches about jihad.”57 The study of the trans56 57
Muhammad Shahrur, Al-Dawla wa al-Muǧtamaʿ: Halāk al-Qurā wa Izdihār al-Mudun (Dar al-Saqi, 2018). John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 27.
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lation of jihad verses is important not only because it is a study of what the Qurʾān teaches about jihad, but also how different translators from different backgrounds interpret jihad in the Qurʾān. To start with, both medieval and modern commentators on the Qurʾān also differed among themselves as to the significance of the word. Ibn Kaṯīr, for instance, took the main significance of the word to mean fighting. Some modern commentators of the Qurʾān also agreed that jihad basically means fighting.58 Al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀšūr (1879– 1973), for example, explained that “jihad” is derived from “jāhada,” a verb form which signifies mutual action, or doing the action to somebody else. Since people fight together and against one another, as he clarified, and since they exert maximum effort in fighting, the significance of “jihad” is “fighting.”59 This is the meaning all the early European translators agreed upon. They translated “jihad” in Q 2:218 into “fight for the faith” (Ross), “fight in the cause of God” (Rodwell), “wage war in God’s way” (Palmer), and “fight in God’s cause” (Sale) (my emphasis). Palmer also defined jihad as a “general war of extermination against the infidels,” and even in its softer version, jihad was “to threaten or preach which is a favourite diplomatic weapon with Mohammedan nations.”60 The Indian translators and some medieval and modern Qurʾān commentators would disagree. Qurṭubī prioritized the original significance of the root of the word “jihad,” which is derived from “jāhada,” i.e., “to exert maximum effort.”61 Similarly, the Egyptian reformist Muhammad Abduh stated that “jihad” is derived from “jahd,” “and it is hardship and is not specific to fighting” (wa-huwa al-mašaqqa wa-laisa ḫāṣṣ bi-al-qitāl).62 Maulana Muhammad Ali quoted Edward William Lane who defined “jihad” as “using one’s utmost power in contending with an object of disapprobation.” In his comment on Q 9:73, “O Prophet, jāhid against the disbelievers and the hypocrites,” Muhammad Ali explained that the only significance of the word “jāhid” in the verse is to preach forcibly to both the disbelievers and the hypocrites. It cannot signify war since war “was never proclaimed against the hypocrites, who, in fact, were for all practical purposes treated as Muslims.”63 The Indian translators’ attitude to jihad is clear from their translation of Q 2:218. For example, Hairat translated
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Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 893. Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀšūr, Al-Taḥrīr wa al-Tanwīr, vol. 2 (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya lilNašr, 1984), 337. E.H. Palmer, The Qurʾân (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880), 32, n. 2. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 3, 432. Muhammad Abduh, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Ḥakīm, 2 ed. (Cairo: Dār al-Manār, 1947), 320. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 1109, n. 9a.
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“jāhadū” into “exert themselves in God’s path.”64 Yūsuf ʿAli tried to outline all aspects of jihad. He translated Q 2:218 into: “fought (and strove and struggled).” In a similar verse, Q 9:20, he translated it into “strive,” and added in a note, Here is a good description of Jihād. It may require fighting in God’s cause as a form of self-sacrifice. But its essence consists in (1) a true and sincere Faith which so fixes its gaze on God, that all selfish or worldly motives seem paltry and fade away, and (2) an earnest and ceaseless activity, involving the sacrifice (if need be) of life, person, or property in the service of God. Mere brutal fighting is opposed to the whole spirit of Jihad while the sincere scholar’s pen or preacher’s voice or wealthy man’s contributions may be the most valuable forms of Jihād.65 Noteworthy, Yūsuf ʿAli’s definition of jihad was influenced by the cultural context of India. Indian Muslims, at Yūsuf ʿAli’s time, benefitted most from their pens, voices, and financial contributions to their missionary activities in India and Europe. Similarly, Muhammad Ali defined “jihad” as “every exertion to spread the Truth.” He added that “fighting” is called “jihad” because it is sometimes imperative so that the Truth may live and prosper.66 For the early Indian translators, presenting an accurate image of Islam to the English-speaking people was their greater jihad, and it defined their merits as pious Muslims.67 2.1 Abrogation Theory to Downplay Peace The Indian translators did not believe that the war verses abrogated the peaceful ones. In his comment on Q 2:190 (“Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits”), Yūsuf ʿAli stressed that the only war permissible in Islam is self-defense, and it terminates as soon as it repels danger, restores peace, and insures freedom of worship. According to the verse, there are also limits that should not be transgressed. Those limits were interpreted in two different ways. According to Yūsuf ʿAli, these limits are the killing of women, children, and old men, cutting down of trees and crops and more importantly withholding of peace when the enemy comes to terms. This interpretation finds
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Similarly, Khan translated it into “struggle hard in the way of God,” Abuʾl-Fadl into “Strive in the Way of God,” and Sarwar into “Struggle Hard in God’s Way.” ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 444, n. 1270. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 725, n. 52a. See Paul Heck, who believes that jihad is defined variously in the history of Islam depending on the social and political circumstances; Paul L. Heck, “Jihad revisited,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 32, no. 1 (2004): 98.
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support in medieval commentaries such as Qurṭubī and Baiḍāwī, who favored an interpretation which prohibited Muslims from fighting the noncombatant idolaters or attacking the enemy first.68 This interpretation was adopted by Rodwell and Sale, who both employed addition to clarify the meaning. Sale translated the verse into “And fight for the religion of god against those who fight against you, but transgress not by attacking them first.” This translation is distinctive from Rodwell’s in two aspects.69 First, Sale creditably italicized his addition to make it easily identifiable, which Rodwell did not. Second, Sale translated “fī sabīl Allah” into “for the religion of God,” which may limit the scope of war and give the impression that the purpose of war in Islam is to propagate religion. Sale’s translation followed the opinion of the majority of commentators. It was also the viewpoint adopted in al-Azhar’s translation al-Montakhab. AlMontakhab paraphrased the verse as follows: “If they transgress against you fight the transgressors, but do not transgress by starting to fight them or killing those who are not fighting or have no decision in fighting, because Allah does not like the transgressors.” Sale’s translation, then, did not deviate from the acceptable interpretations. On the contrary, it did probably more justice to the Qurʾān than al-Hilālī and Khan, who imposed a Wahhabi reading on the verse by inserting a highly pedagogical addition: “And fight in the Way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors. [this Verse is the first one that was revealed in connection with Jihad, but it was supplemented by another (9:36)].”70 Besides the bracketed addition, which confirmed that a bellicose verse abrogated a tolerant one, al-Hilālī and Khan emphasized their understanding of the purpose of war in Islam in their footnote: Al-Jihād (holy fighting) in Allah’s Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihād Islam is established, Allah’s Word is made superior … and His Religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning
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Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 3, 237–241. al-Baiḍāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl, 1, 127. Rodwell translated the verse as follows: “And fight for the cause of God against those who fight against you, but commit not the injustice of attacking them first.” This reading is problematic for modernists because it means that Q 2:190 was abrogated by Q 9:36, which commands Muslims to fight all idolaters, whether combatant or noncombatant. Such a reading is supported by some medieval commentators such as al-Ṭabarī. See Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 3, 296.
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Jihad (May Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honour is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfill this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite.71 More confusing still is al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation of Q 2:216. Whereas all early European and Indian translators, as well as al-Montakhab of al-Azhar, translated “al-qitāl” into either “war” or “fighting,” al-Hilālī and Khan translated it into “jihad:” “Jihad (holy fighting in Allah’s cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it.” By adding their parenthetical definition of jihad, they imposed the Christian concept of holy war on the Qurʾān. However, “In Islam,” as Khaled Abou El Fadl asserts, “no one, not even the caliph or a high-ranking jurist, had the formidable power of guaranteeing redemption or rendering a military campaign holy or divine.” Jihad for modernists like Abou El Fadl, as it was for the early Indian translators, “simply meant to strive hard or struggle in pursuit of a just cause.”72 2.2 Ethics of War For the Indian translators, the morality of going to war is clear-cut in Islam. For example, war for Khan is an active step in “measures of self-preservation.”73 It is normal and natural like any other measure taken to preserve humanity. Just like sanitation and treatment, which may lead to death if neglected, war is sometimes necessary since enemies may cause great destruction if not opposed.74 By comparing war to retaliation and sanitation, Khan clearly saw war as a reaction and a remedy to an undesirable situation. Similarly, Muhammad Ali stated that 71
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Muhammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, The Noble Qurʾan: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary (Madinah: King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qurʾan, 1983), 39. Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (New York: Harper, 2005), 222. Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 69. Khan quoted three verses from the Qurʾān to show how measures like war, retaliation and sanitation are necessary to preserve human life. He quoted Q 2:251, “And if God had not repulsed men, the one by the other, the earth would have been corrupted,” Q 2:178 “And there is a life for you in the law of retaliation,” and Q 2:222 “Verily God Loveth Those Who Are Very Repentant and Cleanly.” Furthermore, by seeing war as a measure for selfpreservation and by comparing war to sanitation and retaliation, Khan stressed unity of humanity. Just as man can engage in self-destruction by ignoring hygiene and cleanliness, humanity can destroy itself by misunderstanding the purpose of war.
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Q 22:39 (“Permission is given to those on whom war is made because they are oppressed”) indicates clearly that the purpose of war in Islam is to terminate oppression. To reach an interpretation that highlights the true purpose of war in Islam, the Indian translators stressed the causes of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl) in their reading of Q 4:75–76.75 Both Khan and Muhammad Ali confirmed that the verses deal with the pagans of Mecca. After hiǧra (migration to Madinah), poor and weak Muslims who were left behind in Mecca—either because they could not afford the trip or because they were slaves—suffered extreme oppression. Women and children, let alone men, were harshly persecuted. Muslims were urged to fight in order to relieve the weak Muslims from their trouble and terminate oppression. Furthermore, in Q 4:75 fighting in the cause of God is described as fighting in the cause of the oppressed: “And why should you not fight in the cause of God and of al-mustaḍʿafīn (the oppressed).” According to Baiḍāwī, there are two grammatical analyses of “al-mustaḍʿafīn:” (a) it is a genitive connected with the previous genitive noun “Allah” by the conjunction “and,” and so the meaning is “fight in the cause of God and in the cause of the oppressed;” or (b) it is an accusative in a specification phrase (iḫtiṣāṣ), which can be explained by the ellipsis “I specify,” that is, “fight in the cause of God, of which I specify the cause of the oppressed.” Accordingly, fighting in the cause of the oppressed is either equal to fighting in the cause of God or one of its paths. In both cases, it is a just war. As Yūsuf ʿAli said, “the cause of God is the cause of justice, the cause of the oppressed.”76 That meaning of fighting for the cause of God and for the cause of the oppressed is well expressed in the footnotes of Sale, Khan, Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli. However, when it comes to translation itself, only a few of the European and Indian translators managed to represent Baiḍāwī’s grammatical analyses.77
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Muhammad Ali translated the two verses as follows: “And what reason have you not to fight in the way of Allah, and of the weak among the men and the women and the children, who say: Our Lord take us out of this town, whose people are oppressors, and grant us from Thee a friend, and grant us from Thee a helper! Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the devil. So fight against the friends of the devil; surely the struggle of the devil is ever weak.” ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 202, n. 593. Khan, for instance, translated the verse into: “And what aileth you that ye fight not in the way of God and for the poor oppressed men.” Lacking parallelism, the translation implies two separate paths that may intersect: fighting for the cause of God and fighting for the oppressed. This also applies to Rodwell, Palmer, Hairat, and Abuʾl-Fadl. Although the meaning of these translations is still appropriate, they fail to highlight the relation-
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The morality of going to war is further emphasized in Q 4:76 in which fighting for the cause of God is contrasted with fighting for the cause of ṭāġūt.78 Ṭabarī gave various definitions of the word “ṭāġūt.” It may mean the Devil, the enchanter, or religious leaders who claim to have divine powers. Ibn Kaṯīr added another definition indicating that the word means “whatever is worshipped instead of God,” which of course covers the Meccan idols as al-Murtaḍa al-Zubaidī (1732–1790) clarified in his dictionary Tāǧ al-ʿArūs.79 In his wellknown dictionary Al-Mufradāt fī Ġarīb al-Qurʾān, al-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī provided a generic significance of “ṭāġūt” as any transgressor since it is derived from the verb ṭaġā which means “to go beyond the bounds or transgress the limits.”80 Elsaid Badawi and Muhammad Abdel Haleem summarized all these meanings into two generic definitions: (a) false deities, and (b) evil powers.81 Due to its wide range of meanings, Sale preferred to transliterate “ṭāġūt:” “They who believe fight for the religion of god; but they who believe not fight for the religion of taghut” (Q 4:76). According to Sale, the “word properly
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ship between fighting for the cause of God and for the cause of the oppressed. That link between the cause of God and the cause of the oppressed is further lost in Sale’s translation since “fī sabīl Allah” is rendered into “for god’s true religion:” “And what ails you, that ye fight not for god’s true religion, and in defence of the weak.” Ross, Muhammad Ali, Sarwar and Yūsuf ʿAli produced more optimal translations. Sarwar adopted the second grammatical analysis of Baiḍāwī. He translated the verse into “And why should you not fight in god’s way? Whilst the weak amongst men, And women, And children Are saying—‘Our Lord Bring us out of this city.’” By using the conjunction “whilst,” Sarwar implied that fighting for the oppressed is one category of fighting in the path of God. The other three translators created two parallel phrases, which reflected Baiḍāwī’s opinion that “al-mustaḍʿafīn” is in the genitive case. As an example, Yūsuf ʿAli translated the verse into “And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and [in the cause] of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?” Ross translated the verse into “Wherefore fight you not for the Law of God? for the liberty of women and children, weak and afflicted, that cry, Lord delivers us out of this place; the people thereof are unjust, give us a protector, give us an assured refuge.” Muhammad Ali translated the verse into “And what reason have you not to fight in the way of Allah, and of the weak among the men and the women and the children, who say: Our Lord take us out of this town, whose people are oppressors, and grant us from Thee a friend, and grant us from Thee a helper!” By adopting such grammatical analyses, the Indian translators expressed their views that war in Islam is a just war. According to Arthur Jeffery, “ṭāġūt” is a loan word, probably from Abyssinian origin as alSuyūṭī confirmed, or some form of Aramaic that probably meant “idol.” See Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān (Baroda, India: Oriental Institute, 1938), 202–203. Quoted in Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon. Abul-Qāsim Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī, Al-Mufradāt fī Ġarīb al-Qurʾān (Nazzār Muṣṭafa al-Bāz, n.d.), 379. Elsaid M. Badawi and Muhammad Abdel Haleem, Arabic-English Dictionary of Qurʾanic Usage (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
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signifies an idol, or whatever is worshipped besides god; particularly the two idols of the Meccans, Allāt and al-ʿUzza; and also the devil, or any seducer.”82 By giving priority in the definition of “ṭāġūt” to the Meccans’ idols, and translating “fī sabīl Allah” into “for the religion of God,” Sale limited fighting in Islam to religious wars. Any universal message derived from this reading, whether based upon the context of revelation or not, would depict Islam as a violent religion since it gives Muslims the right of fighting against any non-Muslim. Although both Rodwell and Palmer transliterated “ṭāġūt” and defined it mainly as an idol, their translations are less violent than Sale’s because they translated “fī sabīl Allah” into “on the path of God,” and “in the way of God” respectively, which allow more tolerant readings. This applies to Hairat and AbuʾlFadl who also transliterated “ṭāġūt.” Ross, Khan, and Muhammad Ali translated “ṭāġūt” into “devil.” Yūsuf ʿAli chose a more generic meaning of “ṭāġūt” as he translated it into “evil,” whereas Sarwar selected the original significance of the word and translated it into “transgressor.” These various translations, whether “devil,” “evil,” or “transgressor,” imply that there are two categories of war in Islam: just war for the cause of God and unjust war for the cause of evil. Within this framework, Yūsuf ʿAli understood Q 47:35: “Be not weary and faint-hearted, crying for peace.” The question, as he believed, “is not of peace or conflict, but of whether Good or Evil is to prevail.” The termination of oppression is, therefore, the purpose of both peace and war. They are two faces of the same coin. But even so, if the enemy inclines to peace, Muslims should accept it as Q 8:61 commands. Not only that, but even in the case that peace is just a cover for deception, it is to be accepted as Muhammad Ali explained Q 8:62. Furthermore, Muslims are told that the reason why they should be well-prepared and well-equipped for war is that “the enemy should by their preparedness assume a peaceful attitude.”83 War and preparedness to war are mere means to the goal, i.e., peace and cessation of oppression. 2.3 Context-Based Explanation of the Verses of War The early Indian translators argued that the verses of war should be interpreted based on the cause of revelation. For example, verses such as Q 9:29, “Fight … the People of the Book,” and 5:51, “Take not the Jews and Christians for allies” discuss Muslim relations with the Jews and Christians during war. Let us look at one example to see how the European translators rendered the
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Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, 31. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 390, n. 60a.
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verse and how the Indian translators focused on details of the context of revelation to argue that verses of war are not applicable to all times and circumstances. Rodwell translated Q 9:5 into “And when sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them, and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush, but if they shall convert (the original word was “tābū,” literally repent), and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for God is Gracious, Merciful.” Although the translation of “tābū” (repent) into “convert” confirms the opinion of the majority of Medieval commentators, it is not an accurate translation.84 “Convert” implies that the main reason for fighting was conversion, whereas “repent” allows various interpretations including repent of disbelief as well as repent of breaching treaties and engaging in war against the Muslims. Sale translated “tābū” into “repent,” but he highlighted in his notes the violent nature of the verse and the attitude change of the Prophet Muhammad after he gained power: Some understand this sentence of the immunity or security therein granted to the infidels, for the space of four months; but others think that the words properly signify, that Mohammed is here declared by god, to be absolutely free and discharged from all truce or league with them, after the expiration of that time; and this last seems to be the truest interpretation. Mohammed’s thus renouncing all league with those who would not receive him as the apostle of god, or submit to become tributary, was the consequence of the great power to which he was now arrived. But the pretext he made use of, was the treachery he had met with among the Jewish and idolatrous Arabs (original emphasis).85 In contrast with Sale’s view, the Indian translators took Q 9:4–6 as concerned with a particular context of revelation and as an example of ethics of war in Islam. They drew attention to three points that are related to the context of revelation. First, the reference in the verse is not to “all idolaters or polytheists wherever they may be found in the world, not even all idolaters of Arabia, but only those idolatrous tribes of Arabia assembled at the pilgrimage who had first made agreements with the Muslims and then violated them.”86 Second, 84 85 86
Only Ross and Rodwell translated “tābū” into “convert.” Yūsuf ʿAli translated it into “turn (to God),” whereas all other translators used “repent.” Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, 149. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 398, n. 5a.
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the verse confirms that Muslims needed to wait for the grace period of four months and only start retaliation if the other party showed no signs of desisting from their aggression against them. Thirdly, the measures Muslims were urged to take such as killing and besieging describe a state of war, because “it is in war only that all these things are made lawful.”87 When war starts as Yūsuf ʿAli explained, “it must be prosecuted with vigour,” and that it cannot be handled with “kids’ gloves.”88 At the same time, Muslims had to deal with three cases: those who would continue fighting and had to be killed or taken as prisoners of war, those who would convert and become Muslims, and those who would stop fighting but would not convert to Islam. As far as the third case is concerned, Yūsuf ʿAli explained, Full asylum is to be given to them and opportunities provided for hearing the Word of God. If they accept the Word of God, they become Muslims and brethren and no further question arises. If they do not see their way to accept Islam, they will require double protection: (1) from the Islamic forces openly fighting against their people and (2) from their own people as they detached themselves from them. Both kinds of protection should be ensured for them and they should be safely escorted to a place where they can be safe. Such persons only err through ignorance, and there may be much good in them.89 The Indian translators also emphasized the distinction between two cases: those who breached their treaties with Muslims and those who respected them. The exception in Q 9:4, “Except those of the idolaters with whom you made an agreement, then they have not failed you in anything …” makes it clear, according to Muhammad Ali, that the Muslims were fighting on account of the breach of their agreement.90 Khan emphasized the same meaning in his comment when he listed all the battles of the Prophet, clarifying their causes and how many of them were the result of breaching treaties with the Muslims.91 Furthermore, Yūsuf ʿAli highlighted that fulfilling all the obligations of a treaty is a pivotal feature of Muslim ethics. He said, “The question what is to be done with
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Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 398, n. 5b. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 439, n. 1251. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 440, n. 1253. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 398, n. 4a. Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 302 and 460–466.
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those who abuse this principle by failing in their duty but expect the Muslims to do their part is not to be solved (in the case of treaties) by a general denunciation of treaties but by a careful consideration of the cases where there has been fidelity and not treachery. There we are enjoined to give the strictest fidelity as it is a part of righteousness and our duty to God.”92 2.4 The Broad Applicability of Verses of Peace Contrary to verses of war, the Indian translators read verses of peace as general principles, and not exclusive to a particular context of revelation. That is how they read Q 2:256: “there is no compulsion in religion.” According to Sale, Q 2:256 is applicable only to a certain occasion: “This passage was particularly directed to some Muhammad’s first proselytes, who having sons that had been brought up in idolatry or Judaism, would oblige them to embrace Mohammadism by force.”93 Medieval commentators mentioned variations of that narrative among asbāb al-nuzūl (causes of revelation). Ṭabarī summarized those stories into two major plots: some of al-anṣār (the helpers) made their sons accept Judaism or Christianity before the emergence of Islam. Accepting Islam later, those people wanted to force their sons to leave Judaism or Christianity and accept Islam, and so the verse discouraged them from forced conversion. The second plot is of a man of al-anṣār who had two sons. The two sons accepted Christianity and left Medina for Syria. The man wanted to force them to convert to Islam and bring them back to Medina. Consulting with the Prophet, the man was told to leave them alone as there was no compulsion in religion.94 Some commentators believe that Q 2:256 was abrogated by Q 9:73 that allows Muslims to fight the People of the Book. This supports Rodwell’s view that “This verse must have been revealed before Muhammad felt himself secure in his new position at Medina.”95 However, Ṭabarī favored the opinion that Q 9:73 generally guides Muslims not to fight the Jews or Christians as far as they pay the ǧizya (yearly taxation).96 Ibn Kaṯīr believed that Q 2:256 has a wider applicability to all cases of conversion to Islam.97 This is the opinion adopted by Khan. As he stated, “This passage was directed to the early believers in Muhammad, who compelled their sons to profess Islam. They being brought up in idolatry did
92 93 94 95 96 97
ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 439, n. 1249. Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, 31. Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 4, 546–555. Rodwell, The Koran translated from the Arabic by the Rev. J.M. Rodwell, 367, note 1. Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 4, 552. Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 893.
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not easily accept the standing truths of Islam and some force was exerted by their parents to convert them, until this passage prohibited all compulsion.”98 Muhammad Ali’s comment on Q 2:256 is distinct from early commentaries. Rather than considering the various reports on the cause of revelation, he resorted to the contextualization of this verse within Chapter Two. In more than one place in that chapter, Muslims are warned that they must undergo hard trials to establish Truth, but at the same time, they are promised future success. This verse deals with the future of Muslims: “Being assured of success, the Muslims are told that when they hold the power in their hand, their guiding principle should be that there should be no compulsion in the matter of religion.”99 This contradicts with the interpretation adopted by Rodwell who believed the verse was revealed to Muhammad when he was weak and was abrogated later when he had power. To stress his view, Muhammad Ali added, “The presumption that this passage was directed to the early converts and that it was abrogated later on is utterly baseless.” Yūsuf ʿAli’s comment is also distinctive since it is less scholarly but more spiritual and pedagogical. He did not address any earlier interpretations, and instead tried to provide a rationalist understanding of the verse by explaining why there should be no compulsion in religion. First, as he explained, it is meaningless to convert people by force since religion is a matter of faith and will. Second, if anyone has real intention to explore Truth, he will be able to do so as God is so merciful that he makes fundamentals of faith clear enough to remove any doubt. Third, God is so kind and protective that He continuously leads people from darkness to light. Noticeably, Yūsuf ʿAli did not mention Islam in his comment, and what he said could apply to any religion, which highlights his spirituality and his universal idea about religion. In short, English-speaking Muslims of India, particularly the translators of the Qurʾān, considered presenting the accurate image of Islam their greater jihad. However, they did not deny that fighting is one type of jihad, or as the Prophet calls it in a Hadith, the lesser jihad. The morality of going to war, for them, was crystal clear. The only permissible war in Islam is a defensive war, and its purpose is to terminate oppression. Even though war is hateful and evil, Muslims are urged to fight with courage and force to maintain justice. To support their views, the Indian translators interpreted verses of war based on the
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Khan’s comment is much influenced by Sale’s. His narrative also is less accurate than Sale’s since he took the reference to be the early Arab pagans and not the Jews or Christians as medieval sources indicated. Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 92. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 116.
