No other texts represent the profundity of interaction between Western modernity and the East more than English translations of the QurʾÄn 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 Ataturkâs 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 QurʾÄn to European languages. The Indian translators who were the first Muslims to translate the QurʾÄn 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 al-Hakim 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, Ê¿Abdullah YÅ«suf Ê¿Ali 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 QurʾÄn with modernity, each translation reflected the Indian socio-cultural context of 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 QurʾÄn Translation as a Cultural Production
I propose to analyze the Indian translations of the QurʾÄn as an on-going process of cultural production using what Bourdieu calls âthe space of the possible,â 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 (1697â1736) and John Rodwell (1808â1900) were the most influential linguistically among the early Indian translators due to âa collective beliefâ 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 QurʾÄn even though they did not agree with their renditions.
Bourdieu analyzes these social conditions in terms of âfields of forcesââmeaning that a new work is evaluated as a work of art because it is like something else in the fieldâand âfields of strugglesââmeaning that each work of art seeks to distinguish itself as radically different. It is the dynamic between âfields of forcesâ and âfields of strugglesâ that established the Indian translations among the classics. Although they followed in the footsteps of the European translators, each translation is distinctive, a unique stage in the overall development of the English translations of the QurʾÄn.
Khan was the first to set each verse of the QurʾÄn in English as an independent unit. The European translators read the QurʾÄn as one would read English prose, and thus they critiqued the QurʾÄn 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 YÅ«suf Ê¿Ali were the first to translate the QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn much of the spirit of the original. YÅ«suf Ê¿Aliâs translation also implied a reading of the QurʾÄn as a literary work, both in terms of his writing style and explaining some Qurʾanic verses in terms of literature.5
2 Importance of Comprehensive Assessment of QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn translation. Although new translations of the QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn 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 grammatical errors and run-on sentences. Sometimes, statements such as âThe translation does not do justice to the original,â âThe translation is too literal,â or âThe translation is biasedâ 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 âreductive analysesâ and âcelebratory effusions.â 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 QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn 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 distinguishes 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 âzakatâ and âjihadâ 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 âzakatâ and âjihadâ may be translated into familiar English terms such as âalmsâ and âholy warâ respectively.
As far as QurʾÄn 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-Fadlâs 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, QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn per se, but it offers a reading of the QurʾÄn.12
3 QurʾÄn Translation as a Solution to Socio-Political Problems
Both the early European and Indian QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn was published between 1141 and 1143â¯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 QurʾÄn together with a number of other Islamic texts. The translation became part of the church and hence sacred, meant to focus attention on the Otherâthe enemy, as Alexander Ross, to whom the first translation of the QurʾÄn into English is attributed, stated in his introduction.13 His translation clearly portrayed the QurʾÄn as written by Muhammad, rather than a divine revelation. It was intended mainly as what sociologist Peter Berger termed âworld-maintaining force;â14 that is to say, by criticizing Islam and highlighting its weaknesses, Rossâ 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 Muslimsâ resistance to these translations ended up in 1905 with the first English translation of the QurʾÄn 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 Saleâs translation, âIn the days when few ⦠Muslims knew English, such forgeries as are perpetrated in Saleâs translation, notes, and Preliminary Discourse might have passed unnoticed.â15 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 QurʾÄn 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 âplausibility structuresâ 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 QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn 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 word on the interpretation of the QurʾÄn. They also claimed that the purpose of re-interpreting the QurʾÄn was to return to pure Islam, and in that sense, Barbara Metcalf calls them âtraditionalists.â18 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 âcolonization of consciousnessâ 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 QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn translations.21
4 QurʾÄn Translation: Linguistic and Cultural Controversies
QurʾÄn translation was so controversial that in the 1930s more than a dozen books and articles, either refuting or supporting QurʾÄn translation, were published in Egypt alone. Since its revelation, the QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn transcends human linguistic capacity at all levels. It challenges its opposers, on more than one occasion, to come up with a sÅ«ra (chapter) like it to confirm that it has no equivalent in human language.22 As a result, Muslims have been pre-occupied with the question of translation since the very first centuries after the death of the Prophet. As early as the eighth century, AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa (699â767) supported QurʾÄn translation and argued for the validity of translated prayers. Although that remained a unique ḤanafÄ« stance, particularly among the early ḤanafÄ« scholars, other scholars from different schools of thought agreed to translation for comprehension and propagation purposes.