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causes of revelation, and so any general principle derived from them should consider the initial socio-political circumstances. In contrast, verses of peace are always general and applicable, and they were never abrogated by verses of war. Yūsuf ʿAli summarized those opinions when he said, Islam is the religion of peace, goodwill, mutual understanding and good faith. But it will not acquiesce in wrong doing and its men will hold their lives cheap in defence of honour, justice and the religion which they hold sacred. Their ideal is that of heroic virtue combined with unselfish gentleness and tenderness such as is exemplified in the life of the Apostle. They believe in courage, obedience, discipline, duty and a constant striving by all the means in their power, physical, moral, intellectual and spiritual for the establishment of truth and righteousness. They know that war is an evil, but they will not flinch from it if their honour demands.100 2.5 Jihad in the Twenty-First Century Key political changes in the modern Middle East contributed to a change in the views of jihad. The establishment of Israel, the “Setback” of the 1967 IsraeliArab war, and the rise of dictatorship in the modern Muslim countries contributed to the emergence of Islamist movements that believe in violence. Sayyid Quṭb (1906–1966), an Egyptian writer, Islamic theorist, and a leading member of Muslim Brotherhood, re-introduced the concepts of dār al-Islām (abode of Islam) and dār al-ḥarb (abode of war). He was convinced after the brutality he faced in the Egyptian prison under Gamal Abdel Naser’s regime that Egypt, like many other modern Muslim societies, had fallen back to a state of ǧāhilīya (lit. ignorance) as it was no longer following true Islam. For him, dār al-Islām is where Islam was established, and Shariʿa was the authority. Any other place was in a state of ǧāhilīya and could be the target of jihad. Shukri Mustafa (1942–1978), who suffered a similar fate as Sayyid Quṭb, founded Jamāʿat al-Muslimīn, known as al-takfīr wa-al-hiǧra (excommunication and emigration) in Egypt in 1971. He adopted Quṭb’s concept of ǧāhilīya and employed violence to change the status quo. In July 1977, the group kidnapped Husain al-Dhahabī (1915–1977), former minister of Religious Affairs, who was a harsh critic of Islamic extremists in general and Jamāʿat al-Muslim̄ īn in particular. The group demanded the release of their imprisoned members in exchange for al-Dhahabī, and upon lack of response from the government, they executed al-Dhahabī. After the execution of Husain al-Dhahabī, the Egyp-
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ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 76, n. 205.
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tian President Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat followed severe measures against the group including the execution of Shukri Mustafa in 1978. Mustafa’s death did not end the problem and more extremist groups linked to former members of Jamāʿat al-Muslimīn started to emerge. Among the former members of the group are Aboud al-Zomor (1948–), the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who was linked to the assassination of President Sadat in 1981, and Ayman alZawahiri, who became the second man of al-Qaeda. In his book The Terrorist in Search of Humanity, Faisal Devji challenges the stereotypes of terrorists. He compares terrorist groups to more benevolent groups as they both call in humanity in their search for agency and equality. Ghandi and Bin Laden, opposed as they might be, argues Devji, “address themselves to the same problem, that of calling humanity into being through sacrifice.”101 Devji argues that with the emergence of a global society, and lack of political institutions proper for that global society, institutional vacuum helps Al-Qaeda to achieve meaning. Since calling religion into being may only buy Muslims in, Al-Qaeda yields to humanity, and by so-doing it tries to create bonds with people of the world. Thus, the world is invited to identify with Muslim suffering, and stand up for humanity. However, later development of groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (isel) or Boko Haram in Nigeria and their genocide crimes, destruction of cultural heritage sites, and videos of beheadings made it clear that terrorism is a war against humanity and is the complete negation of jihad. Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926–2022), the Egyptian Islamic scholar, who was among the most influential Muslim thinkers living today, believed that the only war permissible in Islam today was the defensive war.102 Although Islamic scholars have always described two types of jihad, i.e., defensive jihad ( jihād al-dafʿ) and offensive jihad ( jihād al-ṭalab), offensive jihad, launched to propagate Islam, is no longer valid since modern technology facilitates communication and makes knowledge about Islam accessible without the need to launch wars. Different ideas from those prevailed the medieval period are necessary, then, for Muslims to cope with the modern age. This is what the Syrian thinker and Islamic scholar, Jawdat Said (1931–2022) meant by the metaphor of “rebirth from the womb of tradition.”103
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Faisal Devji, The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics (Hurst, 2008), 22. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, “Islamic Jihad,” (YouTube Video, February 5, 2015). https://www.youtu be.com/watch?v=Ms_cSyJC_Lk. Jawdat Said, Madhhab Ibn Ādam al-Awwal: Mushkilāt al-ʿUnf fī al-ʿAmal al-Islāmī (Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, 1993). The book was translated into English under the title The Way
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Contrary to the majority of Muslim thinkers who believe that Islam allows defensive war, Jawdat Said does not believe in violence even when it is used to protect oneself. In his book, Maḏhab ibn Ādam al-Awwal: Muškilat al-ʿUnf fī alʿAmal al-Islāmī (The Way of Adam’s Upright Son: The Problem of Violence in the Islamic work), Said argues that Muslims need to adopt the approach of the first son of Adam who refused to fight his brother. They need to come out of the womb of their tradition with new ideas that are suitable for the age of technology and science. Violence regardless of its cause or purpose complicates rather than helps solve any problem, particularly after the huge progress that humanity has achieved. Said uses the term “ḫawāriǧ jihad” to describe any use of violence to achieve political goals. In contrast to ḫawāriǧ or illegitimate jihad, legitimate jihad is well-defined and very limited in scope. It applies to the use of violence to stop forced conversion if peaceful means fail to do so. Even in the case of suffering under a dictatorship, violence is not allowed as a tool to change the status quo and should be replaced with other forms of opposition such as passive resistance. Jawdat Said is influenced by the well-known Indian poet and thinker Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), who adopted the concept of peaceful jihad that was prevailing among the elite Indians of his time. Said is also influenced by the Algerian thinker Malik Bennabi (1905–1973) who believed that the defeat of Egypt in the 1967 war was to be reversed not by renewing weaponry but by renewing Muslims’ ideas and worldviews. Although the early Indian translations of the Qurʾān were produced far earlier than any signs of the emergence of the late twentieth century terrorist groups in the Middle East, they offered a comprehensive reading of the verses of jihad in the Qurʾān. They distinguished between context-free and contextbound readings of war and peace verses. That allowed a reading of war that is only valid in a particular context, whereas the verses of peace are general and widely applicable. Read together, these verses define the Muslim morality of going to war as well as the moral way of conducting a war. Not only are these views valid nowadays but are crucial to our understanding of terrorism and its alleged reading of the Qurʾān. of Adam’s Upright Son: The Problem of Violence in the Islamic work. Available on-line at https://jawdatsaid.net/images/d/d2/The_Way_of_Adams_Upright_Son.pdf
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Modernism, Traditionalism, and the Social Function of Qurʾān Translation In response to the European criticisms of Islam, the Indian Qurʾān translators attempt to offer a defense of the Qurʾān in five major areas. These are pluralism, jihad, rationality, science, and women. We have seen in Chapter Six that the Indian translators presented the Qurʾān as a pluralist text and highlighted the peaceful meaning of “jihad.” This chapter focuses on responses to criticisms of irrationality, incompatibility with modern science and biases against women. Accusations of irrationality received more attention than the position of Islam on modern science and women even though there are still clues to a dialogue between the Indian translators and the Western critics on these two topics. For example, the Indian translators argued that the Qurʾān is compatible with science, and Sarwar went as far as to claim that the principles of all modern sciences are in the Holy Book. However, the Indian translators did not try to produce scientific interpretations of the Qurʾān because they saw it as a book of guidance more than anything else.1 The interpretation of the verses of women also featured as a less noteworthy influence of modernity because the question of women was shielded, as a symbol of local culture, from the intervention of the colonizers. Irrationality was among the main concerns of Indian Muslims because they could not argue for the superiority of Islam and compete with the Christian and Hindu missionaries without showing the rationality of Islam.
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Palmer raised the following issues pertaining to the irrationality of the Qurʾān, Islam, and Muslims: Mohammed believed that he was sent as an apostle to both men and ginns, and Surah lxxii contains an allusion to a vision in which he beheld
1 Also, a possible reason is that access to the scientific knowledge among them was limited.
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a multitude of the ginns bowing in adoration and listening to the message which man had disdainfully refused. Witches and wizards were also believed to exist, that is, persons who had contrived to subject one or more of these supernatural powers by spells, of which the holy name was the most powerful. Two fallen angels, Hārut and Mārut, confined in a pit at Babylon, where they are hung by heels in chains until the judgment day, are always ready to instruct men in the magical art.2 These thoughts were prompted by misinformed readings of the Qurʾān as well as by popular beliefs and practices of some Muslims such as the Egyptian Bedouin among whom Palmer lived for a while in the Egyptian desert. Muslims of India were also criticized for similar beliefs and practices. These misconceptions influenced Qurʾān translation in two essential ways. On the one hand, they resulted in some significant errors in the European translations.3 On the other hand, they motivated a great deal of apologetics in the early Indian translations. The Indian translators not only rationalized earlier commentators’ passionate reports and accounts but also explained away many miracles as mere expressions of spiritual and metaphorical messages. As far as rationalist explanations of the Qurʾān, particularly the rationalization of miracles, is concerned, the early Indian translators can be arranged along a scale with Khan and Muhammad Ali at one end and Hairat and Yūsuf ʿAli at the other end. The two Ahmadi translators consistently explained away miracles as metaphors, whereas Hairat and Yūsuf ʿAli did not exclude supernatural intervention. Abuʾl-Fadl and Sarwar can be arranged between these two poles with Abuʾl-Fadl being closer to Yūsuf ʿAli, and Sarwar being closer to Khan and Muhammad Ali. All of them, however, were at least raising doubts about the literal readings of the Qurʾān. One example of rationalization is how they understood the word “al-šaiṭān” (the Devil) in Q 8:48. That verse describes the Battle of Badr, the first battle between the Muslims and the Meccans. According to medieval commentators, the Devil was present at the Battle of Badr, talked to the unbelievers, saw the angels fighting with the Muslims, and left the battle in frustration after he saw 2 Palmer, “Introduction,” xiv. 3 For example, in Q 7:184 the accusation of the unbelievers to the Prophet Muhammad that he was mad is understood by Sale as a reference to the popular belief of the possession of men by the jinn. The word that is used in the verse is “ǧinna,” which linguistically can refer to both “madness” and “the jinn.” Although medieval commentators including Baiḍāwī, who were the major source for the European translators, agreed that the word in the verse means “madness,” Sale translated the word as referring to demonic spirits possessing Muhammad. He translated the verse into “Do they not consider that there is no devil in their companion?”
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the Muslims prevailing. The Devil in that story took the form of a human body and appeared as Surāqa ibn Mālik, the leader of Banī Bakr of Banī Kināna. Surāqa went to the Quraysh and promised them the support of Banī Kināna, who were the enemies of the Quraysh. Having secured their homeland against the attack of Banī Kināna, the Quraysh went out to fight the Muslims with full confidence of victory. However, when the battle started, Surāqa, who was the Devil, left the battlefield as he saw Gabriel and the angels fighting with the Muslims. When he was reminded of his promise, he said, “I see what you see not.” When the Quraysh came back from the battlefield, they blamed their defeat on the real Surāqa, who was bewildered as he never marched with them to the battlefield. Medieval commentators such Ibn Kaṯīr took this narrative literally,4 and Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī considered it a miracle of the Prophet Muhammad although he did not exclude a symbolic reading of the verse.5 Alexander Ross implied a sense of revulsion or at least a criticism when he added in the margin next to his translation of Q 8:48: “The Turks believe that the Devil saw the Angels fight for Mahomet.” The Indian Muslim translators rejected that literal understanding of the narrative.6 They rationalized the whole story by depicting Surāqa as a devil-like figure, that is, he was not the Devil but a devil-like human being. Thus, Sarwar translated “al-šaiṭān” (the Devil) into “the evil-one,” and Abuʾl-Fadl translated it into “the devil” with a small letter. They took the report of the Battle of Badr as an authentic one, but Surāqa was the real person, not the Devil in Surāqa’s form. Surāqa, then, did not see the angels fighting with the Muslims, but as Khan says, “Just in the heat of the action they (Kināna) saw the Muhammadans miraculously prevailing and retired.”7 Or as Yūsuf ʿAli saw it, “It is the way with the leaders of evil when they find their cause lost that they wash their hands of their followers and leave them in the lurch.”8 This reading of the word “al-šaiṭān” (the Devil) to mean “an evil person” takes us to the reading of a similar word: “al-ǧinn” (Jinn).9 The reading of “jinn” 4 Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 847. 5 Abū ʿAbdullah Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusain ibn ʿAlī Al-Rāzī, Al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr wa Mafātīḥ al-Ġaib, 1st ed., 32 vols., vol. 15 (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1981), 180. 6 Sale mentioned two opinions in his comment on the verse: “Some understand this passage figuratively, of the private instigation of the devil, and of the defeating of his designs and the hopes with which he had inspired the idolators. But others take the whole literally.” 7 Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 295, n. c. 8 ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic text with an English translation and commentary, 427, n. 1217. 9 Khan, Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli explained the word similarly. Khan referred to St. Mark 5–10 and Matthew 8–30 which describe Jesus’ encounter with a man possessed by evil spirits. Second, Khan quoted both the Bible and the Qurʾān (Q 2:14 and 17:27) which describe wicked
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as “evil people” enabled the Indian translators to give a rationalist reading to many verses. One example is Q 72:1, “Say, ‘It has been revealed to me that a party of the jinn listened.’ Then they said, ‘Surely we have heard a wonderful Qurʾān.’”10 According to medieval commentators, the story goes back to the Prophet Muhammad’s visit to the tribes of Ṭāʾif to invite them to Islam. After the leaders of the Ṭāʾif tribes ignored the Prophet, the people of Ṭāʾif ordered their children to throw stones and rocks at the Prophet, who was badly wounded. Retiring to a wall to recuperate, the Prophet was comforted by the Angel Gabriel, who said to him if he wished, he would make the two mountains come together and crush the people of Ṭāʾif. In addition to Gabriel’s conversation with him, Muhammad was comforted by two more incidents: at least one person accepted Islam before he left Ṭāʾif,11 and on his way to Mecca a group of jinn listened to him and liked the Qurʾān. When Muhamad was on his way back to Mecca, he woke up for the early morning prayers, and a group of jinn from Naṣībīn listened to the Qurʾān. According to the report, before the mission of Muhammad, the jinn overheard the heavenly matters, but after the mission commenced, every time they tried to steal a hearing they were pursued by a burning flame. Thus, the Devil sent the jinn to find out the reason for the change. On their way, they heard the Prophet reading the Qurʾān, and they knew a new prophet was commissioned.
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people as jinn. Third, since the root of the word originally meant “to hide” or “conceal,” he mentioned people in Yemen who were good at veiling their faces and keeping themselves in privacy and were called jinn. Finally, he believed that in the tradition of the prophet, the word “jinn” was used to refer to various things such as a serpent, mucous, ass, a wicked chief, goats, and cows. Based on all that, he concluded that the word “jinn” refers to spiritual beings or savage people in comparison to civilized men. Yūsuf ʿAli reached the same conclusion: the word refers to “a spirit or an invisible or hidden force.” Muhammad Ali also defined jinn as evil spirits as in Q 18:50 and evil persons as in Q 6:130. A comparison of the three translators is interesting because it shows how their commentaries are generally comparable even though they differ in methodology. As for methodology, Khan quoted both the Bible and the Qurʾān abundantly to support his views. Muhammad Ali was the most scholarly who made efficient use of Western and Islamic resources. Yūsuf ʿAli was characterized by a highly elevated and spiritual style. He was the least scholarly among the three but the most powerful in style. See Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 254–255, n. a. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 319, n. 929. Sarwar’s translation While still in Ṭāʾif, the owners of the orchard near which Muhammad rested felt some sympathy to him and sent their slave, ʿAddās, with a tray of grapes. ʿAddās was a Christian and upon conversing briefly with Muhammad, he realized that he was a real prophet and accepted Islam.
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Khan modified that narrative so that it could appeal to the mind of the modern man. According to him, “Nasibin was a thickly populated city of the Jews called genii. They used to come to Suq Ugaz and wonder on hearing the Qurʾān.” Khan also quoted Q 46:29–30 which state that a group of jinn heard about a book sent down after Moses which was the Qurʾān, and he attributed both verses to the same Jews.12 In either case, the jinn were nothing more than people.13 Abuʾl-Fadl expressed a similar conviction by translating “nafar min alġinn” (literally, a group less than ten of the jinn) into “certain people of the Jinn.” Yūsuf ʿAli did not want to exclude either interpretation: “We may take these to be spirits ordinarily unseen, or people who were strangers in Arabia, but had in their own private way heard and believed in the Gospel of Islam.”14 Muhammad Ali took the jinn in Q 46:29–30 to be Jews, whereas the jinn in Q 72:1 were Christians. Along the same line of thought, many miracles were explained away by Khan, Muhammad Ali, and Sarwar. For some miracles, it is the deeper symbolic significance that is intended and not the literal sense; for others, they simply refer to geographical or historical facts. For example, Solomon’s jinn and birds are humans with special capacities, whereas the valley of ants on Solomon’s way to the battlefield is actually the name of a tribe.15 Moses’ rock and the twelve springs of water means simply to march to a source of water.16 The fire of
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Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 867, n. a. Muhammad Ali also distinguished between two issues: the existence of jinn on the one hand, and rationalist interpretations of verses like the one above on the other hand. He says, “The existence of jinn, or ethereal beings like the angels (the former being the spirits of evil and the latter the spirits of good), is a question quite distinct, but it is clear that the jinn spoken of here did not belong to this class … The jinn are also referred to in 46:29– 31, where they are made to say: “O our people, we have heard a Book revealed after Moses, verifying that which is before it.” This shows that they were Jews. The jinn spoken of here are evidently Christians, as v. 3 shows.” Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 1140, n. 1a. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 1625, n. 5728. Sarwar translated Q 27:17–18 as follows: And the armies of jinn (i.e., uncivilized people) and civilized people and birds were assembled for Solomon (to review), then they were paraded. Until they came upon the valley of the Naml (i.e., ants or the name of a tribe), said one of the Naml, “O ye Naml! Get into your dwellings (and) let not Solomon and his army crush you whilst they do not know.” According to Muhammad Ali, “The story that Moses carried a stone with him and that twelve springs flowed from it whenever, placing it in the wilderness, he struck it with his staff, has no foundation in the words of the Holy Qurʾān or any saying of the Prophet. What the words of the Qurʾān signify is either that Moses was commanded by God to smite a par-
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Abraham is the wicked plans against him.17 The diseases that Jesus cured were spiritual impurities, and the birds he created were the conversion of unbelievers and the purification of sinners. Jesus’ miraculous birth without a father was read into the Qurʾān,18 and his ascendence alive to heavens was metaphorical.19 Muhammad’s night journey was a vision and spiritual experience.20 In short, the Indian translators baptized the Qurʾān in symbolic and metaphorical language after it was severely criticized by the Protestant missionaries for irrationality. The purpose of such a language is to communicate a spiritual message, and it is this message that readers must find out and contemplate. As such, there is little benefit, as far as a study of Qurʾān translation as a cultural production is concerned, to give detailed accounts of the responses of the Indian translators to each instance where the Qurʾān was accused of irrationality. These instances of irrationality cited by the European critics were meant to show the source of the collective superstitious mentality of Muslims
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ticular rock with his staff from which water flowed forth miraculously, or to march on to a mountain from which springs flowed.” Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 31, n. 60a. According to Khan, “They intended to frighten Abraham by burning the fire to renounce his beliefs and to confess idolatry but they never succeeded and God brought him and Lot safely to the Holy Land. Genesis 12–15 mentions of this departure of Abraham with Sara and Lot from Haran to the land of Cannan but does not state the cause of it. Daniel 3 and Jeremia 29 show that the Chaldeans used to burn such men who refused idolatry. Three men were bound in their clothes and cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace but the fire hurt them not at all. See Daniel 3–20 to 26. A similar story was current amongst the Jews about Abraham that he was cast in a fiery furnace and the fire turned into a cool garden of roses without hurting Abraham in the least. But there is no mention of that in the Bible, nor in the Holy Qurʾān, nor in the traditions of the prophet. The old stories being simply exemplary prophecies about the conditions of Muhammad, we can take it in the same light as the following verse about the prophet. ‘So often as they kindled a fire for war, God extinguished it.’” Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 506, n. a. A very similar footnote was also given by Muhammad Ali; see Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 657, n. 69a. Jesus’ miraculous birth without a father was rationalized by Sayyid Ahmad Khan whose argument was adopted by Khan and Muhammad Ali. Khan summarized Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s argument in his comment on Q 3:47 See Khan, The Holy Qurán Translated by Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan with Short Notes, 111–113, n. a. This is perhaps was adopted by the Ahmadi translators to support the status of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as the Messiah. This also the reading that derived most abomination to Ahmadiyya and Ahmadi translators whether by orthodox Muslims or by Christians. Not all miracles are denied. Some other inexplicable incidents such as Moses’ rod which made to appear as if it were a serpent and his hand which looked white without illness were accepted as signs of God whether by Ahmadi translators or others.
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rather than to quote them as individual inconsistencies.21 Similarly, the overarching goal of the Indian responses was to show the rationality of Islam and the misconceptions of its critics, and not simply to defend a few verses of the Qurʾān. They were institutionalizing an approach to the study of the Qurʾān as a book for the intellectual elite who were able to understand symbolic language. Efforts of rationalization continued in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with thinkers from all over the Muslim world taking up different routes and projects. Ali Shariati (1933–1977) wanted to live as a Muslim in the modern world. His main project was to construct a revolutionary Islam as a solution to the political problems of Iran at his time. In addition, he dealt with some misconceptions about Islam. A good example of his spiritual rationalization approach is his book Hajj (the Pilgrimage). In his introduction, Ali Shariati explains that hajj (pilgrimage) may seem most illogical for outsiders, but it has very deep meaning for Muslims. He outlines, explains, and rationalizes the rituals of hajj from the moment one intends to perform hajj to the day of return from Mecca.22 These rationalization projects of the early twentieth century are different from rationalization projects in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The rationalization projects of intellectuals such as Mohammad Arkoun (1928–2010), Mohammad Abed al-Jabri (1935–2010), Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid (1943–2010), and Youssef Seddik (1943–) are no longer interested in criticizing Muslim practices but focus on criticizing the foundations of Muslim reason. Mohammad Abed al-Jabri (1935–2010), the Moroccan philosopher, is concerned with the question of who has the authority to interpret the Muslim sacred text. In an attempt to analyze the reasons why modernization processes fail in the Arab world, he examines the boundaries of thinking that stand between the Arabs on the one hand and solving their contemporary problems on the other hand. In his four-volume work, The Critique of the Arab Reason, al-Jabri classifies the Arab reason into three types of understanding: al-ʿaql al-bayānī (rhetoric reason), al-ʿaql al-ʿirfānī (mystic reason), and al-ʿaql al-burhānī (proof-based reason).23 Although al-Jabri believes that the roots of the contemporary Arab
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Other examples include the description of paradise and hell, the disconnected letters at the beginning of some chapters such as Chapter Two, and many details in Chapter Eighteen (the Chapter of the Cave). Ali Shariati, Hajj (The Pilgrimage), trans. Ali A. Behzadnia and Najla Denny (n.d.). https:// www.al‑islam.org/printpdf/book/export/html/28463. See Mohammad Abed al-Jabri, Takwīn al-ʿAql al-ʿArabī, 10 ed. (Beirut: Markaz Dirasāt al-
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reason go back to the pre-Islamic ǧāhilīya period, a major period of formation of the Arab reason is the Age of Tadwīn, starting in the eight century, in which canonization of language, fiqh, exegesis, among others, took place. The medieval rules set for these sciences in the Age of Tadwīn had always obstructed any development in these fields. The classical Arabic language is one example. It remained incapable of modernization, while various dialects developed and became the real means of communication among the Arabs today. The best representative of al-ʿaql al-ʿirfānī, according to al-Jabri is al-Ġazālī (1058– 1111), one of the most prominent theologians and mystics of Islam, who damaged the Arab reason by attacking philosophy and relying on supernatural agency in thinking. Al-ʿaql al-burhānī resulted from philosophical activities in al-Maghrib (North Africa) and al-Andalus (Spain) and was best represented by Ibn Rušd (1126–1198). Abed al-Jabri believed that the domination of the bayān and ʿirfān systems over the burhān system was behind the decline of Arab Reason. Mohammad Arkoun, the Algerian-French Islamic thinker, adopted a holistic approach which he called “applied Islamology” in order to subvert ideological and dogmatic constructs of Islam. He is different from Abed al-Jabri as he did not restrict his theory to the Arab reason and expanded it to the Muslim reason in general. The contemporary Muslim reason is structured around “systematic references to an Islam that is isolated from the most elementary historical reasoning, linguistic analysis or anthropological decoding, operating as a psychological, cultural and intellectual obstacle to a serious approach to the major twin themes of rule of law and civil society.”24 Arkoun used all modern sciences such as history, sociology, anthropology, and psychology to argue for the necessity of re-thinking of Islam in the contemporary modern societies. Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid (1943–2010), an Egyptian Qurʾanic thinker, argued for the rationalization of the Qurʾān as a discourse that had a dialectical relationship with its context when it was first revealed in Arabia in the seventh century. Similarly, Abdul Karim Soroush (1945–) argues for the historicity of revelation and religion. That is, everything that happens in this world is surrounded by
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Waḥda al-ʿArabīya, 2009). Mohammad Abed al-Jabri, Binyat al-ʿAql al-ʿArabī, 9 ed. (Beirut: Markaz Dirasāt al-Waḥda al-ʿArabīya, 2009). The four-volume work includes the following four titles (a) Takwīn al-ʿAql al-ʿArabī (The Formation of Arab Reason, (b) Binyat al-ʿAql al-ʿArabī (The Structure of Arab Reason), (c) Al-ʿAql al-Siyāsī al-ʿArabī (Arab Political Reason), and (d) Al-ʿAql al-Aḫlāqī al-ʿArabī (Arab Ethical Reason). M. Arkoun and Institute of Ismaili Studies, The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (Saqi, 2002), 308.