The confusion over QurʾÄn translation may have stemmed from the ambiguity of the Arabic term itself. There are two opinions that explain the root of the verb âtarǧamaâ (to translate). Some linguists believe that the term is derived from the root âr.ǧ.m,â which means two things: (1) âto throw stones atâ as in Q 11:91 âwa-laulÄ rahá¹uk laraǧamnÄkâ (And if not for your family, we would have stoned you.), and (2) âto guessâ as in Q 18:22 âraǧman bi-al-Ä¡aibâ (guessing at the unseen). Some expressions such as âlisÄnun mirǧamâ (perspicuous tongue) and âlisÄnun yarǧimâ (a tongue that is copious in speech) support this view. And, in turn, this view also supports the argument that the word âtranslateâ 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 ât.r.ǧ.m,â which has a few meanings, two of which relate to translation: (1) âto explain speech in another language,â and (2) âto explain oneâs own speech in the same language.â
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 QurʾÄn translation for fear of taḥrÄ«f (alteration).24
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 QurʾÄn translations produced one hundred years ago, the only way we can get a glimpse at the black box is through translatorsâ 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 QurʾÄn translation as explanation is what Muslim scholars such as Muhammad Muá¹£á¹afa al-MarÄÄ¡Ä« (1881â1945), 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 QurʾÄn and translated them to solve social problems. QurʾÄn 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 contribute to QurʾÄn translation? (b) how did Indian Muslim translators of the QurʾÄn reconcile QurʾÄn interpretation with modern concepts such as pluralism, tolerance, spirituality, rationality, egalitarianism, and even secularism? (c) how did Indian Muslim translators of the QurʾÄn 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 werenât those translations well received in countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia?
Each of the bookâs eight chapters addresses one or more of the central questions outlined above. Chapter One describes the context in which the early European QurʾÄn translations by Alexander Ross (1590â1654), George Sale (1697â1736), John Rodwell (1808â1900), and Edward Palmer (1840â1882) 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 QurʾÄn. 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 QurʾÄn translations.
Chapter Three, Four and Five introduce the Indian translations. Chapter Three surveys the first three Indian translations of the QurʾÄn by Muhammad Abdul Hakim Khan (1900s), Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl (1865â1956), and Mirza Hairat (1850â1928). Chapter Four surveys those by Maulana Muhammad Ali (1874â1951) and Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (1873â1954), and Chapter Five includes Ê¿Abdullah YÅ«suf Ê¿Ali (1872â1953). Taken together, the first five chapters make the case that QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn interpretation with aspects of modernity. The analysis and comparison do not cover the whole QurʾÄn, 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 significance than a mere practice dictated by a set of social and political conditions. These translations also used scientific concepts to explain the QurʾÄn. For example, Orientalists repeatedly criticized the QurʾÄn as an incoherent book. That is why John Rodwell proposed his chronologically ordered QurʾÄn translation. Mirza Abuʾl-Fadl also argued that the chronological order of the QurʾÄn makes the development of revelation and the message of the QurʾÄn clearer. However, Maulana Muhammad Ali defended the present arrangement of the QurʾÄn, 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 âscientific,â âpreface,â and âintroduction,â 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 QurʾÄn, scientific supremacy of the QurʾÄn, 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 QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn 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 (1875â1936) and Muhammad Asad (1900â1992). 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 Aliâs. 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 YÅ«suf Ê¿Aliâs translation was adopted for some time by King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy QurʾÄn but was later replaced by al-HilÄlÄ« and Khanâs, which garnered far more attention. The chapter compares the Indian translations with translations adopted in the Middle East such as al-HilÄlÄ« and Khanâs in Saudi Arabia and al-Azhar translation in Egypt to see how Muslim translations in different contexts embraced modernity. The chapter also outlines the similarities 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, QurʾÄn translation ought to be studied in context. The European and Indian QurʾÄn translations were products of their socio-political circumstances. Similarly, in the twenty-first century, Sandow Birk chose a title for his QurʾÄn translation that refers clearly to the context in which it was produced, American QurʾÄn. Second, the more recent translations are interconnected with the older ones, and the more we examine QurʾÄn 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 QurʾÄn.