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time and matter. Once revelation comes down from God, it is impacted by humans; it becomes historicized and naturalized.25 Both Abu Zeid and Soroush believe in the divine source of the Qurʾān and the prophethood of Muhammad. However, anything else in the Qurʾān, according to Abu Zeid, such as its language, structure, and content includes a human dimension. The content is inseparable from the form, which is a human language. As for the structure, the Qurʾān was revealed portion by portion along twenty-three years so as to respond to the needs of the early Muslim community. Questions answered in verses such as Q 2:219, 2:220 and 2:222, which are all introduced with the clause, “they ask you about …” indicate the human impact on the Qurʾān. This means that new interpretations are needed every time the Qurʾān is used in a different socio-political context. To interpret the Qurʾān literally is to “lock the Word of God in the moment of its historical annunciation.”26 According to Abu Zeid, another aspect of the human impact on the Qurʾān is the present form of the muṣḥaf that underwent two major changes: the rearrangement of the chapters and the application of the diacritic marks. The Tunisian thinker and scripture anthropologist Youssef Seddik focuses also on these two changes to argue for the human impact on the Qurʾān. He believes that the application of the diacritic marks was subjective, and a different application of marks can lead to more rationalized meanings. For example, zawwaǧnāhum bi ḥūr ʿīn (in Q 52:20 and other verses) (“give them in marriage to pure beautiful women”) that describes the state of believers in paradise can be read with different application of dots as rawwaḥnāhum (“joined them to”), which is the intended and the more rational meaning of the verse as he believes.27 On the surface, the rationalization efforts of the Indian translators and those of the twentieth and twenty first century thinkers like Al-Jabri, Arkoun, Abu Zeid, and Seddik look like two different projects. At a deeper level, however, they all share an understanding of the Qurʾān as a text in a dialectic relationship with its context. They laid emphasis upon the interpreter as the agency through which the Qurʾān speaks. Despite that, the Indian translators of the Qurʾān presented themselves as an extension to the medieval commentators on the Qurʾān; they claimed to renew and reform the medieval interpretations rather than to cancel them. In this sense, they are closer to rationalist tradi-
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Soroush, The Expansion of Prophetic Experience: Essays on Historicity, Contingency and Plurality in Religion. Nasr Abu Zayd, “The Qurʾan: God and Man in Communication,” (2000). https://openaccess .leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/5337. Ḥiwār, 2017, on France 24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAi9wkZvGN4.
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tionalism than to pure modernism. The real value of their approach is that they produced interpretations that were convincing to the European readers and at the same time well-rooted in the Muslim tradition. Such an approach is even clearer in the way they examined the connection between modern scientific discoveries and the Qurʾān. Rather than restricting the Qurʾanic meaning to such discoveries, they claimed that the Qurʾān simply does not contradict them.
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With the emergence of modern science, some Muslim scholars and theologians claim that the new scientific observations and theories have increasingly supported the scientific iʿǧāz (inimitability or miraculousness) of the Qurʾān.28 They believe that some scientific truths were recorded in the Qurʾān more than fourteen centuries ago and became known to man only in modern times with the progress of science, proving the Divine source of the Qurʾān.29 Since the early Indian translators of the Qurʾān were apologetic, it is expected that they would celebrate modern scientific developments and argue on the basis of them for the authenticity of the Qurʾān as the verbatim word of God. However, the cases where they provided scientific explanation of the Qurʾān are few, and their purpose was not to argue that the Qurʾān anticipated modern science— a concept that became dominant only later in the second half of the twentieth century—but to show that the Qurʾān is consonant with modern science. That, I believe, is due to two main reasons. First, the Indian Qurʾān translations had a social purpose that was served more by focusing on the rationality of the Qurʾān and its peaceful aspects than by providing scientific explanations of its verses. Second, scientific explanations of the Qurʾān required expert knowledge in a vast number of disciplines, which could only be available to teams. These reasons can best be explained when the Indian translations are compared to Al-Montakhab of Al-Azhar. 28
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See, for example, Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, the Qurʾan and Science: The Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of Modern Knowledge (Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2000). Mahdi Laʾli, A Comprehensive Exploration of the Scientific Miracles in Holy Quran (USA: Trafford, 2007). For example, Sarwar believed that “Even such scientific subjects as the revolution of the night and day, the motions of the sun and moon, the evolution of man’s birth, the absolute identity of man’s evolution with the rest of the animal world … and a great many subjects, are all treated in the Holy Qurʾān. The principles of Geology, Zoology. Astronomy, and all that relates to man and earth and their Creator, are discussed at great length in the Holy Book.” Sarwar, “Introduction,” xlviii.
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The Indian translators used scientific explanations to rationalize the Qurʾān rather than to argue for or boast about its authenticity as the word of God. One example is the creation of the Universe. The Qurʾān says that the heavens and the earth were created in six days, but cosmologists calculate that in billions of years. In such cases where uncontested scientific observations contradict revelation, it is our interpretation of scriptures, as Sayyid Ahmad Khan suggested, that needs to change. In fact, even as early as the medieval period, Qurʾān commentators differed among themselves on how to interpret the verse. Some commentators who liked to fill the information gap of the Qurʾān by Hadith, believed that the heavens and the earth were created in six days from Sunday to Friday. There were others who doubted that straightforward reading. For example, Ibn Kaṯīr and Qurṭubī referred to earlier commentators who believed that “day” in the verse equals one thousand years. Similarly, Baiḍāwī stated that the day as we know it from sunrise to sunset did not exist at the early stages of creation, and so he defined the phrase as a period of time equal to six days, or the six days are simply six periods of time.30 The early European translators, as well as Khan, Abuʾl-Fadl and Hairat, translated the phrase into “six days.” In fact, the phrase does not pose any translation problem: its meaning is clear, it has an equivalent in English, and it confirms the Bible narrative, and so it does not bring any alien or ambiguous cultural concept to the English-speaking people. If there is a problem, it is a problem of interpretation. Thus, Muhammad Ali defined “yawm” as “any period of time,” being a moment as in Q 55:29, or fifty thousand years as in Q 70:4.31 He further explained that “The six periods of time in which the heavens and the earth are created refer in fact to the six stages in which they have grown to their present condition.”32 Sarwar adopted the same solution translating the phrase into “six periods.” Yūsuf ʿAli translated the phrase into “six Days,” with initial capital letter. His footnote is not different from Muhammad Ali. He also pointed to the “six great epochs of evolution” as a possible interpretation and referred to verses such as Q 22:47 and Q 70:4 which define “yawm” as a larger unit of time than the common understanding of one midnight to the next.33 30 31
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Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 9, 238. Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 761. alBaiḍāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl, 3, 15. Defining “yawm” as a period of time and explaining the six periods as six stages of creation solve another problem in Q 41:9–10 in which the creation and development of the earth is described as taking two days. See Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 4, n. 3b. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 339, n. 54a. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 355, n. 1031.
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An important point to highlight here is that these are not scientific explanations of the Qurʾān in which exegetes try to find correspondence between a modern scientific theory and a verse. Rather, they are rationalist explanations, and they have not been completely new as they have their origin in medieval commentaries. It is true that these interpretations conform to new discoveries in cosmology, but the Indian translators did not try to explore these discoveries and their correspondence to the Qurʾān. Another example is Q 65:12 where the Qurʾān says that there are seven heavens and earths.34 Muhammad Ali rationalized the verse by drawing attention to the meaning of number seven. As Edward William Lane explained in his Lexicon, number seven is sometimes used to refer to multiplicity rather than exactness of number. Thus, Muhammad Ali concluded, “the mention of seven heavens does not preclude the existence of more.”35 Yūsuf ʿAli provided both scientific and metaphorical interpretations. He concluded that The literal meaning refers to the seven orbits or firmaments that we see clearly marked in the motions of the heavenly bodies in the space around us … The mystical meaning refers to the various grades in the spiritual or heavenly kingdom, the number seven being itself a mystical symbol, comprising many and yet forming an indivisible integer, the highest indivisible integer of one digit.36 Interestingly, the European translators also gave scientific explanations to the Qurʾān. Khan in fact was influenced in his translation of Q 21:30 by Ross, who translated the verse as follows: “Know they not that the Heavens and the earth were shut up? We opened them, and gave life to every thing, through the rain which we made to descend.” Ross took the verse as an allusion to the natural phenomenon of rain, and he stressed his reading by employing addition since the phrase “through the rain which we made to descend” does not exist in the source text. Khan translated the verse into “Do they not observe that when the heavens and the earth are shup up, we open them?” In his comment, he focused on shortage of rain and how it affects the animal and vegetable kingdoms. To 34
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The Egyptian geologist and Islamic scholar, Zaghloul el-Naggar argues that the seven earths refer to the seven layers of earth’s crust. The Iranian Intellectual, Abulali Bazargan, also explains that the seven heavens refer to the layers of the atmosphere. See Zaghloul El-Naggar, “Al-Arāḍī al-Sabʿ,” (March 1, 2011). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I0LCy _8juw. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 1104, n. 12a. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 1567, n. 5526.
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support his translation and interpretation, he quoted intensely from the Bible in which similar idioms and images are employed as for example in 1 Kings 8:35 “When the heaven is shut up and there is no rain.” This is a plausible interpretation since the extended metaphor of rain is followed by “And We made of water everything living,” (Q 21:30).37 Other early European translators could not find Ross’ solution convincing and tried to give a closer rendering to the Qurʾanic meaning. Thus, Rodwell translated “ritq” into “a solid mass,” Sale and Palmer into “solid.” Neither Rodwell nor Palmer commented on their translations, but Sale gave two scientific explanations to the verse. First, he gave a cosmological interpretation: “They (the heaven and the earth) were one continued mass of matter, till we separated them.”38 Second, he referred to the natural phenomenon of rain. In fact, these two readings were not new as they had already been discussed by medieval commentators such as Ṭabarī and Ibn Kaṯīr.39 Muhammad Ali reproduced these two interpretations. Like Sale, he favored the cosmological explanation although he did not find the rain interpretation implausible. But more importantly, he pointed out the implication of the verse as a symbolic message: But there may also be a deeper allusion in the closing up of the heavens and the earth to the cessation of Divine revelation for a time before the advent of the Holy Prophet, which was marked by the absence of a prophet in the world for six hundred years and the prevalence of corruption all over the world. The opening up of the heavens and the earth would in this case signify the coming of revelation, which brought life to the world.40
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This last statement is explained by Yūsuf ʿAli as follows: “That all life began in the water is also a conclusion to which our latest knowledge in biological science points … there is the fact that land animals, like the higher vertebrates including man, show, in their embryological history, organs like those of fishes, indicating the watery origin of their original habitat. The constitution of protoplasm is about 80 to 85 per cent of water.” ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 2, 828, n. 2691. Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, 267. At the time of Sale, the Big Bang theory was not discovered yet and so that interpretation might sound irrational. However, it is very sound based on current theories and knowledge about the creation of the universe. Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 1236. Ṭabarī quoted Ibn ʿAbbās who explained that the heaven and the earth were sticking together before God separated them with the air. AlṬabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āyāy al-Qurʾān, 16, 255. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 652, n. 30a.
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It seems that Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli were concerned with the pitfalls that science-based approaches to Qurʾān interpretation may involve. As Muṣṭafa al-Marāġī said in his response to Rašīd Riḍā’s objections to Qurʾān translation, “It is not wise to relate those scientific statements that are not stable to the word of God.”41 In addition, Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli believed that the Qurʾān is preeminently a book of guidance rather than a book of law, sacred history or scientific truths.42 That is why they always tried to find a deeper significance of the verses besides the scientific explanation. The symbolic significance was also useful when there was no scientific explanation available. For example, in his comment on Q 11:7, “And He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods; and His Throne of Power is ever on water,” Muhammad Ali did not provide any scientific explanation for the presence of water at the early stages of creation. Instead, he commented on the symbolic meaning of water and its relation to creation: The great power of God which is manifested in the creation of man is thus connected with water. And as physical life grows out of water, so spiritual life grows out of revelation, which is so often compared with rain or water. God’s great power has thus been made manifest through water, and hence with the creation of the heavens and the earth is mentioned the fact that God’s Throne of Power is ever on the waters.43 In short, the Indian translators used science minimally, and its function was to rationalize the Qurʾān more than argue for its authenticity as the word of God. And even in those cases, the scientific explanation was accompanied with metaphorical interpretation, whose purpose was multiple. It kept the Qurʾān valid for all times and distanced it from any scientific changes, and it highlighted the Qurʾān as a book of guidance and stressed its dominant purpose, which is knowledge of the One God. I agree with Zafar Ansari that “in comparison with Muslim scholars of South Asia, the scholars of Egypt were more prominent as proponents of ‘scientific exegesis.’”44 A short historical background might be helpful here. Since at least 1700s, there was a strong rivalry between Britain and France. That rivalry went
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Muḥammad Muṣṭafā al-Marāġī, Baḥṯ fī Tarǧamat al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-Aḥkāmih (Cairo: Al-Raġāʾib, 1936), 12. See Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 793, n. 45a. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 455, n. 7a. Zafar Ishaq Ansari, “Scientific Exegesis of the Qurʾan,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 3, no. 1 (2001): 94.
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out of Europe to North America where France tried to support the American colonists against Britain, and to the Middle East and India. In India, the English East India Company started its rule over India in 1757. The British communication with India at that time went through the Red Sea, up the Nile, and across the Mediterranean Sea to England. In 1798, France under the leadership of Napoléon Bonaparte thought to threaten the British presence in India and interrupt communication between Bombay and London. At that time, Egypt was rebelliously resisting the authority of the enfeebled Ottoman Empire, and it was itself enfeebled. It was a vulnerable point through which the French thought to achieve some presence in the Middle East and gain advantage over Britain. In 1798, Napoléon Bonaparte invaded Egypt. That campaign was a cultural shock, not only in terms of the defeat of the Mamluks with their primitive weaponry against the more advanced French soldiers, but also because of the huge number of French scholars and scientists who accompanied the army and conducted research in Egypt. The expedition included scientists from different fields: mathematicians, chemists, physicists, botanists, and engineers, among others. They founded the Institute d’Égypte or the Egyptian Scientific Institute in 1798 and discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799, which constituted the seed for a whole science of Egyptology in Europe. That French scientific expedition would soon affect the first ruler of Egypt after the French invasion. Few years after the end of the French campaign, Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769–1849) rose to power in Egypt in 1805. Muhammad Ali Pasha sent a huge number of students to France to study various sciences and get training in various professions. Those students came back to Egypt, established several schools, and started an Egyptian renaissance. It should not be a surprise that the first commentator on the Qurʾān in modern times who tried to interpret the Qurʾān in terms of modern science is Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Iskandarānī (d. 1889), a physician in Muhammad Ali Pasha’s navy. Al-Iskandarānī published two books in 1880 and 1883 where he discussed the secrets or the hidden scientific facts of the Qurʾān in fields such as celestial bodies, the earth, animals, plants, and minerals.45
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His two books are Kašf al-Asrār al-Nūrānīya al-Qurʾānīya: Fī Mā Yataʿallaq bi-al-Aǧrām alSamāwīya wa al-Arḍīya wa-al-Ḥayawānāt wa-al-Nabātāt wa-al-Ǧawāhir al-Maʿdinīya (Un veiling the Divine Qurʾanic secrets: Of celestial bodies, the earth, animals, plants, and minerals) published in 1880, and Tibyān al-Asrār al-Rabbānīya fī al-Nabāt wa-al-Maʿādin wa-al-Ḫawāṣṣ al-Ḥayawānīya (Defining the Divine secrets in plants, minerals and the characteristics of animals) published in 1883. See Barbara Freyer Stowasser, “The Hijāb: How a Curtain Became an Institution and a Cultural Symbol,” in Humanism, Culture and
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Unfortunately, the Egyptian renaissance did not last long. It formally ended in 1882 when Egypt became a British protectorate. In 1922, Egypt gained its dependence although the British maintained their presence in Egypt by their control over the Suez Canal. During that time, Ṭanṭāwī Ǧauharī (1862–1940), an anti-colonial writer, a social thinker, and a prominent proponent of scientific exegesis of the Qurʾān flourished. Like the Indian translators of the Qurʾān, Ǧauharī was the product of his socio-political context. He was aware of the British presence in Egypt, the industrial and scientific progress of Europe, the backwardness of Muslims, as well as the low quality of the educational system of Egypt. These circumstances made him devote most of his effort to familiarizing his readers with the connections between Islam and science. His Qurʾān exegesis titled Al-Ǧawāhir fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm al-Muštamil ʿalā ʿAǧāʾib Badāʾiʿ al-Mukawwanāt wa-Ġarāʾib al-Āyāt al-Bāhirāt (Jewels in the Interpretation of the Holy Qurʾān, Containing the Marvel of the Beauties of the Creation and Wonderfully Luminous Divine Signs) is abundant with references to the intellectual production of European thinkers and scientific discoveries and theories.46 Ǧauharī’s exegesis and approach to tafsīr was criticized because of the connection that Ǧauharī tried to maintain between the Qurʾān and science despite lacking scientific knowledge.47 Ǧauharī died in 1940, and although the influence of his Qurʾān scientism soon dwindled, the idea itself that the Qurʾān anticipated modern science would soon reappear after al-Azhar reform. Like Ǧauharī, many Egyptian scholars and reformers were aware of the British presence in Egypt, and after the last British forces withdrew from Egypt in 1956 after the Suez Crisis, they orchestrated their efforts on educational reforms. The reform of al-Azhar as the oldest and most prestigious center of Islamic learning was a long-debated project. Many modernists and scholars from inside and outside al-Azhar pressed for curriculum change that would introduce secular sciences to the old institution. In 1961, al-Azhar was reestablished as a university in the broad sense of the word when a good number of secular schools such as business, science, pharmacy, medicine, engineering, among others, were added to it. Those schools were distinguished from other
46 47
Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of George Krotkoff, ed. Asma Afsaruddin and Mathias Zahniser ((Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997). For a detailed discussion of Ǧauharī’s works, see Majid Daneshgar, Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī and the Qurʾān: Tafsīr and Social Concerns in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 2018). Majid Daneshgar, “Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (2017). https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia‑of‑the‑ quran/tantawi‑jawhari‑EQCOM_050574.
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secular Egyptian schools by their curriculum which combined both Islamic studies and secular specializations. Students at these secular al-Azhar schools graduated with a good knowledge of traditional Islamic studies along with a branch of modern science. This knowledge of the Qurʾān together with knowledge of science contributed to a renewal of scientific interpretations of the Qurʾān. When al-Azhar started its project of Qurʾān interpretation and translation, the team of collaborators included faculty scientists who supported the linguists and translators and provided them with accurate descriptions of scientific facts. The work represented an image of al-Azhar as a modern university that had its foundation in the study of the Qurʾān and its aspiration in the study of natural sciences. The result of this cooperation between translators, scholars from Qurʾanic studies, and scienists is creditable. Maurice Bucaille, in his book The Bible, the Qurʾan and science, eulogized al-Montakhab more than once for its accurate description of scientific phenomena. For example, al-Montakhab explains Q 16:66 in which milk is described as coming from between the contents of the bowels and the blood as follows: We supply you with a drink from [cattle] bellies, a drink produced— under specific circumstances- in the breasts by conjoint action between chyle—the product of chyme or digested food in the intestines- and blood—which carries to the breasts all necessary aliment and elementsand there flows wholesome milk.48 Again, in their comment on Q 21:30 “We made from water everything living,” they explained that The cells which are the bricks from which the bodies of the plant and animals are built are principally carbon and water. Water allows the carbon atoms to dissolve and the carbon compounds to move around and react. Every living cell is three quarters water and so our solid bodies are in fact mainly composed of liquid. Water constitutes 55 % of body weight in the obese person and 65% in the thin. This means that a thin person who weighs 60 kgs, approximately 40 kgs of his weight is water. Where is it found? Two thirds of it is found inside the cells (or the bricks) and one third outside the cells, that is in the tissues and the plasma (fluid of the 48
Al-Montakhab in the Interpretation of the Glorious Qurʾān Arabic-English: The Egyptian Translation, trans. Abdelkhāliq Himmat Abū Shabana, 236. http://islamic‑council.net/ Portal/wp‑content/uploads/2019/02/montakhab‑english‑2‑1.pdf.
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blood). Its balance is controlled by several factors and its depletion causes serious disorders ending in death.49 It also seems that the authors of al-Montakhab were aware of the doubts raised about some explanations of the Qurʾān. For example, some question the scientific truth of the Qurʾān when it describes the development of the embryo, “And then we clothed the bones with flesh,” (Q 23:14). In their comment, they wrote To those who ask how is the bone created and clothed with flesh? Very briefly and in lay terms, one large cell—al-amshag—divides and redivides into billions of cells to produce man. Cells differentiate into kinds each of which is programmed to produce a certain organ or organs, system or systems. If we look at a section of a limb under the microscope at the fifth week (pregnancy 40 weeks) we see a sheet of cells; those in the core of this sheet modify their nature to cartilage and a week or two later to bone. The surrounding cells modify their nature to that of muscle or flesh and all develop to reach maturity and the destined shape and form, some before birth, others at a later date.50 The first striking feature of those comments is their language. They embrace highly propositional content that is not ambiguated by any emotive language. It is a description of scientific phenomena in simple language to make it intelligible to the layman. By keeping a distance between the Qurʾān and science, they not only leave the Qurʾān open for various interpretations, but also invite the reader to think critically of the correspondence between a certain verse and its scientific explanation. My impression is that although al-Montakhab tried to show that the Qurʾān anticipates modern science, it avoided making any blunt connections between scientific statements and the Qurʾān, and by so-doing, it partially followed the advice of al-Marāġī, mentioned above.51 Since the emergence of the early Indian and al-Azhar Qurʾān translations, much work has been done by Islamic scholars and scientists on the compatibility of the Qurʾān and science. Among the champions of these efforts is
49 50 51
Al-Montakhab in the Interpretation of the Glorious Qurʾān Arabic-English: The Egyptian Translation, 283–284. Al-Montakhab in the Interpretation of the Glorious Qurʾān Arabic-English: The Egyptian Translation, 300. Al-Marāġī, Baḥṯ fī Tarǧamat al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-Aḥkāmih, 12.
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Maurice Bucaille (1920–1998). Bucaille was a French medical doctor who was appointed in 1973 the family physician for the family of the Saudi King Faisal ibn Abdulaziz (1906–1975). Bucaille gave presentations in various international conferences and published a number of books on the scientific miracles of the Qurʾān. Inspired by Bucaille, Abdul Majeed al-Zindani (1942–), a leading Yemeni Islamist, established in 1984 the Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah based in Saudi Arabia. Aiming at promoting the scientific interpretation of the Qurʾān, the Commission has convened a number of conferences in the Muslim world and has invited scientists from the West to give credibility to its presentations and findings. In Egypt, efforts to cherish the scientific facts of the Qurʾān continued by Mustafa Mahmoud (1921–2009), an Egyptian physician and author. He is wellknown for his popular tv program “Science and Faith” in which he presented scientific phenomena supported by Quranic verses to invite the audience to contemplate the magnificence of God’s creation. Zaghloul el-Naggar (1933–), an Egyptian geologist, became also well-known for his argument for the scientific miracles of the Qurʾān. He was invited to speak in various Islamic conferences and tv programs, and he published prolifically on the scientific truth of the Qurʾān. Other scholars who supported scientific explanations of the Qurʾān include Ahmad Didat (1918–2005), a South African writer and missionary, and Zakir Naik (1965–), an Indian Islamic preacher and missionary. Another line of scientific explanation is the mathematically inclined interpretation of the Qurʾān. Rashad Khalifa (1935–1990) was an Egyptian-American biochemist who claimed that the Qurʾān includes numeric proof of its divine origin. Contrary to Hadith and Sunna, as Khalifa claimed, the Qurʾān remains incorruptible since it has a mathematical structure that has been kept intact throughout time. Khalifa founded his theory on number “nineteen” which is miraculously imbedded in the Qurʾān.52 In 1990, Rashad Khalifa was assassinated, apparently for denying the finality of prophethood and claiming himself to be a prophet. His computational approach to the Qurʾān, however, was so impressive that many mainstream Islamic scholars adopted it without claiming any connection to Khalifa’s original ideas. For example, ʿAbd al-Razzāq Nūfal (1917–1984), the Egyptian Islamic scholar, ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-Kaḥīl (1966–), the Syrian engineer and Islamic scholar, and Abdolali Bazargan (1943–), the Iranian
52
See Rashad Khalifa, Miracle of the Quran: Significance of the Mysterious Alphabets (St. Louis, MO: Islamic Productions International, Inc, 1973). Rashad Khalifa, Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle (Karachi: Haider Ali Muljee ‘Taha’, 1980). Rashad Khalifa, The Computer Speaks: God’s Message to the World (Tucson, AZ: Renaissance Productions, 1981).
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engineer and Intellectual, as well as Ahmad Didat, have numerous publications and YouTube videos explaining mathematical facts in the Qurʾān. Some of these are easy to comprehend such as the number of times a certain word is mentioned in the Qurʾān,53 and some are sophisticated such as the order of the chapters and verses.54 In her article, “Nineteen: A Story,” Naveeda Khan quoted the following example from a website established by young American Muslims: The word [Sea or Water] mentioned 32 times, and the word [Landmass] mentioned 13 times in the Holy Quʾran, if we add them together we will get 45. Now let us do some calculations. By finding the percentage of the number of the word [Sea] to the total number of the words [Sea and Landmass] we will have (32/45) × 100 % = 71.11111111% By finding the percentage of the number of the word [Landmass] to the total number of the words [Sea and Landmass] we will have: (13/45) × 100% = 28.88888889% We will find what Allah said in His Holy Book 14 centuries ago that the ratio of water on earth is 71.111111%, and the ratio of landmass is 28.88888889%, add them together and you will get 100 %, and these are the real ratios of the Water and Landmass on earth. So what do you think? Could it be chance? Who do you think taught Prophet Muhammad all of this?55 The above survey of the connection between the Qurʾān and science supports our argument that modernity has an immense effect on Islam and the interpretation of its scripture. These modernist efforts that had commenced with the Indian translators of the Qurʾān shifted their course in the second half of the twentieth century and developed immensely into three distinct projects. The 53
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For example, the word “yawm” (day) and “šahr” (month) are mentioned 365 and 12 times respectively. Pair of words such as “man” and “woman;” “sin” and “good deeds;” “Satan” and “angel” are mentioned equal number of times. It was argued that any change in the order of the chapters or change in the number of verses would violate the code. See Ebrahim Nazari et al., “The Surprise of Numbers in Holy Quran from the Islamic Orientation,” Elixir Appl. Math 61 (2013), https://www .elixirpublishers.com/articles/1383628887_61%20(2013)%2016969‑16971.pdf. Naveeda Khan, “Nineteen: A Story,” Anthropological Theory 10, no. 1–2 (2010): 118.
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first project is the more sober stance of the Indian translators of the Qurʾān who occasionally offered scientific explanations of the Qurʾān to indicate that the Qurʾān is compatible with science. The second project, as in Al-Montakhab, tries to show that the Qurʾān anticipated modern science, but it avoids as much as possible any straightforward expression of that connection. Scholars in the late twentieth century bluntly highlighted and exaggerated that connection thus producing both convincing and farfetched explanations.56 The third project, championed by Rashad Khalifa, claims that the Qurʾān contains mathematical symbols and formulas that reveal themselves by the passage of time. These projects indicate that the question on the connection between the Qurʾān and science that was reasonably answered by the Indian translators is still valid and open to multiple answers even today.
3
Women
The status of women was among the strongest British criticisms of the Indian Muslim community. According to Palmer, “One of the greatest blots on El Islam is that it keeps the women in a state of degradation, and therefore effectually prevents the progress of any race professing the religion. For this Mohammed is only so far responsible that he accepted without question the prevalent opinion of his time, which was not in favour of allowing too great freedom to women.”57 That criticism usually focused on the head scarf and the husband-wife relationship. Other than this, again in Palmer’s words, “Muhammed had a due respect for the female sex … [as] evident both from his own faithful affection to his first wife Khadija, and from the fact that ‘believing women’ are expressly included in the promises of a reward in the future life which the Qurʾān makes to all who acknowledge one God and do good works.”58 This colonial discourse on women reinforced a bipolar view of women in most modern Muslim writings including the Indian Qurʾān translations. Their views of the woman as a mother were totally different from those of the woman as a wife. The reform of the status of woman as a wife was part of family modernization which was opposed as a form of resistance to colonization. Thus, issues like hijab and submission of the wife to her husband were not as much affected by modernity as other global gender issues such as equality. 56 57 58
See, for example, the farfetched explanation of Q 81:15–16 by Zaghloul el-Naggar on https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=opbGjFs83Tg Palmer, “Introduction,” Lxxv–lxxvi. Palmer, “Introduction,” Lxxv–lxxvi.
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The Indian translators took Q 4:1 to argue for the equality of sexes in Islam: “O mankind reverence your Guardian Lord, Who created you from a single Person, created, of like nature, his mate, and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women,—reverence God, through Whom Ye demand your mutual (rights), and (reverence) the wombs (that bore you) for God ever watches over you.”59 Medieval commentators took the verse to argue for the inferiority of women. For example, in his comment on that verse, Ibn Kaṯīr mentioned two reports by the Prophet: the famous one in the farewell pilgrimage, “the woman was created from a crooked rib,” and “the woman was created from man and her greed was made for him, and the man was created from land and his greed was made for it, so lock your women up.”60 Both reports reinforce the weakness and domesticity of women. Alexander Ross’ translation could then be, in the view of some, the best rendering. He translated the verse into, “O ye people, fear your Lord that created you of one sole person, and created his wife of his rib,” in which “his rib” is added to the translation. Other European translations confirmed that Eve was created from Adam, but not necessarily from his rib. Sale translated the verse into, “O men, fear your lord, who hath created you out of one man, and out of him created his wife.” Khan adopted a totally different perspective on the verse as he made Eve the central figure. According to him, it was Eve who gave birth to Adam. This is supported by a feminine pronoun in “zawǧahā,” which should be translated into “her husband” and not “his wife.” He referred to Q 3:59, “Verily the likeness of Jesus in the sight of God is as the likeness of Adam,” since both were born without a father. Both Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli adopted the opinion of Rāzī that Eve was created from the same nature or essence as Adam. Muhammad Ali stated that there is nothing in the Qurʾān to support the story that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, and Yūsuf ʿAli suggested that it is allegorical and need not be assumed in Islam. Eve is the symbol for the mother, and the translation and explanation of Q 4:1 by the Indian translators showed great respect to her. She was created from the same essence as Adam and was equal to him. In their comment on Q 17:23, both Muhammad Ali and Yūsuf ʿAli stressed love and tenderness toward parents. As Muhammad Ali said, “Obedience to parents is placed next to submission to Allah, for among fellow beings none has a greater claim upon a
59
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Q 4:1 translation of Yūsuf ʿAli. For a discussion of this verse in different English translations, see also El-Hussein A.Y. Aly, “Women in English Qurʾān Translations: Critical Intertextual, Intratextual, and Contextual Analyses,” Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies 3, no. 1 (2018). Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān Al-ʿAẓīm, 439.
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person than his parents. Moreover, obedience to parents is the seed from which, if the child is properly taught this lesson, springs the great obligation of obedience to all constituted authority.”61 Yūsuf ʿAli also stressed that “nothing that we can do ever really compensates for that which we have received,” and that our spiritual advancement is tested by attitudes to parents: “we cannot expect God’s forgiveness if we are rude or unkind to those who unselfishly brought us up.”62 This attitude towards the mother and parents contradicts the attitude towards the wife. The best example is Q 4:34. Before examining the Muslim translation, let’s first see how Sale translated and explained the verse. Sale translated the verse as follows: Men shall have the pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages wherein god hath caused the one of them to excel the other, and for that which they expend of their substance in maintaining their wives. The honest women are obedient, careful in the absence of their husbands, for that god preserveth them, by committing them to the care and protection of the men. But those, whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive of, rebuke; and remove them into separate apartments, and chastise them. In his comment, Sale explained that the advantages by which God has made the one to excel the other are the privileges of the male sex such as superior understanding, strength, and going to war to defend the religion. He also claimed that the verse allowed the Muslims in plain terms to beat their wives in case of disobedience although not in a dangerous or violent manner. Sarwar translated the verse as follows: Men are protectors over women, On account of that by means of which god has made some of them eminent above the others, And on account of what they spend out of their belongings, So that the good women are devout, Guarding that, in the absence (of their husbands), what god has guarded, And there are women whose disobedience you may be afraid of,
61 62
Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 568, n. 23a. ʿAli, The Holy Qurʾān: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary, 701, n. 2206.
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Then teach them, And (next) leave them alone in their beds, And (next) punish them lightly, If then they obey you, Then do not seek a way against them Surely god is High, Great. First, this translation clarifies properly two ambiguous expressions in the source text. Contrary to Sale’s understanding that the verse claims men preeminent to women, Sarwar indicated that the comparison is not between men and women but among men on account of what they spend of their belongings. The second ambiguity is the adjective “qānitāt,” which may mean “obedient to her husband” or “obedient to God.” By translating this adjective into “devout,” Sarwar indicated that the good woman is obedient to God. However, Sarwar agreed with Sale that the verse allowed Muslim husbands to beat their wives. Interestingly, the verb “chastise,” according to Meriam-Webster Dictionary, has two meanings: one archaic that means “to inflict punishment especially by beating,” and another contemporary meaning that is “to rebuke or censure.” Given the wide range of the meanings of the verb “ḍarab” (beat) in Arabic, “chastise” in its modern sense can be a good rendering. Khan and Muhammad Ali used the same verb as Sale, but it is clear from their comments that they were using the verb in its archaic sense. As clear from Sarwar’s translation, the actions in the verse were seen as a crescendo of measures against the wife. This is clear from the additions of adverbials of time (“and next”) to emphasize the function of the Arabic additive “wa” (and) as he interpreted it. According to Yūsuf ʿAli, the steps mentioned in the verse are to be taken in the same order in the case of family discord. Step number three, i.e., beating was of course controversial, and the Indian translators engaged in apologetics to explain it. Hairat, who rarely annotated his translation, added a footnote to this verse to clarify that According to Imam Shafi, though beating slightly is allowed as a last resort only, but not to do so is more pleasing to God. But this and all other personal rules were allowed only in Patriarchal days. Since the foundation of regular civil courts, the personal powers of the husband and the father as the head of the household, were transferred to the courts.63
63
Hairat, The Holy Qurʾan: English Translation, 98.
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Yūsuf ʿAli stressed that Imam Shāfiʿī considered beating “inadvisable though permissible” and that Muslim scholars unanimously deprecated any sort of cruelty. Muhammad Ali’s comment on this verse pointed out an interesting fact about the Indian Muslim social identity and how it affected the behavior and relations within the family.64 The more Muslim men and women were higher in the social order, the more they were committed to traditional Muslim values and the less they were prone to situations where beating was applied. Thus, As the injunctions of the Qurʾān are wide in their scope, the example of the Holy Prophet and his constant exhortations for kind treatment towards women, so much so that he made a man’s good treatment of his wife the gauge of his goodness in general—the best of you is he who is best to his wife—show clearly that this permission is meant only for that type of men and women who belong to a low grade of society.65 Muhammad Ali’s comment is interesting because it reinforced the caste system in the Muslim community based upon behavior. Metcalf and Metcalf also referred to the social identity and how it affected the behavior of the Indian Muslim woman. Commenting on Maulana Ashraf Thanawi’s book Perfecting Women, they claimed that “The new norms of female behaviour helped draw new lines of social identity. One was that between the more and the less privileged.”66 In this case, religious reform as well as rigidity and stagnation were equally the output of the cultural context of India. In the Middle East, the discourse on the representation of women started as early as the 1890s with the publication of Qasim Amin’s (1863–1908) Taḥrīr al-marʾa (Liberation of Women). Qasim Amin was influenced by the works of Darwin, and he believed that if Egypt did not modernize along the Western lines, it would not survive. He advocated the liberation of women because he believed that the status of women would greatly improve the nation. In his book, Amin argued for the abolishing of the veil as he saw it as a key element that would eventually bring the desired general social transforma-
64
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Furthermore, anthropologists studying gender in Muslim societies pointed out that the honor/shame complex is mainly based upon the submission of women to men of the family, whether husband, father, or brother. See Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 149. Gabriele Marranci, The Anthropology of Islam (Oxford: berg, 2008), 128. Ali, The Holy Qurʾān with English Translation and Commentary, 206, n. 34e. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 149.
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tion of Egypt. According to him, just as the veil sets a barrier between the woman and the society, it sets a barrier between the nation and advancement. In 1909, Malak Hifni Nasif (1886–1918) published a collection of her talks and essays under the title Al-Nisāʾīyāt (the woman question) in which she raised many of the issues discussed by the feminist movement. Whereas Qasim advocated unveiling to bring women to power and liberation, Nasif was opposed to unveiling. She believed that many women unveiled only because they were obsessed with the European fashion, and so they had not achieved liberation in any true sense. In 1944, the first Arab Feminist Conference was held in Cairo and expressed the pan-Arab feminist ideology and demands.67 It is noteworthy that many of the speakers at that conference demanded a restoration of women rights as they are in the Qurʾān. Among the key speakers was Huda Shaʿrawi (1879–1947), who stopped wearing the veil after the death of her husband in 1922. In 1923, Shaʿrawi founded and became the first president of the Egyptian Feminist Union. In her opening speech in the first Arab Feminist Conference, Huda Shaʿrawi argued that “The woman, given by the Creator the right to vote for the successor of the Prophet, is deprived of the right to vote for a deputy in a circuit or district election by a (male) being created by God.”68 Since mid-twentieth century, much work has been done on the re-interpretation of the Qurʾanic verses on women. Much of this work focused on husband-wife relationship (Q 4:34), equality between the sexes (Q 4:11), polyga my (Q 4:3) and hijab (Q 33:59). The Iranian-American translator and clinical psychologist, Laleh Bakhtiar (1938–2020) published her translation of the Qurʾān in 2007. In her introduction, she described the translation as “the first critical English translation of the Quran by a woman,” and its purpose is to “challenge the over 1,400 years of male interpretations of the Quran.” Bakhtiar challenged the translation of “wa-iḍribūhun” into “beat them,” which allows Muslim husbands to beat their wives when they are disobedient. She believed that the correct interpretation of “wa-iḍribūhun” is that “husbands should ‘go away’ from their wives,” until “the emotions subside and then return to each other.”69 So, she translated “wa-iḍribūhun” into “go away from them.”70 According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, this is a convincing interpretation, but it is not
67 68 69 70
Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke (eds.) Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, 2nd ed. Indiana University Press, 2004, pp. 337–362. M. Badran and M. Cooke, Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing (Indiana University Press, 2004), 339. https://books.google.com/books?id=zO1PV0lKirQC. Laleh Bakhtiar, “Preface,” in The Sublime Quran (Islamicworld.com, 2007), lxiii–lxiv. Laleh Bakhtiar, The Sublime Quran (Islamicworld.com, 2007), 300.
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supported by linguistics. It is true that other instances of “ḍarab” such as “ḍarab fī al-arḍ” and “ḍarab fī sabīl Allah” mean “to leave” or “to go away,” but these meanings are activated by prepositions and syntaxes that are not found in Q 4:34.71 Nevertheless, the interpretation of “ḍarab” as “going away from wives for a while” is the reading that is accepted by many modernists. Indeed, as Asma Barlas concludes, this verse is ambiguous, and so it can be interpreted variously, but even if Muslims cannot agree on the most appropriate reading, then at least they realize that beating is not acceptable, and it is not the best meaning to derive from the Qurʾān.72 In 2000, Muhammad Shahrur, the Syrian thinker published his book Naḥw Uṣūl Ǧadīda lil-Fiqh al-Islāmī: Fiqh al-Marʾa—Al-Waṣīya, al-Irṯ, al-Qiwāma, alTaʿaddudīya, al-Libās (On New Sources of Islamic Jurisprudence: Jurisprudence on Women—Will, Inheritance, Guardianship, Polygamy, and Clothing). The book is revolutionary in its reading of Qurʾanic verses on women. For example, Shahrur took Q 33:59 as a representation of a particular context in Medina, where the free Muslim women were commanded to draw their cloaks over themselves so as to distinguish themselves from the slave women. This became a necessity so that they might not be disturbed by men who sought illicit relations with the slaves. Accordingly, Shahrur believed that Muslim women can freely abide by the dress code of different societies, and so women who stopped wearing headcover in the United States after 9/11 so as not to attract attention had understood the verse correctly. Similarly, understanding the context is essential for arriving at a correct meaning of Q 4:3. The verse allows Muslim men to marry up to four wives, but it clearly discusses certain circumstances that emerged after the defeat at the Battle of Uḥud and the killing of many Muslim men. Muslims were allowed to marry widowed women who were mothers of orphan children so as to take care of them. Since the verse was a solution to a societal problem, modern societies, according to Shahrur, can restrict its applicability.73 However, the most controversial reading by Shahrur is his reading of Q 4:11. In fact, the verse has always been quoted as proof of the change that Islam brought to the status of wives who were deprived of any portion of inheritance
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Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary (HarperOne, 2015). Asma Barlas, Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 189. According to Shahrur, breaking the state laws that limit the applicability of the verse is punishable according to law, but the act itself, i.e., marrying more than one wife, is still legitimate Islamic marriage.
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in pre-Islamic practice. Wives were themselves part of inheritance that went to the eldest male child. Q 4:11 clearly states that wives and children receive a portion of inheritance. However, a male child according to all the schools of Sunni and Shiʿa fiqh is entitled to double the portion of a female child. But Shahrur had a different reading. He believed that the verse includes three statements on the inheritance of male and female children. The first statement concerns the case when there is one male and two females. In this case, the Qurʾān states, “lil-ḏakar miṯl ḥaẓẓ al-unṯayain,” which means that the portion of the male is equal to either female, and not, as traditionally understood, that the portion of the male is equal to both females. The second case is when there is one male and more than two females. In this case the male has one third of inheritance, and so his share is larger than each female. The third case is when there is one male and one female, and in this case the Qurʾān states, “wa-in kānat wāḥida fa-lahā al-niṣf,” that is, each one has a half of the inheritance.74 These readings indicate continuous efforts by Muslim intellectuals to cope with modernity. The Indian translators adopted certain interpretations of the Qurʾān because they helped solve the problems of the Indian Muslim community at the beginning of the twentieth century. For example, it was necessary to redefine jihad to gain the support of the British. Interpreting miracles as metaphors rather than as supernatural interventions were also essential to counteract the belief in the power of the dead and Sufi pirs. It was also necessary for the Muslim reformers to stress pluralism and tolerance to argue for the superiority of Islam and counteract the Christian and Hindu missions. Family modernization was totally different. It was seen as an attempt by the colonizer to undermine the local culture, and so it was resisted. That is why women’s domesticity and hijab were not affected by modernity as much as other issues. Therefore, there is more than one religious modernity manifested variously in different societies according to the set of problems and perspectives they must deal with. In the next chapter, we examine Qurʾān translations produced in Saudi Arabia and Egypt as representing alternative modernities. 74
See Muhammad Shahrur, Naḥwa Uṣūl Jadīda li-al-Fiqh al-Islami: Fiqh al- Marʾa—al-Waṣiyya, al-Irth, al-Qiwāma, al-Taʿaddudiyya, al-Libās (Syria: Al-Ahālī, 2000), 219–297. Muhammad Shahrur, The Qurʾan, Morality and Critical Reason, trans. Andreas Christmann (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 227.
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Alternative Modernities of Qurʾān Translation This chapter examines the life and impact of the Indian Qurʾān translations outside India, in the Middle East, Europe, and America. It discusses reasons why these translations were welcomed in Europe and America, but not in the Middle East. This chapter also surveys two translations produced in the Middle East: one in Egypt, al-Montakhab (1993), and one in Saudi Arabia, al-Hilālī and Khan (1974). These Middle Eastern translations, not unlike the European and Indian translations, are the outcome of their cultural contexts. Distinctively, however, from the European and Indian translations, national politics directly or indirectly played a major role in their approach to the translation of the Qurʾān. Institutional support and funding are also, especially in the case of the Saudi translation, a crucial factor in their longevity. I compare the Indian and Middle Eastern translations to see how they affected one another and how they constituted alternative modernities.
1
The Journey of the Indian Qurʾān Translations in Europe and America
The Indian Qurʾān translations, particularly Maulana Muhammad Ali’s, flew well beyond the borders of India as missionary tools. The first long-standing Muslim mission in Europe was established in Woking, UK in a deserted mosque, whose foundation was laid by Dr. Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (1840– 1899), an Orientalist and professor of languages who worked for many years in India.1 Upon his return to Europe, Dr. Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner had the ambition to establish a center for the study of oriental languages and cultures. He proposed to buy the Royal Dramatic College, which had been vacant since 1877, and turn it into a symbol of British toleration and a cultural center. That center was intended to host a church, a mosque, a synagogue, and a Hindu temple besides an oriental institute and museum.2 Shah Jahan Begum (1838–
1 The first Muslim missionary organization in Britain was Quilliam’s Liverpool Muslim Institute established in 1887, but it collapsed in 1908. 2 See “Dr. Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (1840–1899),” accessed October 7, 2019, http://www.woking muslim.org/pers/dr_leitner.htm. See also Humayun Ansari, “A Mosque in London Worthy of the Tradition of Islam and Worthy of the Capital of the British Empire: The Struggle to Create
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1901),3 who generously contributed to the founding of what later came to be known as Aligarh Muslim University, made substantial donations to build the mosque, which was completed in 1889. Donations were also collected for the church which was completed in 1895. But the untimely death of Dr. Leitner interrupted the foundations of the synagogue and the temple, and their earmarked pieces of land were sold by Dr. Leitner’s heirs. Just as the Royal Dramatic College had a promising start being supported by well-known writers such Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackery and financially supported by the rich actor Thomas P. Cooke, whose death resulted in a financial crisis to the Royal Dramatic College and eventually its closure, the Oriental Institute had a promising start but did not have much luck after the death of its founder. Both establishments, which are now nearly forgotten, could have been magnificent signposts in Woking, but at least they left a mosque, a church, and the street named the Oriental Road.4 After Dr. Leitner’s death, the Institute was sold, and the mosque was almost deserted. In 1913, Dr. Leitner’s son was set to sell the mosque when Khawaja Kamal-ul Din envisioned a Muslim mission in Britain. Khawaja Kamal-ul Din was an Indian Muslim who himself came under the influence of Christian missionaries and was at the point of conversion before he read a book by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and returned to Islam. It is he who accompanied Maulana Muhammad Ali in his first visit to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of whom they both became staunch followers. After Ahmad’s death, both confirmed his status as a reformer, and they separated from the Qadiani sect which believed Ahmad was a prophet. In 1912, Khawaja Kamal-ul Din went to England to plead a court case and then decided to stay and start a Muslim mission. With the help of prominent Muslims in England, including Sayed Ameer Ali, who was the first Indian Muslim Space, 1910–1944,” in India in Britain: South Asian Networks and Connections, 1858– 1950, ed. Susheila Nasta (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 3 Shah Jahan Begum was the ruler of the princely state of Bhopal in central India for two periods from 1844–1860 (when her mother was regent) and then from 1868 until her death in 1901. 4 Recently, the journalist and travel writer Tharik Hussain has developed the idea of creating a Muslim Heritage Trail to link the sites around Woking. The focal points of the Muslim Heritage Trails are the Shah Jahan Mosque and the Britain’s first Muslim cemetery established by Leitner in 1884. The Muhammadan Cemetery, as Leitner named it, is in a section of Woking’s Brookwood Cemetery where many prominent Muslims such as Marmaduke Pickthall and William Quilliam were buried. The third stop on the trail is the Woking Muslim War Cemetery, which was commissioned during World War i after Maulana Sadr-ud-Din, of Ahmadiyya Movement, proposed a final resting place for the Muslim soldiers who fought for Britain in the First World War. Initially the site was chosen near Shah Jahan Mosque; in 1969 it was moved to the larger Brookwood Military Cemetery; and in 2015 the space was rededicated as the Muslim War Cemetery Peace Garden. Matthew Teller, “Britain’s Muslim
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to sit as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Kamal-ul Din managed to reopen the mosque after the court set up a Trust to manage it. Within few years, the mosque, which had been used only occasionally during Dr. Leitner’s life and was deserted completely after his death, became “a vibrant centre and contact zone for Muslims in Britain.”5 The story of the Woking mission is not only the story of Indian Muslims as they were writing the first chapter in the history of Islam in modern Western Europe, but also the story of Muslim modernity as experienced at home and experimented with in Europe. It shows that modernity can be “narrated from its undersides as it can from its self-proclaimed centers.”6 The early Muslim translations experienced success in Europe because they gave plausible answers to the very questions that Europeans were anxious about in the age of modernity, and so they fitted perfectly well in the Muslim missions in Europe in the early twentieth century. In his comment on the Ahmadiyya translation of the Qurʾān in 1916, R.F. McNeile wrote, This propaganda is made attractive by smoothing down the roughness and cutting out the superstitions of the Islam we are accustomed to, so as to present the result as a kindly religion of the brotherhood of all men. How far the numbers of converts claimed from England and elsewhere are accurate we cannot say. We may be inclined to question them, and still more the value of such conversions. But in any case we have before us a phase of Islam which is active and progressive, and free of the trammels against which Christian polemic is usually directed.7 According to Fremantle, it was “the arid wilderness of Darwinian skepticism or Spencerian atheism” that led Marmaduke Pickthall, the noted translator of the Qurʾān, to Islam in 1917.8 He admired Islam because there was “no distinction between secular and religious: lectures on chemistry and physics, botany, medicine, astronomy and jurisprudence were given in the mosque, and these were taught there in the same footing as the Qurʾan itself.”9 In his speech on
5 6 7 8 9
Heritage Trails,” AramcoWorld 72, no. 1 (January/February 2021), https://www.aramcoworld .com/Articles/January‑2021/Britain‑s‑Muslim‑Heritage‑Trails. Ansari, “A Mosque in London Worthy of the Tradition of Islam and Worthy of the Capital of the British Empire: The Struggle to Create Muslim Space, 1910–1944,” 82. Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, Theory from the South: Or How Euro-America Is Evolving Toward Africa (Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2012), 7, 8. R.F. McNeile, “The Koran according to Ahmad,” The Moslem World 6, no. 2 (1916): 147. Fremantle, Loyal Enemy, 60. Fremantle, Loyal Enemy, 80.
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the life and personality of the Prophet Muhammad, which he gave on the same day on which he announced his acceptance of Islam, Pickthall stressed Islam’s rationality, universal brotherhood, and the spiritual life which is free to all.10 The Indian founders of the Woking mission experienced the British modernity in India, and when they moved to Europe, they represented a modern religion that could fill a gap in the European life, particularly the degradation of spiritual values that accompanied World War i. Having experienced religious modernity, whether in terms of intellectual exchange or freedom of conversion, the Muslim missionaries reproduced in Europe an inviting environment for learning about Islam. For example, they invited Europeans, some of whom were bareheaded women, to their mosques, and their Friday speeches were not necessarily religious sermons meant exclusively for Muslims.11 They represented Islam as a flexible cross-cultural religion that was suitable for modern Europeans, and claimed that their religion constituted the much-needed pathway for liberation and personal growth. It was a religion at which Europeans “marveled and in which they were able to find consolation.”12 As a result, the early years of the twentieth century after the establishment of Muslim missions in Europe witnessed European conversion to Islam by hundreds every year.13 These conversions were hardly dependent solely on modernist Qurʾān translations, but they were obviously supported by such translations which stressed the unity of God, the unity of humanity, free spiritual evolution for everyone, rationality, and tolerance. However, the only Indian translation that was available abroad was Muhammad Ali’s, thanks to the active Lahore Ahmadiyya. It was true that Sarwar’s translation was also printed in the UK and was available at the Woking Mosque, but it was not as popular as Ali’s translation, probably because of its extensive notes and the Ahmadiyya funding. Ali’s translation also flew to America and was adopted by the Nation of Islam. The well-known boxer, Muhammad Ali, adopted the Muslim name of the translator upon Elijah Muhammad’s (1897–1975) suggestion.14 10 11
12 13 14
Marmaduke Pickthall, “Address by Mr. Marmaduke Pickthall on the Prophet’s Birthday,” The Islamic Review, no. February–March (1917). Gerdien Jonker, “In Search of Religious Modernity: Conversion to Islam in Interwar Berlin,” in Muslims in Interwar Europe: A Transcultural Historical Perspective, ed. Bekim Agai, Umar Ryad, and Mehdi Sajid (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Jonker, “In Search of Religious Modernity: Conversion to Islam in Interwar Berlin,” 43. Muhammad Hamidullah, “Cultural and Intellectual History of Indian Islam,” Die Welt des Islams, New Series 3, no. 4 (1954): 141. In a personal communication with Noman Malik, the grandson of Maulana Muhammad Ali, I was told that during a wedding in the Chicago area in 1980s, Muhammad Ali (the
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Politics, Religion and Qurʾān Translation in Egypt
The rise of the Woking mission and the success of the Indian translations early twentieth century, and then the disapproval of those translations and adoption of Qurʾān translations that stressed conservative medieval interpretations in Saudi Arabia and Egypt offer us a hint of why religious modernity may fail. First of all, one can argue with Berger that “If one looks at the international religious scene objectively, that of the Roman Catholics as well as virtually all others, one must observe that it is conservative or orthodox or traditionalist movements that are on the rise almost everywhere.”15 In addition, the approval of Qurʾān translations in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia is a political rather than a theo-linguistic decision. It does not suggest that “for reasons deeply grounded in the core of the tradition … Islam has had a difficult time coming to terms with key modern institutions,”16 but it points rather more convincingly to the dynamics of the intricate connection between political power and religious authority in the Middle East. Before I discuss the politics of Qurʾān translation among countries such as India, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, let’s look at a similar story of power struggle in which Arab and Indian Muslims competed to have the upper hand in the establishment of a mosque in London in the early twentieth century. As early as 1913, Khawaja Kamal-ul Din sent a letter to Sayed Ameer Ali, who established the London Mosque Fund, asking for support to rent a room in London for the Friday prayer. Sayed Ameer Ali proposed a grant of 100 British pounds for that purpose. However, the increasing number of Muslims and then the opening of the Grand Mosque of Paris in 1926 gave Muslims hope that they could have a central mosque in London to be a symbol of the glory of Islam and the dignity and toleration of Great Britain. Such a project would require the support of the British government as well as all wealthy Muslims. The British government was not ready for that, but a further obstacle was the nationalist and sectarian differences. For example, the Nizam of Hyderabad hated to see the prestige of the project passing to the Arabs, and the Arabs did not wish to see the project dominated by Indian Muslims. Another obstacle was that the founders of the London Mosque Fund were a Twelver Shiʿa Muslim,
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boxer) told the grandson of Maulana Muhammad Ali that Elijah Muhammad gave him his Muslim name after the name of Maulana Muhammad Ali. Peter L. Berger, “Secularism in Retreat,” The National Interest, no. 46 (Winter 1996/97): 5. Berger, “Secularism in Retreat,” 7.
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Syed Ameer Ali, and an Ismāʿīlī Shiʾa Muslim, the Aga Khan.17 These differences almost brought the project to a halt. Fortunately, the mosque was built on land donated by King George vi in exchange for a piece of land over the Nile donated by Fuad i, King of Egypt, to establish the Angelical Cathedral known as “The Cathedral on the Nile”. But the politics of translation were even far more complicated than the construction of a mosque on a foreign land. The political context is essential to understand the Qurʾān translation project of the Middle East. To begin with, Qurʾān translation was not something new to the Middle East. As Sale said in his Preliminary Discourse, “The Mohammedans far from thinking the Koran to be profaned by a translation, as some authors have written, have taken care to have their scriptures translated not only into the Persian tongue but into several others, particularly the Tavan and Malayan, tho’ out of respect to the original Arabic, these versions are generally (if not always) interlineary.”18 So, Qurʾān translations already existed. However, Qurʾān translation into European languages in the twentieth century was resisted because colonialization created a state of mistrust so that every reform supported by the West was considered with much suspicion. In November 1929, Marmaduke Pickthall arrived in Egypt with the intention to revise his Qurʾān translation with scholars from al-Azhar. Pickthall had a letter of introduction from Lord Lloyd to Muṣṭafa al-Marāġī, who at the time of writing the letter was the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, and who had just resigned when Pickthall arrived in Egypt. Al-Marāġī was appointed Grand Imam of alAzhar twice, the first being in May 1928. He had a modernist vision of al-Azhar that he tried to apply, but various powers inside and outside al-Azhar interrupted the course of his reforms including King of Egypt, Fuad i (1868–1936). When he submitted his reformist project for al-Azhar for approval, the King was worried that the project might lead to al-Azhar’s independence from his political authority, and so he did not approve it. As a result, al-Marāġī resigned in October 1929. At the time when he was still in his post, he learned about Pickthall’s project and visit to Egypt, and he asked the Prime Minister who was a supporter of al-Marāġī to approve a committee of al-Azhar’s professors to revise the translation. The King, however, did not approve that step. Muhammad ʿAlī ʿAlūba Pasha (1875–1956), who would become the Minister of Education a few years later, had also suggested a similar project of Qurʾān translation to King Fuad i, but the King said that al-Marāġī suggested the same project, and he did not approve it. It is likely that the King did not approve the 17 18
Susheila Nasta, ed., India in Britain: South Asian Networks and Connections, 1858–1950 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 92. Sale, “Prelimenary Discourse,” 69.
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project of al-Marāġī because he was not in good terms with al-Marāġī and not, as Pickthall believed, because he thought that Qurʾān translation was sinful.19 Pickthall also heard that a group of angry scholars had burned Muhammad Ali’s translation in the courtyard of al-Azhar.20 First, Pickthall thought that the translation was burned because of its connection to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who was claimed as a prophet in India, but he learned later that the very act of translating the Qurʾān was not approved. The story of burning Maulana Muhammad Ali’s translation goes back to 1925 when the Ahmadiyya movement decided to circulate the translation in Egypt. To clear the shipment, the Customs Office required a special approval by the office of the Grand Imam of al-Azhar. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar at that time was Muhammad Abū al-Faḍl al-Jīzāwī (1847–1927), who was appointed the Grand Imam in 1917 and kept the office until his death in 1927. Jīzāwī did not approve of the translation and urged any Muslim who found it to burn it. This incident is controversial. In a personal communication with Noman Malik, the grandson of Maulana Muhammad Ali, he raised doubts about the incident of sending the translation to Egypt in 1925. In his article, “Differing Responses to an Ahmadi Translation and Exegesis: The Holy Qurʾān in Egypt and Indonesia,” Moch Nur Ichwan raised doubts about the fatwa of al-Azhar which banned the translation and urged its burning as he could not get hold of it.21 In spite of that, the persistence of the story for four years when Pickthall visited Egypt in 1929 has its own significance. It means that Qurʾān translation was a serious issue and that burning a translation, even if it did not happen, was very possible. This threat of book burning is reminiscent of the controversy over the Revised Standard Version (rsv) in the 1950s in the USA, which deserves some comment in this context. In 1901, Thomas Nelson and Sons published the American Standard Version of the Bible. In 1928, the International Council of Religious Education obtained the copyright of that version from Thomas Nelson and Sons. Soon a committee of Bible scholars was formed to revise the American Standard Version, but lack of funding postponed the work to 1936 when a contract was negotiated with Thomas Nelson and Sons, who would finance the 19 20
21
Fremantle, Loyal Enemy, 413. King Fuad i had many Western-oriented reforms which would make his belief in the sinfulness of Qurʾān translation bizarre. Fremantle, Loyal Enemy, 413. This story is possible given the angry and aggressive style of the scholars who opposed Qurʾān translation at that time such as Muhammad Shakir. It is possible also that the scholars expressed their violent intentions but never burned the translation since many moderate scholars at al-Azhar at that time would not approve such an action. Moch Nur Ichwan, “Differing Responses to an Ahmadi Translation and Exegesis. The Holy Qurʾān in Egypt and Indonesia,” Archipel 62 (2001).
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revision work in return for a ten-year copyright agreement. The pious committee members were not given any stipend or honoraria, but the fund covered the expenses for travel, lodging and meals. After much effort and time, the translation was published in September 1952. Surprisingly, the translation suffered strong adverse criticism, which according to Bruce Metzger, was unfounded and malicious.22 The members of the committee were even accused of being Communists. Fortunately, after a thorough investigation the charge was rebutted. The Reverend Martin Luther Hux saw the translation as an attempt to “smuggle modernism into local churches by way of Holy Scripture.”23 He did not have to look for evidence for a long time. In Isaiah 7:14, what seems to the translators as linguistic honesty sounded heretic to Hux. When the rsv translators translated “almeh” as “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14, rather than “virgin” which they used as an equivalent to “Parthenos” in Matthew 1:23, they wanted to be as close as possible to the source text and not to deny the virgin birth. In addition, they mentioned in the footnote that “virgin” is an alternate reading.24 Hux announced that he would burn the unholy translation after his sermon. The fire chief issued a warning about open flames in public buildings, and the president of the Baptist State Convention criticized Hux’s intention as “repulsive.” On Sunday evening after his speech, Hux led the congregation out to the street. He ripped out Isaiah 7:14 and burned it instead of the whole book. Despite criticisms to the burning of the Scripture, Hux continued his protest by publishing the tract Modernism’s Unholy Bible, which as the title indicates opposed looking at the Bible from a modernist perspective. In Egypt, the controversy over translation was even more complicated since politics had a larger role to play in it. After failing to get official help from al-Azhar, Pickthall had to seek the help of Egyptian professors, who could revise the translation unofficially, as al-Marāġī suggested. Al-Marāġī himself had learned English while he was in Sudan, but it seemed that his English was not strong enough to appreciate the work, and so he agreed to provide help as far as the Arabic text was concerned.25 Pickthall was able to find three scholars who were ready to help him. Nevertheless, in the first meeting with them
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Bruce M. Metzger, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions (MI: Baker Academic, 2001). Peter Johannes Thuesen, In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 94. Thuesen, In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible. Fremantle, Loyal Enemy.
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in the house of Ahmad Lotfi al-Sayed (1872–1963), the Director of the Egyptian University, currently Cairo University, Taha Hussein (1889–1973), the head of the Arabic Department in the university at that time, remarked that the three professors might lose their posts in the university if they did something against the will of the King, and so they declined. Eventually, Muhammad Ahmad alĠamrāwī, a lecturer in chemistry at the school of medicine of the Egyptian University and who became later a noted writer, agreed to revise the translation. After a few months, a journalist became fascinated by Pickthall’s work and wrote about it in the Al-Ahram newspaper. That gave rise to a new wave of strong opposition to Qurʾān translation in the Egyptian press. Pickthall himself published an article in the Al-Ahram newspaper asking whether or not he should give a faulty Orientalist translation to a non-Muslim who would like to learn about Islam. It seemed that the question was convincing enough to show the need for an accurate Muslim translation, and so the ʿulama agreed to look at Pickthall’s translation. Unfortunately, the translation was rejected as too literal. Surprisingly, nothing was mentioned about its biases or adoption of Indian reformist ideas. Obscurely, however, Pickthall received a message after a while that his translation was approved. In his “Translator’s Foreword,” he indicated that he fully adopted the Egyptian ʿulama’s view: The Koran cannot be translated. That is the belief of old-fashioned Sheykhs and the view of the present writer. The Book is here rendered almost literally and every effort has been made to choose befitting language. But the result is not the Glorious Koran, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy. It is only an attempt to present the meaning of the Koran—and peradventure something of the charm—in English. It can never take the place of the Koran in Arabic, nor is it meant to do so.26 Pickthall’s story is interesting not only because it indicates attitudes to Qurʾān translation in Egypt in the early twentieth century, but also because it shows the importance of Muslim authorities in the Middle East for Muslims around the world. Pickthall lived in India for a while, and he was conversant with the Indian Muslim reforms. He also worked, even though temporarily, as the Imam of the Woking Mosque, and he was familiar with Islam as practiced by Muslim
26
Marmaduke Pickthall, “Translator’s Foreword,” in The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation (London: George Allen & Unwin ltd, 1930), vii.
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missionaries in Europe. As he himself said, there were “perfectly competent ʿulama in India,” who could advise him on any religious issue. Despite that, he wanted to submit the translation to “ʿulama of Egypt and revise the whole work under their direction, that there might be no avoidable mistakes and no unorthodoxy.”27 However, the approval of Pickthall’s translation did not end the translation war. In 1932, al-Marāġī published his study on the permissibility of Qurʾān translation.28 Al-Marāġī argued that since translation is a sort of tafsīr (an explanation), and Qurʾān tafsīr is approved by the consensus of Muslim scholars, translation is permissible. Translation inaccuracies, just as tafsīr inaccuracies, are not unlikely since neither Qurʾān translators nor commentators are infallible. Al-Marāġī then distinguished between two kinds of verses as far as translation is concerned. The first is where one word can be replaced by another, and hence the complete meaning of the verse is conveyed. The second cannot be translated word by word and requires rephrasing. Ḥanafī scholars, as al-Marāġī indicated, allow translation in both cases although they permit prayers with a word-for-word translation. Al-Marāġī, then, discussed the inimitable linguistic features of the Qurʾān. To solve that paradox of translatability and inimitability, he resorted to Šāṭibī’s model of language analysis in which language can express two kinds of meanings: core meanings that are common to all languages (e.g., “John left”) and auxiliary meanings that are language-based particulars (e.g., the emphasis in “It is John who left”). Since core meanings are common to all languages, they can easily be rendered from one language into another. Auxiliary meanings, however, are difficult to translate from one language to another. Al-Marāġī concluded that the Qurʾān is translatable as far as core meanings are concerned. Indeed, although al-Marāġī’s study was intended to support Qurʾān translation, it oscillated between translatability of the Qurʾān on the one hand and inimitability of the Qurʾān on the other hand. As a result, although al-Marāġī agreed that translated prayers are possible and that translation in this case is not “word of people” but “word of God,” he claimed that a complete translation of the Qurʾān cannot be called the Qurʾān because the Qurʾān as a whole is inimitable. Al-Marāġī also claimed that literal translation is the best approach to Qurʾān translation although it is not applicable to all verses. It is this literal translation, when it yields complete and clear meaning, that can be called a Qurʾān and serves as part of prayers. He also supported the opinion that Qurʾān
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Fremantle, Loyal Enemy, 408. al-Marāġī, Baḥṯ fī Tarǧamat al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-Aḥkāmih, 12.
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translation should be accompanied with the Arabic text to motivate the reader to learn the Qurʾān in Arabic. Finally, al-Marāġī believed that the ʿulama should censor Qurʾān translations to ensure their acceptability. A few years before the publication of al-Marāġī’s book, Muhammad Rašīd Riḍā had published his book Tarǧamat al-Qurʾān wa-Mā fī-hā min Mafāsid waMunāfāt al-Islam (Qurʾān translation: its harm to and deviation from Islam).29 Rašīd Riḍā was a disciple of Muhammad Abduh, a chief proponent of Islamic modernism. Abduh, who was the closest disciple of Ǧamāl al-Dīn al-Afġānī (1838–1897), adopted his enthusiasm for modernizing Islam and tried to show that the Qurʾān encompasses principles of modern science and thinking. Abduh believed that medieval interpretations of the Qurʾān should not curb Muslims’ understanding of the text or suppress its re-interpretations in modern contexts. He included his modernist views in a commentary on the Qurʾān entitled Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Ḥakīm, better known as Tafsīr al-Manār, which was continued after his death by Rašīd Riḍā.30 Both Abduh and Riḍā belonged to the Salafi movement in Egypt, but Riḍā’s Salafism became closer to Wahhabism by the passage of time, and “his influence dwindled even before his death in 1935.”31 Riḍā’s book on Qurʾān translation almost conflated the Qurʾān with the Arabic language, and associated Islam with the Arabic culture. The book can be read as an early sign of Arab nationalism where the Arabic language and culture were glorified as part of Islam.32 The nationalization of Islam in the Middle East was still to crystallize further, particularly after the establishment of Israel, when Arab nationalists and proponents of Arab unity took pride in Islam as the revealed religion to the Arabs. Riḍā’s book emphasized the Arabic nature of the Qurʾān by enlisting the Qurʾān verses that speak of the Qurʾān in terms of its Arabic language. He outlined the messages written in Arabic by the Prophet to the kings of surrounding empires and stressed that Islam spread with its Arabic language, which new converts had to learn, and which soon became the
29 30 31 32
Muḥammad Rašīd Riḍā, Tarǧamat al-Qurʾān wa-Mā fī-hā min al-Mafāsid wa-Munāfāt alIslām (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Manār, 1926). Abdu, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Ḥakīm. Nikki R. Keddie, “Intellectuals in the Modern Middle East: A Brief Historical Consideration,” Daedalus 101, no. 3 (1972): 48. Hamid Enyat, Modern Islamic Political Thought (London: The MacMillan Press, 1982). For Arab nationalism in Riḍā’s writings, see John Willis, “Debating the Caliphate: Islam and Nation in the Work of Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad,” The International History Review 32, no. 4 (2010).; Mahmoud Haddad, “Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era: Rereading Rashīd Riḍā’s Ideas on the Caliphate,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117, no. 2 (1997).
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language of the lands conquered. As for the controversy between the Arabic language as the language of Islam on the one hand and Islam as a universalist message for everybody regardless of their language, Riḍā suggested that foreigners had to learn Arabic rather than translating the Qurʾān to other languages.33 According to Rašīd Riḍā, throughout the Islamic history, the Arabic language has been among the essentials of Islam (min ḍarūrīyāt al-Islām). However, hostility to the Arabic language and culture in Turkey became menacing as Turkey abolished the Caliphate, Sufi brotherhoods, and many provisions of Islamic law. There were attempts to distance people further from Arabic, which would soon reach a peak when the Arabic letters of the Turkish language was replaced by the Latin alphabet in 1928. Consequently, Qurʾān translation into Turkish was not seen separately from Turkish secularism. The Turkish reformist Badiüzzman Said Nursi (1877–1960) saw that proposal of a Turkish Qurʾān translation as a conspiracy against the Qurʾān and staunchly defended the untranslatability of the Qurʾān.34 The objective of such a translation, according to Rašīd Riḍā, was not to facilitate comprehension of the Qurʾān since Qurʾān commentaries in Turkish were plenty, but to replace the Qurʾān in Arabic, which would eventually lead the non-Arab to turn away from Islam. Rašīd Riḍā argued theologically and linguistically for the impossibility as well as the dangers of producing a complete translation of the Qurʾān. Theologically, he argued that a complete substitution of the Qurʾān in Arabic would be harmful to Islam since the Qurʾān allows various interpretations, which cannot be conveyed by any single translation. In addition, translation reflects the translator’s understanding of the original text, upon which any iǧtihād will be limited and invalid. More dangerously still, since each translation reflects a certain understanding, differences will arise, and Muslims’ unity based upon the Qurʾān will be fragmented around different translations. Linguistically, however, his argument is not as strong as his theological argument and reflects poor understanding of translation since problems such as untranslatability of words, verses, or the whole Qurʾān, which he raised in his book, were dealt with much earlier in India, and the real problem was optimality of translation, and not Qurʾān untranslatability. In addition, paratexts such as prefaces, introductions, and footnotes can almost compensate for whatever is lost in the body of the translation.
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Riḍā, Tarǧamat al-Qurʾān wa-Mā fī-hā min al-Mafāsid wa-Munāfāt al-Islām, 18, 30. Sükran Vahide, Islam in Modern Turkey: An Intellectual Biography of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, ed. Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi (New York: State University of New York Press, 2005), 209.
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The significance of Riḍā’s book is not its theological or linguistic arguments, but its response to the socio-political context of its time. Riḍā was aware of the secularism of Turkey, European hostility to Islam, and sectarian movements in India as well as the missionary activities in the Muslim countries. He saw the Arabic language and the Qurʾān as the only hope to hold on to if Muslims aspired to remain as one Umma (nation). This explains the contradiction in his fatwa. It is not clear whether he was against the translation of the Qurʾān because it was not possible or because it was dangerous. He believed that the Qurʾān is untranslatable, yet he approved partial translation for daʿwa (missionary) purposes. Similar inconsistency marked his attitude to Muslim missions in Europe. Although he knew that the Woking mission used a complete translation of the Qurʾān, which he himself harshly criticized in al-Manār, he had a good relationship with its founder Khawaja Kamal-ud-Din, whom he saw as “the greatest missionary of Islam” in his age, and whom he eulogized after his death for his great service to Islam.35 Similarly, the reception of the translation of Muhammad Ali in Egypt clearly contradicts the reception of Lord Headley,36 Kamal-ud-Din, and Abdul Mohye, the Arab mufti of the Woking Mosque, in 1923 when they passed through Egypt on their way to hajj: “Everywhere people would shake hands with Lord Headley and reverentially kiss the Khwaja’s hands. Young and old joined together in lusty cheers of ‘Long live Lord Headley!’ and ‘Long live Khawaja Kamal-udDin!’”37 The juxtaposition of these two scenes: rejecting a translation and celebrating its readers, may indicate how far Qurʾān translation in the Middle East was politicized. In 1928, Rašīd Riḍā published a similar fatwa in al-Manār denouncing the translation of Muhammad Ali’s English commentary on the Qurʾān into MalayIndonesian language.38 The translator was Hadji Oesman Said Tjokroaminoto (1882–1934), who particularly chose Ali’s translation to target Western-educated Muslims who, with much emphasis on rationality in their schooling, might lose confidence in Islam. The merit of Ali’s work, for him, was that it reconciled Islam and the modern mentality without deviating from Muslim orthodoxy. During the al-Islam Congress in January 1928, the project was bitterly 35
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Umar Ryad, “Salafiyya, Ahmadiyya, and European Converts to Islam in the Interwar Period,” in Muslims in Interwar Europe: A Transcultural Historical Perspective, ed. Bekim Agai, Umar Ryad, and Mehdi Sajid (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley (1855–1935) was an Irish convert to Islam, who became a leading member of the Woking mission alongside Khawaja Kama-ud-Din. He was also known as Shaykh Rahmatullah al-Farooq. Ryad, “Salafiyya, Ahmadiyya, and European Converts to Islam in the Interwar Period,” 55. Muḥammad Rašīd Riḍā, “Fatāwa Al-Manār,” Al-Manār 29, no. 4 (1928).
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attacked,39 and there was a suggestion that a debate between Muhammad Ali and Rašīd Riḍā should be arranged to shed light on the facts about this translation. For practical reasons, however, the debate was replaced by another proposal. Muhammad Basyūnī ʿImrān (1885–1981), a student of Riḍā, suggested writing a letter to Riḍā asking for his legal opinion. At that time, al-Manār was widely circulated in Indonesia, and it hosted some 135 responses to questions from the Malay-speaking world.40 ʿImrān’s letter and Riḍā’s response were published in al-Manār in its July issue of 1928. Interestingly, Rašīd Riḍā never took a close look at Ali’s translation. In his fatwa in al-Manār, he explained that he could not give a legal opinion to whether the translation can be used to learn ʿaqāʾid (beliefs) and ʿibadāt (ritual worship) because he had not examined the translation. As he clarified, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar and the Mufti of Beirut banned the translation since the translator was admittedly a Qadiani, and that he seemed to distort some verses related to the Messiah so as to conclude that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the Promised Messiah.41 Rašīd Riḍā himself judged the translation on that basis rather than on any objective assessment. It seems that Ahmad’s claim to prophethood was the core of the problem, and because of that claim to prophethood many works of intellectuals of the period, who were not necessarily among Ahmad’s followers, were misjudged. For example, the translation of Mirza Hairat was also accused of being Qadiani, and it had to be defended against any connection to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.42 In addition, Riḍā’s fatwa indicated that religious decisions in Egypt, as far as they do not interfere with the political authority, are rather arbitrary than based upon any policy or system. Thus, the late Grand Imam of al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy approved Muhammad Ali’s major work The Religion of Islam, along with a number of other books, but after his death, approvals of less significant books were denied.43
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For a discussion of the politics surrounding Tjokroaminoto’s project and its opposition, see Ahmad Najib Burhani, “Sectarian Translation of the Quran in Indonesia: The Case of the Ahmadiyya,” Al-Jamiʾah: Journal of Islamic Studies 53, no. 2 (2015). See Ichwan, “Differing Responses to an Ahmadi Translation and Exegesis. The Holy Qurʾān in Egypt and Indonesia.”The article also includes a full translation of Rašīd Riḍā’s fatwa. Riḍā, “Fatāwā al-Manār.” See a thread on this at http://www.ourbeacon.com/cgi‑bin/bbs60x/webbbs_config.pl/md /read/id/314123119218033 Approvals of religious books from al-Azhar are issued by the Department of Research, Writing, and Translation of the Islamic Research academy. As I was told in a personal meeting with Noman and Samina Malik, the grandson of Maulana Muhammad Ali and his wife, after the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, orally recommended the
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As Talal Asad argues, the nation-state, religion, and politics implicate each other profoundly.44 On the one hand, this means that in an age of nationalized religion, adopting a Qurʾān translation produced in another country can be as serious as any unequal political or economic relation. On the other hand, it means that politics can affect the smallest religious decisions such as producing a translation of the Qurʾān. When Muhammad Ali ʿAlūba Pasha visited East Asia, he found that some Japanese were trying to learn about Islam, but the available translations were only two: by an Orientalist and an Ahmadi. He wished Egypt, with all the expertise of al-Azhar, could produce an official translation that could prevail over other translations just as the muṣḥaf of ʿUṯmān prevailed over other muṣḥafs (takūn fī al-tarǧamāt kamā kāna muṣḥaf ʿUṯmān fī al-maṣāḥif ). As soon as he was appointed Minister of Education in 1936, in the government of Ali Maher Pasha (1882–1960), he wrote to the Prime Minister with his suggestion. As mentioned above, he suggested the same project to the King before, but approval was denied. It was not clear why the King should approve the project now except that his sickness (less than a month before his death) might have given the Prime Minister more authority in such matters. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar at that time was al-Marāġī, who five years after his resignation was re-appointed due to pressure from al-Azhar scholars and students as well as officials in the government and public opinion. Al-Marāġī was known for his piety as clear from at least two stories. When he was a judge in Sudan, he was studying an enormous heritage case between some orphans and their relatives. Having failed to win him to their side, the relatives wished to prevent al-Marāġī from reaching the court to give his ruling. On his way to the court, he was targeted with caustic chemicals that missed his face by inches but found their way to his neck and chest. The scars on his chest and neck had not taught him to submit. In fact, they left him stronger. When he was a Grand Imam at the time of King Farouq, the king wanted him to issue a fatwa to prevent his divorcee from re-marrying, but al-Marāġī firmly refused even though he was old and sick. The conflict badly affected his health, and a few days after an argument with the King, he died.45
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approval of The Religion of Islam, the approval of that book together with several others followed painlessly. Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford: Standford Universty Press, 2003), 200. Even though there were doubts about this second story since the King divorced his wife after the Imam’s death, it showed how people think of al-Marāġī, and how in general, they see the relationship of religion and politics.
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Ali Maher Pasha wrote officially to al-Marāġī asking for a legal opinion on the Qurʾān translation project proposed by Muhammad Ali ʿAlūba Pasha. AlMarāġī, in his turn wrote to the Committee of Senior Scholars of al-Azhar (Laǧnat kibār al-ʿulamāʾ). The memorandum that al-Marāġī sent to the Committee of Senior Scholars was significant, and it shaped how orthodox Muslims view translation up till now. Al-Marāġī suggested a process of translation that secured the censorship of ʿulama over translation. The first step in that process was the interpretation of the Qurʾān by some of the best scholars in al-Azhar. Those scholars had to consult the Qurʾān commentaries available and write down the meaning in clear concise language. This meaning then was rendered into the foreign language by pious people who were proficient in the foreign language. Such a translation, al-Marāġī stressed, should include an introduction explaining that it is not a translation of the Qurʾān, but a translation of the meanings that the scholars had understood of the Qurʾān. On the basis of alMarāġī’s memorandum, the Committee of Senior Scholars of al-Azhar issued a fatwa on April 7, 1936 of the permissibility of Qurʾān translation in the sense explained by al-Marāġī, that is, “translation of the meaning of the Qurʾān.” Since that fatwa, al-Azhar does not accept the phrase “translation of the Qurʾān,” and only approves “translation of the meaning of the Qurʾān” even though the process of translation might be totally different from that suggested by al-Marāġī. For example, Arthur John Arberry (1905–1969), who worked in Egypt for a while on his translation, explained that his title The Koran Interpreted reflected the orthodox Muslim view. In fact, when al-Marāġī suggested the phrase tarǧamat maʿānī al-Qurʾān (translation of the meaning of the Qurʾān), he was only defining the scope and purpose of his project. The phrase suggested by al-Marāġī served its purpose in an important historical context, but it is inexplicable why it should survive beyond that context. Once the phrase was suggested by al-Marāġī, it was objectivated and internalized and became sanctified.46 Being aware that the suggested phrase would mean little in English, the English translators get around the problem by using variations such as The Message of the Qurʾān or The Qurʾān Interpreted. These titles which distance the Qurʾān from translation underlie a tendency to look for guidance and support from the East as the authoritative source on Islam. On its session of April 10, 1936, the Cabinet of Egypt discussed the fatwa of al-Azhar and drafted its decision in a memorandum. To eschew contention, the memorandum had a detailed description of what it saw as an acceptable
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I am adopting Berger’s terminology. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.
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Qurʾān translation. Most important of all, it was a translation of a tafsīr and should duly, as al-Azhar suggested, be called tarǧamat maʿānī al-Qurʾān (translation of the meaning of the Qurʾān) and not tarǧamat al-Qurʾān (translation of the Qurʾān). The tafsīr itself, which would be written by al-Azhar scholars in light of reliable Qurʾān commentaries, (a) should not include any scientific explanation of the Qurʾān or refer to scientific terms or theories, (b) should only include the meaning of the Qurʾān void of any reference to any school of fiqh (jurisprudence), (c) should not exaggerate in interpreting verses of miracles, afterlife, etc., (d) should not overemphasize coherence among verses or chapters, (e) should include asbāb al-nuzūl only after due research and only if necessary, (f) should limit itself to the Ḥafṣ reading unless it is necessary to refer to other readings, (g) should not refer to abrogation except when it is not possible to embrace two verses together, (h) should include an introduction to the study of the Qurʾān, and (i) should not write the Qurʾān in any non-Arabic letters.47 These reservations indicate that the Egyptian Cabinet tried its best to distance its project from Turkey’s secularism as well as the modernist Qurʾān translation of India. Nevertheless, opposition to Qurʾān translation never abated. Shaykh Muhammad Sulaimān, Deputy of the Supreme Shariʿa Court in Cairo published his book Ḥadaṯ al-Aḥdāṯ fī al-Islām al-Iqdām ʿala Tarǧamat al-Qurʾān (The gravest event in Islam: The onset of the translation of the Qurʾān), in which he harshly criticized the project of al-Azhar.48 On April 22, 1936, he published an article in the newspaper al-Muqaṭṭam, in which he stressed the importance of teaching the Qurʾān in Arabic and how Muslims in non-Arabic-speaking countries such as Indonesia, Japan, and Bulgaria among other countries were keen on establishing schools of Arabic at the time that Egypt was keen on destroying the Arabic language through translating the Qurʾān. In response, Muhammad Farid Wajdi (1878–1954), the editor-in-chief of Maǧallat al-Azhar, published the second edition of his book Al-Adilla al-ʿIlmīya ʿalā Ǧawāz Tarǧamat Maʿānī alQurʾān ilā al-Luġāt al-Aǧnabīya (The Islamic legal proof for the permissibility of the translation of the meaning of the Qurʾān to foreign languages).49 It is interesting that Wajdi accused those who were against Qurʾān translation as either suffering shortcoming in knowledge (since some of them were Ḥanafī
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Mūsa Shāhīn Lashīn, Al-Laʾāliʾ al-Ḥisān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 1 ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Shurūq, 2002), 289–291. Muhammad Sulayman, Ḥadath al-Aḥdāth fī al-Islām al-Iqdām ʿalā Tarjamat al-Qurʾān (Jadidat Misr al-Hura, 1936). Muhammad Farid Wajdi, Al-Adilla al-ʿIlmīya ʿalā Ǧawāz Tarǧamat Maʿānī al-Qurʾān ilā alLuġāt al-Aǧnabīya, 2 ed. (Cairo: Al-Raghāʾib, 1936).
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and ignored the consensus of their school of thought) or politically motivated and cared for considerations other than religion and piety. As a journalist and intellectual, Wajdi not only refuted the theological arguments of those who rejected Qurʾān translation, but he also engaged in political and cultural arguments as he believed that Qurʾān translation conveys the true nature of Islam as a modern religion, and hardly affects in any negative sense the Arabic language and culture. This controversy was a great obstacle for the 1936 Qurʾān translation project that never materialized, and a new project, “al-Montakhab,” had to replace it a couple of decades later.
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Al-Azhar’s Translation: Al-Montakhab
The 1936 project of Qurʾān translation never came to fruition. But a similar project, two and half decades later, started to actualize although very slowly. In 1960, a committee of thirty two al-Azhar scholars from various specializations including theology, medicine, engineering, agriculture, and sociology was assigned the task of writing a Qurʾān tafsīr in Arabic.50 In 1993, the Arabic tafsīr was translated into English under the title Al-Montakhab in the Interpretation of the Glorious Qurʾān Arabic-English: The Egyptian Translation.51 In 2006, there was a proposal to revise the translation although some of al-Azhar scholars argued for producing a new translation rather than revising the old one. The 2006 edition featured two kinds of changes: (a) language and translation revisions by some Egyptian linguists and a native speaker of English, and (b) changes to reflect revisions of the Arabic tafsīr. The translation, as al-Marāġī envisioned a few decades earlier, was mainly based upon the Arabic tafsīr and was clear and simple.52 However, it departed from al-Marāġī’s model of Qurʾān translation in a significant aspect: it embraced scientific explanations of the Qurʾān, which al-Marāġī did not recommend since truth in the Qurʾān is constant, whereas scientific knowledge is subject to development and change.53 50 51
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Laǧnat al-Qurʾān wa-al-Sunna, Al-Montakhab fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm (Cairo: al-Maǧlis al-Aʿlā lil-Šuʾūn al-Islāmīya, 1961). The process of translation was not different from what al-Marāġī suggested. Mainly, the translation is based upon the Arabic tafsīr, and it uses clear simple language and employs explicitation when the meaning is implied or obscure. Similar process and approach are used in al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation. For a review, see Muhammad ibn Rāšid Al-Baraka, Al-Tafāsīr al-Muḫtaṣara: Ittigāhātuhā wa-Manāhiguhā (Riyad: Kursī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-ʿUlūmihi, King Saʾud University, 2015), PhD. According to Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah magic/religion should not be assessed on the basis
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In addition to scientific explanation, Al-Montakhab clearly shared the polemical attitudes of the early Indian Qurʾān translation in at least two features: it adopted a rationalist approach to the Qurʾān, and it did not ignore the question of coherence.54 It is interesting to compare Al-Montakhab with the Indian translations to appreciate how rational this translation aspired to be.55 In Chapter Two, verse fifty-four, Moses commanded the Children of Israel who wronged themselves by worshiping the calf to repent to God and “kill themselves.” The command
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of scientific criteria as they are parallel means of comprehending reality. He argues that the Zande magic is analogous to science since both depend on analogical thought and action, but whereas the results of science are evaluated by testing, the results of magic are judged by the felicity of ceremony and persuasion. See Stanley J eyaraja Tambiah, “Form and Meaning of Magical Acts,” in A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, ed. Michael Lambek (MA: Blackwell, 2008). Although Al-Montakhab tries to represent the Qurʾān as a coherent book, it does not, as the 1936 Cabinet’s memorandum recommends, overemphasize this feature. In its introduction to Chapter Two, it suggests that Chapter Two “started with detailing the meanings of Surat Al-Fatihah, so it assured that the Qurʾan is the source of guidance, and mentioned those whom Allah graced with satisfaction, and the infidels and hypocrites on whom Allah has incurred His wrath.” In comparison, Maulana Muhammad Ali stresses a solid relationship between Chapter One and Two: There is a clear connection between this chapter and the last one. There in the concluding words is a prayer for being guided on the right path (1:5), while here that guidance is afforded in the opening words: “This Book, There is No Doubt in It, Is a Guide” (v. 2). But though this chapter follows the Fātiḥa, it is really the first chapter, because the Fātiḥa is placed at the head, being the essence of the whole of the Qurʾān. This affords very clear evidence of the wisdom displayed in the arrangement of the chapters of the Holy Book. For this chapter fittingly opens with a prelude as to the object which is aimed at in the revelation of the Holy Qurʾān, and contains in its very opening verses the fundamental principles of the Islamic religion, which are also in fact the fundamental principles which can form the basis of the natural religion of man. I am using Al-Montakhab, and not Shabanah, the translator, as a reference since the translation is completely based upon the Arabic tafsīr, which is written by a group of scholars. One of the problems of this work is that it exists in more than one form, each with content that does not agree very much with others. The first printed edition of the book is Al-Montakhab in the Interpretation of the Glorious Qurʾān Arabic-English: The Egyptian Translation. Translated by ʿAbd al-Ḫāliq Himmat Abū Shabāna. 1 ed., 1993. A second edition of the book was published in 2006: Al-Montakhab in the Interpretation of the Glorious Qurʾān Arabic-English: The Egyptian translation, trans. Abdelkhāliq Himmat Abū Shabana, 2 ed. (Cairo: Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, 2006). An introduction to this edition was written by the late Grand Imam of al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, and a preface by Mahmoud Zakzouk, the Minister of Awqāf at that time. There is a pdf copy online whose content does not match that of the printed copy: http://islamic‑council.net/Portal/ wp‑content/uploads/2019/02/montakhab‑english‑2‑1.pdf. There is still a revised edition online http://al‑quran.info/#2.
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“kill yourselves” is obscure and requires interpretation. Khan rationalized the command as “slay those among you who have committed the sin,” adopting perhaps a closer interpretation to some medieval commentators.56 Abuʾl-Fadl and Hairat preferred a literal translation rendering it into “kill yourselves,” and “slay yourselves” respectively. Muhammad Ali and Sarwar rendered it into “kill your passions,” and “mortify each one his soul” respectively. Al-Montakhab translated the verse as follows: “Therefore, humbly repent to Allah your Initiator, by being angry with yourselves and humiliating them.”57 That is to say, God’s command to them is to repent and not to kill themselves literally. That tendency to rationalize the reading of the Qurʾān, however, is not consistent, probably because the source, the Arabic tafsīr, was written by different scholars. Lack of consistency is also a problem in Hairat’s translation which is a group work. That problem can be solved by a collaborative translation model, in which a translation is produced by a single translator and followed by subsequent revisions and editing, like what Muhammad Ali’s translation has gone through.58 In 2013, I received a copy of Al-Montakhab from the Center for Islamic Research of al-Azhar to review and write a report so that the Research Center could decide whether to edit and re-publish the book or launch an entirely new project of Qurʾān translation. It seemed that al-Azhar even after the 2006 revisions was still unsatisfied with the quality of the translation. The problem, however, was not the quality of translation but rather the definition of translation. Al-Montakhab is not a translation proper but a Qurʾān tafsīr in English, and so al-Azhar needed an adequate translation of the Qurʾan itself, a recommendation that was taken seriously three years later. In October 2016, al-Azhar established its Translation Center, which announced a huge project to translate the Qurʾān into all major foreign languages. In summer 2018, the Center announced that three translations into major European languages including English were ready to publish. Since the English translation is still in press, it is too early to speak about the translation approach or how different it is from Al-Montakhab. However, in a personal communication with one of the two translators of the new project,59 I was told that there
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See for example, Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 131. Al-Montakhab in the Interpretation of the Glorious Qurʾān Arabic-English: The Egyptian Translation. For a description of this model in practice see El-Hussein A.Y. Aly, “Collaborative Translation: Wicked Problems and Emerging Solutions,” mTm 10, no. Special issue (2018). The project was assigned to two professors of al-Azhar from the Department of English in the School of Languages and Translation, Al-Azhar University.
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was initially a suggestion to consider the translation of Muhammad Mahmud Ghali (1920–2016), a late professor of al-Azhar, who published his translation of the Qurʾān under the title Towards an Understanding of the Ever-Glorious Qurʾān.60 But the decision was to produce a new one to avoid Ghali’s literalism. The general approach of the two translators, who were supported by a consultancy team of linguists and theologians, is to avoid paraphrase as well as extensive footnotes and produce a communicative translation that reflects the moderate views of al-Azhar.
4
State-Sponsored Qurʾān Translation in Saudi Arabia
A similar huge institutional project was already launched in Saudi Arabia a few decades before the al-Azhar’s project.61 Founded in 1982, King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qurʾan is the largest establishment for printing and distributing Qurʾān translations around the world. In its first decade, the goal of the Complex was to print translations produced or approved by other entities in Saudi Arabia. However, in 1994, the Complex established the Center for Translation to revise and produce Qurʾān translations. Its goals also include (a) translating a simplified tafsīr to accompany Qurʾān translations, (b) doing research on Qurʾān translation and its problems, (c) surveying and examining the existing translations with an eye on adopting accurate translations, and (d) recording Qurʾān translation in audio files. This is in addition to producing glossaries, creating data bases of translators, and organizing translation conferences. The committee members for reviewing the translations should be proficient in Arabic, the foreign language, and Islamic sciences and should have sound beliefs. The committee examines the translation and writes a report on the beliefs and legal provisions the translation adopts as well as its errors and suggestions of accurate renditions. The Center also sets criteria for translation approval which are also similar to the 1936 Egyptian Cabinet memorandum although the phrase “translation of the meaning of the Qurʾān” is now taken for granted, and there is no need to stress it. In fact, since Arabic speak-
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Mohammad Mahmud Ghali, Towards Understanding the Ever-Glorious Qurʾān (Egypt: Dar An Nashr For Universities, 2003). Although al-Azhar translation is an institutional project and backed by the Egyptian government, it has limited distribution and is not easy to obtain compared to al-Hilālī and Khan’s, Muhammad Ali’s, Yūsuf ʿAli’s, or Pickthall’s.
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ing countries and Muslim countries in general “look up to Egypt in matters of literature,”62 the translation fatwā of al-Marāġī greatly affected the Saudi project. The first English translation that the Complex approved and adopted was ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAli’s. Surveying the English translations available at that time, four committees appointed by King Fad Complex recommended Yusūf ʿAli’s translation. Since the translation ceased to be under copyright after the death of the author in 1953,63 the committees were free to recommend revisions so that the translation, and more importantly the footnotes, would abide by Saudi orthodoxy.64 The revisions included the change of the word “God” into “Allah” (not only in the body of the translation but also in the footnotes) on the basis that “Allah” is a proper noun.65 Similarly, “Apostle” is replaced by “Messenger” as in (9:3) and throughout the book. Some other lexical changes are worthy, and they bring Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation closer to the source text. A few examples are “chastisement” in replace of “penalty” as an equivalent to “ʿaḏāb” (2:10), those who “put things right” instead of “make peace” as an equivalent to “muṣliḥūn” (2:11), and “gnat” in replace of “things lowest” as an equivalent to “baʿūḍa” (2:26). Some other changes, particularly the punctuation marks, are confusing. Verses 5 and 6 from Chapter Two is one example. In the Complex version, the verses are reproduced as follows: 5.
They on (true guidence), From their Lord, and it is These who will prosper.
6.
As to those who reject Faith. It is the same to them Whether thou warn them Or do not warn them; They will not believe.
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ʿAli, “Preface to the First Edition,” iv. Lawrence, The Koran in English: A Biography. For an account of the history of reprinting and publication of Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation, and the changes carried out in each edition after his death, see Aziz, A Biography of Abdullah Yusuf Ali: A Life Forlorn, 70–82. In his article, “Breaking the Language Barrier,” John Walbridge proposes the question: “What happens when Islam comes to a language community that does not or cannot adopt Arabic religious language?” In his answer, he argues that saying “Allah” rather than
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In the original version, only the word (true) was bracketted to give the meaning of “hudā.” In the Saudi version, the phrase (true guidance) was bracketed for no apparent reason. Similarly, in Verse 6, the fullstop in the first line replaced a comma in the original version. More seriously is the semicolon in Line 4, which was a comma in the original. With the semicolon, the clause “they will not believe” becomes an independent clause, which serves as a deterministic conclusion. That is, your warning them (O Muhammad) is in vain, and they will not believe. A more logical interpretation supported by some Medieval commentators is that since it is the same to those who reject faith, whether you warn them or not, they will not believe. Eventually, King Fahd Complex decided to replace Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation due to its inaccurate interpretation of issues related to belief and Shariʿa.66 In 1995, Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation was replaced by al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation, which is seen by many as problematic.67 Muhammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī (1893–1987) was a Salafi who studied under several prominent scholars in India, Egypt, and Iraq among other places. In India, he studied Hadith under ʿAbd alRaḥmān al-Mubārakpūri (1866–1935), the Ahl-i Hadith scholar who was well known for his book Tuḥfat al-Aḥwaḏī, an Arabic commentary on the Hadith collection of al-Tirmiḏī. In Egypt, he studied for one year in al-Azhar, but he did not like the curriculum, so he left al-Azhar and joined the lessons of Rašīd Riḍā, who described al-Hilālī, in his letter of introduction to King Abdelaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia, as “the best scholar who came to you from abroad, and I wish you make use of his knowledge.”68 As a Salafi who admired the reformer Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, al-Hilālī wrote commentaries on two of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s books: Kitāb al-Tawḥīd (The Book of Monotheism) and Kašf al-Šubhāt (Clarification of Doubts). He also wrote an introduction to the translation into Arabic of Masʿūd al-Nadwī’s Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab:
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“God” in English can be counterproductive as it encourages “the very many speakers of European languages who are already prone to be suspicious of Muslims to think that Allah is, for example, a moon god.” The American Qurʾān, discussed in the concluding chapter, and Han Kitab in Chinese literature are two works that dealt with this question creatively. John Walbridge, “Breaking the Language Barrier,” Renovatio (Fall 2018), https://renovatio .zaytuna.edu/article/breaking‑the‑language‑barrier. ʿAbdullah ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḫaṭīb, “ʿAbdullah Yusūf ʿAli Mutarǧim Al-Qurʾān ilā al-Inǧilīzīya: Dirāsa fī Ḥayātih wa-Tarǧamatih,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 11, no. 1 (2010): 196. al-Hilālī and Khan, The Noble Qurʾan: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary. Ḥifnāwī Baʾalī, Al-Raḥalāt al-Ḥiǧāzīya al-Maġāribīya: Al-Maġāriba al-Aʿlām fī al-Balad alḤarām (Ammān: Dār al-Yāzūrī, 2018), 186.
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A Reformer Who Is Treated Unfairly and Untruthfully, in which he praised Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s ideas and actions. Al-Hilālī got his Ph.D. from Germany and worked as a professor in a few universities, the last of which was the Islamic University of al-Madinah alMunawwara, where he met Muhammad Muhsin Khan. Born in South Asia in 1926, Khan was a doctor who studied medicine in the University of Punjab, Lahore, before he travelled to England to get a diploma in chest diseases from University of Wales. He then moved to Saudi Arabia where he worked in the Ministry of Health and then as a director of medical services at the Islamic University. Khan is well-known for his English translation of the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī, which was reviewed by some professors at the Islamic University including alHilālī. During their work in the Islamic University, al-Hilālī and Khan translated the Qurʾān into English. Al-Hilālī and Khan’s experience and background had their imprints on their Qurʾān translation. For example, although the translation depends upon a number of medieval Qurʾān commentaries such as Ibn Kaṯīr, al-Ṭabarī and alQurṭubī, the largest influence is that of Ibn Kaṯīr, whom al-Hilālī regularly used in his other works and about whom he said, “I have not seen any of the commentators attending to the Oneness of God like him.”69 Similarly, the Ṣaḥīḥ alBuḫārī, which Khan translated into English was consulted frequently. Although al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation is not admittedly a translation of a tafsīr, it clearly presents itself within that category through its numerous bracketed additions. For instance, the translation of Q 57:25 can serve, among many others, as a good example of the similarities as well as the differences between al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation and al-Montakhab. Al-Hilālī and Khan translated the verse into Indeed We have sent Our Messengers with clear proofs, and revealed with them the Scripture and the Balance (justice) that mankind may keep up justice. And We brought forth iron wherein is mighty power (in matters of war). The phrase “in matters of war” was added to the translation, and in order to justify that addition, a footnote that quoted the Hadith “Paradise is under the blades of swords (in jihad in Allah’s cause)” was introduced. In comparison, al-Montakhab explained the meaning of the verse freely and without bracketing the addition: “And We provided the earth with iron to attain 69
Muhammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī, Sabīl al-Rašād fī Hady Ḫair al-ʿIbād, 1 ed. (Jordan: Al-Dār al-Aṯarīya, 2006), 132.
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a purpose, as well as power and strength in war against tyranny and falsehood.” Al-Montakhab supplemented the translation with a footnote that explains that Iron is the most abundant heavy element in the Universe. The core of the earth is molten iron perhaps with some nickel and a trace of cobalt. The core must be very dense in order to help account for the earth’s great weight. It is thought that the inner core is solid whereas the outer core is liquid. This points to iron as the chief ingredient of the 42 billion cubic miles of the core. Both translations adopted medieval interpretations, but al-Montakhab integrated a modernist understanding of the Qurʾān that was kept inside footnotes as much as possible. In fact, it is unfair to assess these two translations without considering the purpose and scope of Qurʾān translation as prescribed in al-Azhar’s fatwa in 1936. Both Al-Montakhab and al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation distanced themselves, on purpose, from the Qurʾān in Arabic, and by so doing, the translators aimed at protecting the Qurʾān, and practically presented their belief that the Qurʾān transcends any human linguistic capacity. Thus, their translations are tafsīr in English, and not translation of the Qurʾān. However, if it is damaging to claim that a translation can substitute the Qurʾān, it is equally damaging to claim that there is a definitive tafsīr of the Qurʾān. This is even far more serious than the question of translation itself for two main reasons. First, this conflates the Qurʾān with tafsīr, which does not only justify taqlīd, but also contains the Qurʾān in a single narrow path of interpretation. Secondly, such a tendency ignores the socio-political context of tafsīr production, which means that medieval tafsīr is bias-free and final. However, Maḥmūd Šaltūt (1893–1963), the reformist and Grand Imam of al-Azhar, stated that medieval tafsīr was greatly affected by its context of production.70 In the introduction to his Qurʾān commentary, he explained that Upon the emergence of sectarianism … when members of different schools of thought and … different sects were competitively defending sectarian and political loyalties, they laid their hands on the Qurʾān and started interpreting it in ways that conformed to their views. So, readings of the Qurʾān diversified, and people’s approaches to understanding and 70
For a detailed account of Šaltūt’s approach to Qurʾān interpretation, see Kate Zebiri, Mahmūd Shaltūt and Islamic Modernism (Clarendon Press, 1993).
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explaining it differed … And we came to see people who interpreted the verses so that they may conform to such and such a school, and people who took them away from their clear meaning and their intended significance so that they may not be serviceable to such and such school of thought. Thus, the Qurʾān became a follower after it was followed, and governed after it was governing. That was a revolution—an unorganized revolution! It created and intensified smoke around the Qurʾān and prevented its light of instruction and guidance from reaching the minds. It was unfortunate that this revolution coincided with the age of hand-copying. So, many false opinions were recorded and preserved inside the books. By the passage of time, these opinions acquired a sort of sacredness that people submitted to. In an age of intellectual weakness and political looseness, Muslims took these opinions for granted and considered them inherited beliefs which they should not give up, transgress, or doubt.71 This is a significant statement by Maḥmūd Šaltūt. His use of the word “ṯawra” (revolution) is also revealing. It refers to a change from reasoning to acceptance without question. These two attitudes contributed differently to Qurʾān translation in modern times. Whereas reasoning contributed new modernist interpretations of the Qurʾān by the Indian translators, acceptance of medieval interpretations contributed little to modernist readings of the Qurʾān in the case of the translations produced in the Middle East.
5
Alternative Modernities: Qurʾān Translation Form and Content
Even though al-Montakhab and al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation adopted medieval Qurʾān interpretations, they can still be arranged together with the Indian translations along a scale of multiple or alternative modernities. As James Gelvin remarks, modernity is easy to observe, difficult to define. As a result, European and North American scholars came to take the Euro-American modernity as a model that other societies must duplicate. They believe that there is a single path to modernity that all societies must go through. Recently, however, social scientists began to question many of the assumptions underlying this view of modernity.72 71 72
Maḥmūd Šaltūt, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm: Al-Aǧzāʾ al-ʿAšara al-Ūlā, 12th ed. (Cairo: Dār al-Šurūq, 2004), 10, 11. James L. Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 69, 70.
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Charles Taylor distinguishes between cultural and acultural theories of modernity. The cultural theory of modernity sees the West as possessing specific characteristics and understandings, which can be copied but are not adaptable or translatable. The acultural theories see modernity as transformations that any traditional society can go through. Thus, any society can experience transformations such as the growth of scientific awareness, the development of secularism, and the rise of rationality. The point is not to deny historical reasons why the move toward modernity occurred first in a certain civilization or found it difficult to occur in another. “Rather, the point is that the operation is defined not in terms of its specific point of arrival but as a general function that can take any specific culture as its input.”73 Jean and John Comaroff distinguish between modernity and modernization. Modernity is A concept of the person as self-actualization subject, to an ideal of humanity as species-being, to a vision of history as a progressive, man-made construction, to an ideology of improvement through accumulation of knowledge and technical skill, to the pursuit of justice by means of rational governance, to a restless impulse toward innovation whose very iconoclasm brings a hunger for things eternal.74 Modernization is a process that the less developed countries need to go through in order to achieve a transition from traditional to modern societies. It is normative, unilinear, and has a clear purpose according to which it is assessed. Modernization is far more problematic than modernity, especially considering how colonialism and imperialism manipulate its processes. In this sense, the Comaroffs are right to note that all countries are modern as far as they seek the ideals above. In this sense, Qurʾān translation by Muslims in India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia embody different representations of modernity and modernization. Take, for example, scientific growth. Whereas the Indian translators tried to explain the Qurʾān so that it is compatible with science and scientific thinking, the King Fahd Complex engaged scientific and technological advancement by developing its huge printing facilities, and thus showing in practice how the Qurʾān and science can benefit one another. The modernity of the King Fahd Complex is
73 74
Charles Taylor, “Two Theories of Modernity,” in Alternative Modernities, ed. Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 173. Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South: Or How Euro-America Is Evolving Toward Africa, 10.
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well-represented in the excellent typographic techniques, outstanding binding, and high-quality paper. It also departed from traditional opinion by producing translations without the Arabic text.75 Another modern concept represented by these translations is globalization and world economy. Although the Indian translations did not have the chance to participate in world economy as they were limited individual projects, they presented the concept of the world as one unit in their interpretation of the Qurʾān. They stressed brotherhood of humanity and provided support for that concept from the Qurʾān. The unity of the world could not find its way into the content of the Qurʾān translations of Saudi Arabia, but it is practically applied in the distribution of the Qurʾān all over the world. Both the Egyptian and Saudi translations are state-sponsored translations and so they represent the modern concept of the nation-state, and in this sense, their modernity is distinctive from the Indian translations. The state-controlled institutions which produced the Egyptian and Saudi translations took pride in the Egyptianness or Saudiness of their projects. The former stressed in its title that the project is an Egyptian translation, and the latter stressed the approval of the head of the state, King Fahd, of the project. In short, all the translations were affected by modernity, but whereas the interaction between the East and West influenced the content in some cases such as the Indian translations and to some extent al-Montakhab, it affected the form far more than the content in the case of al-Hilālī and Khan. I would like to conclude this chapter with one more example to indicate the close connection between Qurʾān translation and its socio-political context. In the 1983 edition, al-Hilālī and Khan translated Q 1:7 into “The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians).” In their footnotes, they mentioned the following Hadith as narrated by ʿAdīy ibn Ḥātim: “I asked Allah’s Messenger about the Statement of Allah ‘not the way of those who earned Your Anger,’ he replied, ‘They are the Jews.’ And ‘nor of those who went astray,’ he replied: ‘They are the Christians.’” The translation and comment on that verse received harsh criticism from Muslims and nonMuslims in USA and Europe. Upon frequent remarks, the 2009 edition had to modify the translation and comment: The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (i.e., those whose intentions are per-
75
Bobzin, “Translations of the Qurʾān,” 344.
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verted: they know the Truth, yet do not follow it), nor of those who went astray (i.e., those who have lost the (true) knowledge, so they wander in error, and are not guided to the Truth).76 In the footnotes, there is no mention of the Hadith quoted in the 1983 edition. That change was not based upon systematic revision of Qurʾān interpretation, nor was it a systematic revision of the 1983 edition. It was simply the result of Western and modernist criticism of the translation of that very verse. The comparison of the journey of the Indian Qurʾān translations in Europe and the United States in the early twentieth century, and the story of Qurʾān translation in Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the early and late-twentieth century gives us a clear idea of how the production as well as reception of Qurʾān translation is closely related to its socio-political context. The Indian understanding and renderings of the Qurʾān were inseparable from the reform movements of Indian Muslims. In their readings of the Qurʾān, the Indian translators integrated the Western intellectual attainments and tried to create a happy marriage between modernity and Muslim tradition. In contrast, one cause for the war over Qurʾān translation in the Middle East in the early twentieth century was lack of trust in Western modernizing intentions. Just as Orientalism is said to have devalued the achievements of the medieval Middle East, Occidentalism was skeptical about Western modernity including Qurʾān translation into any Western language. That gradually changed since the late twentieth century allowing a huge number of Qurʾān translations to emerge. 76
Muhammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī and Muhammad Muhsin Khān, The Noble Qurʾan: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary (Madinah: King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qurʾan, 2009/2010).
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Conclusion The early European Qurʾān translations into Latin and, several decades later, into English were produced during a time of tense relations between the East and the West. The first translation of the Qurʾān into English, produced in 1649, summarized much of this relationship right on the title page. Reducing Islam merely to the Ottoman threat at the borders of Europe, the translator titled his translation, The Alcoran of Mahomet: Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sier Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria, and newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desired to look into Turkish vanities. When the second translation was published in 1734, there was a growing interest in learning about Islam and its prophet. George Sale, the second translator of the Qurʾān into English, saw Muhammad as a great lawgiver who was able to build a unified state out of scattered, primitive Arab tribes. With the emergence of historical criticism, the Qurʾān was initially criticized for lack of coherence, motivating John Rodwell to offer his chronologically ordered English translation in 1876 in an attempt to re-discover the true message of the Qurʾān. Following this, Edward Palmer published his English translation of the Qurʾān in 1880, which was influenced by his experience in the Egyptian desert where he had spent several years. He believed that the Qurʾān was written in nothing more than the crude everyday Arabic of the Quraysh at the time of Muhammad, resembling the Egyptian Bedouin Arabic. Despite a genuine interest in learning about the style and message of the Qurʾān, Islamic law, and Muhammad, these early European translations, up to Sale’s, were intended to maintain the reality of the Christian world as a superior religion by criticizing Islam. Since they were produced first during the Crusades and then the Ottoman threat to Europe, they represented the Qurʾān as a particularly violent book, highlighting aggression, violence, and a lack of tolerance. Although Rodwell and Palmer had a greater academic interest in the Qurʾān, their biases were not different from those of the earlier translators. When Christian missionaries were allowed into India to propagate Christianity in the early nineteenth century, they used these European translations to argue against Islam and attempt to convert Muslims to Christianity. The cultural context of India at the time paved the way for the production of English translations of the Qurʾān. First of all, a rich reform project had taken place in India since the time of Shah Walī Allāh. Through the contributions of different Muslim reformers in India, this project addressed many of the Euro-
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004543560_010 El-Hussein
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pean criticisms of Islam. Second, the English education policies of the Raj gave the Muslim elites access to British education at the top British universities. The Indian translators could, thus, capitalize on their English education, familiarity with British culture, and knowledge of the Qurʾān, as well as their concern for and understanding of the social problems of India. Linked to this particular cultural context, the aim of the early Indian translations of the Qurʾan was to address Western criticisms of the Qurʾān itself and solve some of the dilemmas Muslims found themselves in after their lands were colonized by European powers. Indeed, through their translation efforts, the Indian translators provided well-argued solutions that redressed the plausibility structures of Islamic beliefs and practices in modern times—an accomplishment that not only led many Western-educated Indian Muslims to return to their religion but also resulted in the conversion of many elite British intellectuals to Islam. However, their attempt to authenticate Islam as a superior religion for modern times necessarily involved the integration of certain elements of the intellectual productions of modernity into their understanding of the Qurʾān. As a result, they offered a reading of the Qurʾān that included accommodation to modern ideas, such as pluralism, universalism, and tolerance of differences and other religions. What facilitated the production of English Qurʾān translations in India and their success in England was the particular cultural context of their production and reception. That cultural context was entirely different from the Middle East, where any translation of the Qurʾān into European languages was seen as part of the Western effort to undermine Islam and the Arabic language. As a result, Qurʾān translations into English started much later in the Middle East than in India. However, it was no less influenced by its context of production. Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism is the state-sponsored form of Islam, adopted Al-Hilālī and Khan’s translation, which represents the Wahhabi understanding of the Qurʾān, while Egypt produced al-Montakhab to represent the image that the state promoted of al-Azhar as a modern, moderate institution. By modernizing the form and/or the content of the Qurʾān in English, these translations produced in India and the Middle East represent alternative religious modernities and alternative readings of the Qurʾān, and they were all contingent upon their respective cultural contexts of production.
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The Interconnectedness of the Past and the Present: Tradition and Modernity as a Continuum
Regarding religious modernity as juxtaposed to tradition does very little to explain the early Indian Qurʾān translation project.1 Rather, it is one possibility among many on a scale that extends from modernism to traditionalism. The indispensable role of tradition in European-language translations of the Qurʾān, whether in the form of Hadith or medieval Qurʾān interpretations, began as early as the first Latin translation of the Qurʾān. It was Ludovico Marracci who integrated the early commentaries on the Qurʾān into his notes. The later translators of the Qurʾān into Latin used the medieval Muslim interpretations to understand and translate the Qurʾān, but the translators did not explain or document their approach. When Marracci translated the Qurʾān into Latin in 1698, he supported his translation with parts of Arabic manuscripts he respected so much that he not only provided their Latin translations but also reproduced their original Arabic. His scholarly notes are what gained his translation its prominence and popularity among later translators, such as George Sale. Sale looked to Marracci as a model although he could not possibly have had access to the same number of manuscripts. His annotations, however, remain the most detailed scholarly notes to be found in any early European translations of the Qurʾān into English. His translation impacted not only the early European translators but also the Indian translators. Both the European and Indian Qurʾān translators used their footnotes to show that their translations were based upon and in harmony with the opinions of earlier Muslim authorities. It was difficult—or even impossible—to produce those translations without thorough knowledge of the earlier Qurʾān interpretations. The reader also finds valuable context in these footnotes, which explain which interpretation the translator had adopted to produce his translation. In addition to great respect for medieval Muslim writings, the early Indian translators of the Qurʾān made use of Western scholarship. For example, Muhammad Ali’s integration of Western scholarship in his translation was necessary to establish his work as a good read among the modernist intellectuals of his time. Besides, his various methodologies, such as linguistic analyses, interpreting the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān, and quoting Hadith and medieval commen-
1 Religious modernity can be broadly defined as undermining the authority of tradition. See Astradur Eysteinsson, The Concept of Modernism (Ithaca, n.y.; London: Cornell University Press, 1992).
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tators of the Qurʾān, were meant to secure a place for his translation among the classical Islamic works and to confirm key elements of tradition. This integration of modernism and traditionalism is, indeed, one of the outstanding features of the early Indian Qurʾān translations into English. Although they adopted modernism, they did not embody its fatal weakness, namely, the dismissal of tradition. Disregarding tradition created an absurd environment in which meaning was difficult to discern, leading to the alienation of the human beings and the disruption and fragmentation of their connection with God and fellow men. In addition, the traditional world order was torn up by the two World Wars. Postmodernism offered itself as a response to the post-war realities. However, it provided a bleak prognosis for the ailments of human societies without offering any remedy. By offering an amalgamation of faith and reason, and tradition and modernity, as well as the interpretation of service to God as the service to humanity, the Qurʾān translators in India suggested a way out of the predicaments of a radically changed world. They claimed that Islam alone is capable of uniting humanity and re-gaining human spirituality and inner peace. The Indian Qurʾān translators’ relationship to tradition was twofold: they used tradition as a force to gain recognition within the Muslim community, while they also strove to transform it in order to produce a distinctive modern reading of the Qurʾān. In fact, only those views that were well-supported— or at least not contradicted by sound tradition—became part of the mainstream modern understanding of Islam. For example, al-Montakhab, the alAzhar-sponsored English Qurʾān translation, adopted modernist ideas that had been rejected by al-Azhar scholars just a few decades earlier, such as the arguments for the coherence of the Qurʾān and the compatibility of the Qurʾān with science. Other views, e.g., the rationalization of miraculous incidents, such as the fire of Abraham, were not supported by tradition in the arguments of Indian Muslims and, thus, were eventually rejected. This raises an important question about the nature and sources of religious authority in Islam and contemporary Muslim societies. The stories of these translations indicate that individual voices, even if they are mightily loud, may not prevail if they deviate from tradition and the respected opinion of the scholarly majority. In addition, the fact that many Qurʾān translators seek recognition from Egypt and Saudi Arabia means that these Middle Eastern centers of Islamic learning will continue to play an important role in any wide-reaching Islamic reform.2
2 We have seen how Muṣṭafa al-Marāġī’s opinion that a Qurʾān translation should be properly
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2
The Relationality of Qurʾān Translations
A more comprehensive evaluation of the early Indian translations, I suggest, would require shifting one’s attention from linguistic equivalence to the context of production, i.e., to the translator and the reader, as well as to the relationships among different translations. Doing so would allow us to see Qurʾān translation as a process of cultural change rather than to perceiving each translation as an entirely independent project, whether from other translations or from the social realities of its time. According to Norman Fairclough, a text is not an isolated entity, but rather a link in a complex chain of other texts.3 Each text is, thus, also an intertext that is linked by a complex web to not only previous texts but also to its socio-cultural surroundings.4 This applies perfectly well to Qurʾān translation, not only because it is, by definition, a rendering of another text, but also because Qurʾān translation is dependent on Qurʾān exegeses. The early European and Indian Qurʾān translations, therefore, represent an ongoing process of intercultural transfer. It is difficult to imagine what Sale’s translation would have looked like without Marracci’s and Ross’s translations. Palmer, Khan, and to a lesser degree Rodwell, were also impacted by Sale, whereas Rodwell’s translation influenced Abuʾl-Fadl’s. Muhammad Ali was the most influential in matters of exegesis; Sarwar and Yūsuf ʿAli were clearly influenced by him. Some features also continue to resonate among translators up until today. Some of these features have to do with form, such as numbering and organization, while others have to do with the content. For example, Edward Palmer was the first translator of the Qurʾān into English to offer an abstract for each chapter. This feature was then developed
called “a translation of the meaning of the Qurʾān” greatly affected Qurʾān translations all over the world. See also Bruce Lawrence, who stated that the disapproval of the Saudi authorities of one of the best translations (Al- Johani and Peachy, 2012) affected its readership and distribution. Lawrence, The Koran in English: A Biography, 128, 29. 3 Norman Fairclough, Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (London: Routledge, 2003), 41. 4 See also Fazlur Rahman, who believes that “The Qurʾān is the divine response … to the moralsocial situation of the Prophet’s Arabia, particularly to the problems of the commercial Meccan society of his day.” In order to understand the Qurʾān in its modern context, one needs to re-contextualize the Qurʾān in a process of interpretation that he calls “double movement.” The first step in that double movement is to go back and study the original historical-cultural context of revelation. The second step is concerned with the present and how the message of the Qurʾān applies to it. Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 5.
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remarkably by the Muslim translators. In particular, Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl used these abstracts to show the connection between the chapters in a chronological order. His abstracts, particularly of the short chapters of early revelation, clearly show the development of the mission of Muhammad, as well as the core message of the Qurʾān as a book of guidance. Muhammad Ali developed that concept of the abstract further. Unlike Palmer and Abuʾl-Fadl, Muhammad Ali offers two kinds of summary. In his introduction, he provides a summary of the entire Qurʾān to highlight its coherence, and, in addition, offers chapter summaries placed immediately before each chapter. Muhammad Ali was the first translator of the Qurʾān into English to divide the Qurʾān into sections (rukūʿ). He gave each section a title, which was intended to facilitate comprehension of the Qurʾān. The feature of section titles was introduced only vaguely by Ross, who highlighted in the margin, in the form of titles, his criticisms of the Qurʾān. His titles were not systematic and mostly apologetic and/or polemic in nature. Muhammad Ali, by contrast, used his section titles systematically to describe the content and/or the message of each section. The feature that became part and parcel of Qurʾān translation into European languages is the use of footnotes to complement the translation. In Qurʾān translation, the translation and the notes complement one another, unlike short modern Arabic commentaries on the Qurʾān, in which the notes constitute a complete stand-alone tafsīr of the Qurʾān. This is due to the nature of Qurʾān translation on the one hand and the function of those notes on the other hand. Qurʾān translations are in themselves explanations of the Arabic text; thus, if each note explains the meaning of a verse, it will add very little to the translation itself. In addition, the note function is always to explain or clarify certain expressions in the Qurʾān, not to explain entire verses. These notes, hence, have very little meaning if they are read without the translation. The first to introduce this feature into English Qurʾān translation was George Sale, who probably adopted it from Latin translators of the Qurʾān or from Bible translators. These features that were introduced by the early Qurʾān translators, even though their translations per se were criticized for inaccurate renderings, contributed tremendously to the development of Qurʾān translations into European languages and, therefore, they need to be included in any evaluation of those early translations. Although the relationship between the early European and Indian Qurʾān translations is complex, the interactions among them can best be described as moving on a spiral path, i.e., a spiral of influence from (a) Ross to Sale, (b) Sale to Khan, (c) Khan to Muhammad Ali, and (d) Muhammad Ali to Sarwar and Yūsuf ʿAli. Such a spiral of influence is apt at showing the interconnectedness
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of past and present Qurʾān translations, and how, even if a translation moves down the spiral, its influence never completely ceases. New Qurʾān translators, then, never start from scratch but always start with a certain degree of influence from the past.
3
Assessment of Qurʾān Translation in Context
As I have explained above, the study of the early European and Indian Qurʾān translations draws attention to various circles of relationalities, such as the interdependence of a particular translation and earlier translations, of translation and exegesis, of tradition and modernity, and of translation and context of production. Analyzing Qurʾān translations in terms of these complex interrelations helps us understand the greater significance of the individual translations. The question, then, is not “what is the equivalent to a certain source text segment,” but rather “how and why is a certain source text segment translated in such or such a way?” This, then, requires shifting our focus from text to context, from word to meaning, and from translation as a copy of the original to translation as an act of creative re-writing. This alternate approach to translation confirms the potential of translators to reform the reading of the holy text. By applying the Qurʾanic message to a new context and delivering it in a new language, translation renews Muslims’ understanding of the Qurʾān as a practical message that directly addresses their lives throughout all time periods. This approach to translation as a creative form of re-writing, i.e., expanding and explaining the original text, offers important solutions to a number of problems encountered in translation in general and in Qurʾān translation in particular. For example, the notion that a translator can either follow a free or literal approach to translation is a false dichotomy since there are many possibilities between these two extremes. In some instances, the best strategy may even be a combination of both literal and free translation. For example, when the Indian translators analyzed the literal meaning of the Arabic word “jinn” in order to arrive at a rationalist explanation of the word in certain verses, they did not find either of the two strategies sufficient, and they had to combine both of them. The approach to Qurʾān translation as a form of re-writing in the vernacular languages is a solution to the problem of Qurʾān translation authorization and the debate of whether there is supposed to be a single correct translation of the Qurʾān or not. It signifies translation not as a second copy of the Qurʾān in English or any other language, but more so as a partial representation of its
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meaning that is understandably subjective and possibly biased. That is, translation is only a reading of the Qurʾān, and as such, does not exclude the possibility of other readings.5
4
Qurʾān Translation, Interpretation, and Adaptation
This understanding of Qurʾān translation as a reading is made even clearer in the globalized, digital, post-modernist world. That is, in the age of the Internet and given the availability of multiple digitized translations of the Qurʾān online, interested Muslims read and compare translations, and choose the version that they feel is the best and most acceptable to them. In their selection process, judgment is inescapable, and it is necessarily rendered very personal but highly critical.6 Expectedly, there is also a tendency to deconstruct the translations, since many searchable websites allow readers to compare multiple translations, even for a single verse. This, it seems to me, is comparable to some medieval commentaries, such as Ṭabarī’s, which comprise multiple readings. In Ṭabarī’s time, Islamic epistemology was far more tolerant of differences in interpretations, and as a result, the number of commentaries published, just like translations in the modern age, was large. Once people began looking at medieval interpretations as the final word on the Qurʾān, they fell behind in progress and social transformation. Similarly, once a certain translation is regarded as the definite version of the Qurʾanic meaning, the Qurʾān will be stripped of an important aspect of its renewability, namely, its ability to inspire new readings and translations throughout different times and across different places. Besides, translation by its very nature is a pluralist act. Its very presence implies the “other,” whether it is language, culture, text, or another translation. There are two other trends in contemporary translation practice that are closely related to the early European and Indian translations of the Qurʾān,
5 As Fazlur Rahman says, “Any translation of the Qurʾān is thus, by necessity, made partial by the translator’s theological predilection and his exclusion of other possible translations. If given ‘official’ status, such translations will suppress the richness and variety in Islam. It is much better to leave the Qurʾān translations in the hands of private individuals and groups who can go on improving upon earlier ones forever. Islam has no official church; neither can it have an official translation of the Qurʾān.” Fazlur Rahman, “Translating the Qurʾan,”Religion & Literature 20, no. 1 (1988): 26. 6 Tymoczko also argued that “there can be no final translation, there can be no final interpretation of a culture through a literary mode. There is no last word.” Maria Tymoczko, “PostColonial Writing and Literary Translation,” in Post-Colonial Translation: Theory ad practice, ed. Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi (London: Routledge, 1999), 23, 24.
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namely considerations of intertextuality and reading Qurʾān translations as literary works. We have seen how intertextuality in the early European and Indian Qurʾān translations took the form of adopting expressions from the Bible, Hadith, medieval exegeses, and earlier translations.7 In the post-modernist world, intertextuality has taken various, more complex forms. Not only was the reader/viewer invited to reflect on the interrelations of texts, but also of the complex relationships between words, sounds, and images. The Internet is abundant with multi-modal discourses that combine Qurʾān verses with sounds and/or images. Underlying these multi-media creations is a full integration of the Qurʾān in its modern historical context. The result is a message of the Divine word of God, communicated via multi-media, which, it appears to me, is not in any way offensive to the Qurʾān. Rather, these multi-media objects invite the audience to engage, immerse themselves, and contemplate its message instead of encountering it mindlessly. This process reached a highly creative stage with Sandow Birk’s American Qurʾān. The American Qurʾān was not intended as a book exclusively for Muslims but instead was designed as a work of art for Muslims and a general secular readership. This trend has its roots in the early translations that saw the Qurʾān as a universal message intended for all of humanity. Among all of the early European and Indian translations, Yūsuf ʿAli’s translation was the most inviting to a wider secular readership due to its focus on spirituality and its highly literary style that was more strongly influenced by English secular poetry than the Book of Common Prayer, for example. Furthermore, the American Qurʾān represented two modes of intertextuality. First, it did not depend on a single translation as Birk did not translate the Qurʾān personally but picked and chose passages from already-existing translations.8 Second, the meaning of its message was made highly interdependent on the mingling of words and images. Sandow Birk, an American visual artist, generally emphasizes social issues and public concerns in his works. In the American Qurʾān, he used a series of images from modern American society 7 These expressions contribute either negatively or positively to the Qurʾanic message since they generate more than one meaning. For example, when Sale used the biblical expression “mysteries of faith,” (Q 2:3) the reader was invited to think about the meaning of this expression in the Bible and Christian theology. In addition, Sale explained the original Qurʾanic expression “al-ġaib” in the footnote. When Khan used the same expression, the reader was invited not only to think of the Qurʾanic and Biblical meanings but also of Sale’s footnote. 8 Initially, Birk chose Rodwell’s translation for copyright reasons. But Edward Said’s criticism of Rodwell’s translation as a representation of Orientalism did not encourage him. As a result, he had to pick and choose from Rodwell’s translation along with the translations by Muhammad Asad (2003) and Thomas Cleary (1994).
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as a running commentary on the Qurʾān and its meaning in modern times. Bruce Lawrence refers to Birk’s work as an adaptation and transformation of the Qurʾān.9 Its creativity lies in the fact that it speaks in a medium other than words. It provides a parallel interpretation of the Qurʾān in the form of images, and thereby does not come into direct conflict with the verbal interpretations. Furthermore, in the American Qurʾān, the Qurʾān is located on the border between a literary work that can be consumed and understood by a secularist readership and the timeless word of God that has a dialectic relationship to human life. The suggestion of such a dialectic relationship is, in fact, what makes Qurʾān translation in general, and Birk’s work, in particular, so momentous. Indeed, Birk’s rendition of the Qurʾān reforms the Qurʾanic message by providing a familiar reading of it—not only for the American public but for the humanity at large in the modern world—today. This narrative of the Qurʾān and its translators, while exhibiting the timelessness of the Qurʾān, demonstrates the dynamic possibilities for new, creative, adaptable, and competing translations of the Qurʾān for millennia to come. 9 Lawrence, The Koran in English: A Biography.
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Index ʿAbduh, Muḥammad 76, 112, 164 Abū Bakr 9 Abū Dāwūd 66, 101 Abū Ḥanīfa xix Abu Zeid, Nasr Hamid 132–133 Abuʾl-Fadl, Mirza comparative translation xv, 49, 73, 87, 90, 92, 103, 105, 113, 128, 130, 136 influence 45 jihad 116, 118 life 44–45 methodology xiii, xxii, 48, 50–51, 54, 57, 75, 127, 173, 187–188 Qurʾān translation xi, xxi, 46–47, 50, 72 translation sample xv, 50, 56 Afghani, Gamal al-Din al- 164 Ahl-i Hadith 28, 33–34, 36, 40 Ahmad, Basheer-ul Din Mahmood 31 Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam Arya Samaj 26 followers 38, 60, 94, 155 Messiah 131, 167 opposition 28, 30, 33, 39, 160 pluralism 32 political views 31, 59 proselytism 29 rationalism 34, 41 scholarship 27, 59 Ahmadiyya 60, 157 Britain 155–156 doctrine 62, 97, 109 internal division 31 Lahore 61 publications 60–61, 64 Qurʾān translation xxii, 38–39, 160 sectarian disagreement 26–27, 131 Akbar i 97 Ali, Muhammad Ahmadiyya 31, 38, 61, 94 allegory 99, 139, 147 comparative translation 87, 88, 89–92, 105, 173 influence xxii, 72, 86, 90–91, 93, 154, 157, 166, 169, 187–188 Islamic law 149–150 jihad 112–113, 115–118, 120, 122
life 60–62, 64, 155, 157, 168 methodology xiii, xxii, 48, 59, 62, 64, 67, 72, 75, 82–84, 89, 103, 172, 185, 188 pluralism 95–99, 101, 103–104, 106, 107– 108 Qurʾān translation xi, xxi, 58–59, 65, 68, 70 rationalism xxii, 69, 127–128, 130–131, 136–139 reception 70–71, 160, 166–167 sample translation 55, 70, 73, 89, 98 scholarship 61, 67 sources 62 Ali, Shaukat 78 Ali, Syed Ameer 20, 159 Ali Maher Pasha 168–169 American Qurʾān xxiii, 175, 191 Amin, Qasim 150 Amir-Ali, Hashem 45 Anglo-Muhammadan College 23 Arab Feminist Conference 151 Arab nationalism 164 Arberry, Arthur John 8, 10, 169 Arkoun, Mohammad 132–133 Arya Samaj 24–27, 29 Asad, Muhammad xxii, 86, 191 Asad, Talal 168 Ataturk xi Baiḍāwī, Naṣir ad-Din, al- 6, 12 Bakhtiar, Laleh 151–152 Barelwis 36 Batalvi, Muhammad Hussain 28, 33 Bazargan, Abdolali 137, 144 Begum, Shah Jahan 154–155 Bennabi, Malik 125 Bibliander, Theodore 1 Bin Laden, Osama 124 Boko Haram 124 Bourdieu, Pierre xii, xiv Brahmo Samaj 27, 29 Bucaille, Maurice 142, 144 Buḫārī 66, 99–100, 106–177 caste system 24, 150 Charles i 3
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index
Christian missionaries xviii, xxi, 28, 77 colonization of consciousness xviii Constitution of Medina 111 Crusades 1, 16, 95, 183
Hindī, al-Muttaqī al- 99 Hinduism xvii, 18, 24, 28, 94, 97, 108, 110 Hussein, Taha 162 Hux, Martin Luther 161
Daryabadi, Abd al-Majid 66, 109 Dāwūdī Bohra 77 Deobandis 33, 34, 36 Dev Samaj 29 Dhahabi, Husain al- 123 Didat, Ahmad 144–145 Du Ryer, André 2
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, Muḥammad 176 Ibn Ashur, al-Tahir 112 Ibn Kaṯīr 75, 96, 100, 104, 106, 112, 117, 121, 128, 136, 138, 147, 177 Ibn Masʿūd 100 Ibn Rušd 133 Ibn ʿAbbās 100, 106, 138 Ibn ʿArabī 98 Imran, Muhammad Basyuni 167 India 20 Bhopal 155 British rule 19, 22–23, 31, 41, 78, 140, 157 Christian missionaries xxi, 18–19, 32, 36, 183 demographics 25 intellectual culture xii, xx–xxi, 10, 28, 33, 35, 41, 66, 84, 93, 107–108, 113, 127, 160, 166, 176 modernity 165, 170 Muslim-Hindu relations 21, 26–27, 29, 97, 109 Qurʾān translation xi, xvi, xxii, 26, 36, 44, 79, 94, 109, 122, 154, 158, 165, 180, 183–184, 186 scholars 68, 78–79, 109 socio-political reforms 11, 18, 20, 24, 32, 60, 62, 150 Iqbal, Muhammad 125 Isfahani, al-Raghib al- 66, 98, 117 Iskandarānī, Muhammad al- 140 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (isil) 124 Islamist movements 123 Ismāʿīlī Shiʿa 77 Israeli-Arab war 123
East India Company 19, 22, 140 egalitarianism xxi Egyptian Feminist Union 151 El-Naggar, Zaghloul 137, 144 Faisal ibn Abdulaziz, King 144 feminist movement 151 fiqh 36, 133, 152, 153, 170 Fischer, August 17 Fuad i 159–160 Gamrāwī, Muhammad Ahmad al- 162 Ġazālī, Abu Hamid al- 133 Gamrāwī, Muhammad Ahmad al- 162 Ǧauharī, Ṭanṭāwī 141 Ġazālī, Abu Hamid al- 133 Ghali, Muhammad Mahmud 174 Ghandi 124 Gospel of Barnabas 6 Graeco-Arabic translation movement xix Grand Mosque of Paris 158 Great Mutiny, India xvi, xxi, 18–23, 32 Hairat, Mirza comparative translation 73, 87, 90, 103, 112, 116, 127, 136 criticism 167 intellectual milieu 28 jihad 118 life 52 methodology xiii, 53–54, 105, 149, 173 Qurʾān translation xi, xxi, 52, 54, 56 translation sample 57, 105–106 Headley, Lord 166 Hermann of Dalmatia 1 Hilālī, Muhammad Taqī al-Dīn al- 176
Jabri, Mohammad Abed al- 132 Jamaʿat al-Muslimīn 123 Jeffery, Arthur 79, 85, 117 jihad European interpretations 95, 114 Indian interpretations 32, 34, 113, 122, 125–126, 153 political 113, 122–125
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index Salafi interpretations 177 spiritual 109, 122 translation xv, xvii, 93, 111–112, 115 Jīzāwī, Muhammad Abu al-Fadl al- 160 Kahil, Abd al-Daʾim al- 144 Kasimirski, Albert 10 Khalifa, Rashad 144, 146 Khan, Abdul Hakim xi, xxi, 37–39, 41, 82 Khan, Muhammad Muhsin 177 Khan, Sayyid Ahmad 21, 23, 29, 30–32, 34, 36, 41, 53, 131, 136 King Fahd Complex xxii, 174, 176, 180 Leitner, Gottlieb Wilhelm 154 Lekh Ram Pandit 27 London Mosque Fund 158 Macaulay, Thomas Babington 22 Mahmoud, Mustafa 144 Maraghi, Mustafa al- xx, 139, 143, 159, 161, 163–164, 168–169, 171, 175, 186 Marracci, Ludovico 1, 2, 6, 10, 185, 187 Maudūdī, Abū al-Aʿla 109, 110 modernity definition 179, 180, 185 East-West interactions xi, 126, 156, 157 Islamic law 153 Qurʾān translation xi, xxi, 35, 93–94, 145–146, 182, 184 reception in India xvii, xxii, 36, 185–186 reception in Middle East 158, 180–181 Mubārakpūrī, Abdulrahman 176 Mughal Empire 35 Muhammad, Elijah 157–158 Muhammad, Prophet Ahmadiyya 31, 38–39, 61 classical scholarship 106, 128–129 European scholarship 1, 127, 157 hadith 64, 73, 96 Hindu scholarship 27 Indian scholarship 44 jihad 119 pluralism 102, 110 revivalists 36, 104 Muhammad Ali Pasha 140 Muhammad Ali Aluba Pasha 159 Muir, William 9, 53 Müller, Max 10
Muslim Brotherhood 123 Mustafa, Shukri 123 Naik, Zakir 144 Nasif, Malak Hifni 151 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 123 Nation of Islam xxii, 157 Nöldeke, Theodor 9, 45–46, 65 Nufal, Abd al-Razzaq 144 Nursi, Badiüzzman 165 Nuruddin, Hakim 60 Oriental Road 155 Ottoman Empire 3, 16, 35, 95, 140 Palmer, Edward comparative translation 87, 105, 112, 138 critical responses 53, 70–71 influence 92 jihad 116, 118 life 127 Qurʾān translation xxi, 10, 12, 14, 183, 187 views on Islam 11, 126, 146 Peter of Poitiers 1 Peter of Toledo 1 Peter the Venerable xvi, 1 Pickthall, Marmaduke 162 life 155–156, 159–160 methodology 75 Qurʾān translation 160–161 reception of scholarship 162–163 sources xi, xxii, 86 views on other translators 67 pluralism xxi, 34, 94, 96, 98, 106, 108–109, 111, 126, 153, 184 Qaeda al- 124 Qaradawi, Yusuf al- 124 Quilliam, William 155 Qurṭubī 49, 96, 99–101, 104–106, 112, 114, 136, 177 Qutb, Sayyid 123 rationality xxi, 78, 126, 132, 135, 157, 166, 180 Rāzī, Faḫr al-Dīn al- 75, 128 Revised Standard Version 160 Rida, Rashid 76, 139, 164–167, 176 Robert of Ketton xvi, 1–2
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208 Rodwell, John comparative translation 16, 87–88, 105, 138 criticism 51, 53, 70–71 influence xii, 86, 92 jihad 112, 114, 116, 118–119, 121–122 methodology xxii, 9, 12–13, 59 Qurʾān translation xxi, 183, 191 sources 9–10, 187 Ross, Alexander comparative translation 7, 86–88, 90– 91, 105, 112, 138 criticism 14 European scholarship on Islam 8 influence 86, 89–91, 187 jihad 117–119 methodology xvi, 13 Prophet Muhammad 128 Qurʾān translation xxi, 3–5, 188 rationalism 137 sources 2 views on Islam 4 women 147 Sadat, Anwar 124 Said, Jawdat 124–125 Salafism xi, 164 Sale, George allegory 8 comparative translation 87–89, 91, 102, 105, 119, 138 criticism xvi, 14, 53, 70–71 influence xii, 10, 12, 70, 73, 83, 86, 90, 93, 95, 121–122, 188 Islamic scholarship in Europe 2, 5 jihad 112, 114, 116–117 methodology 7, 15, 59, 188, 191 Prophet Muhammad 127–128 Qurʾān translation xxi, 13, 16, 159 sources 6, 185, 187 women 147–149 salvation xvii Saraswati, Swami Dayanand 25–26 Sarwar, Hafiz Ghulam comparative translation 85, 88, 91, 102, 105, 113, 173 criticism 51, 63, 73 influence 89, 91 jihad 117–118
index life 68 methodology 59, 70–72, 85 philosophy of religion 69 Qurʾān translation xi, xxi, 16, 58–59, 63, 67, 95, 130 rationalism 127–128, 130, 135 scholarship 6, 12, 61, 71, 157 science 69, 126 sources 72–73, 86, 90, 187–188 style xiii, 74 translation 136 women 94, 148–149 Sayed, Ahmad Lotfi al- 162 Sayyid Ahmad Barelawi 52 Schwally, Friedrich 46 science 29, 37, 68–69, 93, 125–126, 135, 138– 143, 145, 164, 171, 180, 186 secularism xxi Seddik, Youssef 132, 134 Shaʿrawi, Huda 151 Shah Ismāʿīl Šahīd 52 Shāh Walīy Allāh 11, 97, 183 Shahrur, Muhammad 110, 152 Shaltūt, Mahmud 178–179 Shariʿa 109, 123, 170, 176 Shariati, Ali 132 Shiʿism 52 shuddhi 25 Soroush, Abdul Karim 108, 133 spirituality xxi, 30, 66, 83, 85–86, 94, 122, 186, 191 Sufism 30, 33 Ṭabarī 73, 75, 96, 100, 104–105, 114, 117, 121, 138, 177, 190 Tafsīr al-Manār 76, 164, 166–167 Tantawy, Muhammad Sayyid 61, 167–168, 172 Taiyibī, Badr al-Dīn al- 77 technology xvii, 24, 29, 37, 46, 51, 75, 124– 125 Thanawi, Ashraf Ali 34 Tirmiḏī 101, 176 Tjokroaminoto, Hadji Oesman Said 166 tolerance xxi, 44, 69, 94, 109, 153, 157, 183– 184 Tyndale, William xiv Ullmann, Manfred 10
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index Von Purgstall, Hammer 10 Wahhabism 52, 164, 184 Wahl 10 Wajdi, Muhammad Farid 170 Walbridge, John 175 Weil, Gustav 9 Woking Mission xxii, 62, 156–158, 166 women feminism 151 Indian scholarship 34 Indian society 24, 146 Islam 44, 113, 126, 149–150 Middle Eastern society 150–153 missionaries 157 Qurʾānic verses 57, 93–94, 116, 147–148 religious law 134 Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya 1 Yūsuf ʿAli, Abdullah comparative translation 93, 103, 105 criticism 86, 176
xv, 88, 90, 92–
influence 91, 93, 191 Islamic law 149–150 jihad 113, 116–120, 122–123 life 77–81 methodology 59, 71, 75–76, 83–85 pluralism 95–98, 104, 106–108 Qurʾān translation xi, xxi, 58, 82, 85 rationalism 100–101, 127, 128, 130, 136– 139 reception of scholarship xxii, 79 sample translation 55, 103, 106 scholarship 37, 53, 74, 175 sources 68, 90–91, 187–188 style xiii women 147 Zaid bin Ṯābit 9 Zamaḫsharī al- 7, 66, 75, 100 Zawahiri, Ayman al- 124 Zindani, Abdul Majeed al- 144 Zomor, Aboud Al 124 Zubaidī, Al-Murtaḍa al- 117
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