I am using âIndiaâ although âthe Subcontinentâ is the accepted term for the area which was then British India and later became the Republic of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Marmaduke Pickthallâs (1875â1936) QurʾÄn 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 Ê¿Imad al-Mulk Sayyid Husain Bilgrami of Hyderabad finished sixteen parts of the QurʾÄn, 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 QurʾÄn 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, âEnglish Translations of the Holy Qurʾan: A Bio-Bibliographic Study,â Islamic Quarterly 30, no. 2 (1986): 1, 126.
Pierre Bourdieu, âThe Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed,â Poetics, no. 12 (1983).
As Venuti explains, âFluency 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.â Lawrence Venuti, The Translatorâs Invisibility: A History of Translation, 2 ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), 35.
This is one example among many. In his comment on the seven heavens and earths, he said, âThe 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 Godâs Throne of Majesty.â Ê¿Abdullah YÅ«suf Ê¿Ali, The Holy QurʾÄn: Arabic Text with an English Translation and Commentary (Lahore, India: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1937), 1567, n. 5526.
Such reductive assessments succeed, as in the tragedy of William Tyndale (1494â1536), 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 Londonâs 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. Paulâs 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 bishopâs idea ended up serving Tyndaleâs purpose. The bishopâs money paid off Tyndaleâs debts and enabled him to resume printing.
Neither burning nor buying the translations helped destroy Tyndaleâs task, but a third far simpler strategy worked much better. The Bishop of London and his supporters accused the translation of being inaccurate. âSuch attacks, made from different pulpits throughout the land, were much more effective than the previous stupid measures adopted against the Bible.â On October 6, 1536, Tyndaleâs 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, âevery succeeding version is in reality little more than a revision of Tyndaleâs; even our present Authorised Version owes to him chiefly the ease and beauty for which it is so admired.â John Paterson Smyth, How We Got Our Bible. (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1892), 84â90.
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).
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 Translatorâs Invisibility: A History of Translation.
For example, Abuʾl-Fadl translated Q 11:21 as follows: âThese It Is Who Have Lost Their Souls, and there Shall Stray Away from Them What They Did Invent.â YÅ«suf Ê¿Ali translated the same verse as follows: âThey Are the Ones Who Have Lost Their Own Souls, and the (Fancies) They Invented Have Left Them in the Lurch.â Sometimes also a literal translation is the more readable rendering such as Q 89:2 which was translated literally into âthe ten nightsâ by most Indian translators, but âthe nights twice fiveâ by YÅ«suf Ê¿Ali.
For example, the translation of QÂ 3:7 usually constitutes an explanation of the verse.
Noel Malcolm suggests that Alexander Ross is neither the translator nor the author of the short essay on Muhammad. Noel Malcolm, âThe 1649 English Translation of the Koran: Its Origin and Significance,â Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 75 (2012),
Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2011).
Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar, âIntroduction,â 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 âplausibility structuresâ 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 QurʾÄn, see chapters Six and Seven.
The Indian translators defined jihad as âa struggle in the path of Godâ rather than âholy warâ or âfightingâ as al-HilÄlÄ« 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.
Barbara D. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860â1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 12.
Robert N. Bellah, âReligious Evolution,â 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, âThe Colonization of Consciousness,â 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 QurʾÄn offered an amalgamation of reason and faith, modernity and tradition, service to humanity and service to God.
As, for example, in QÂ 2:23 and QÂ 10:38.
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), 32â35.
Newmark, A Textbook of Translation, 12.
Roger T. Bell, Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice (London: Longman, 1991).
Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Holy QurʾÄn with English Translation and Commentary, 2002 ed. (USA: Ahmadiyya Anjuman IshaÊ¿at Islam Lahore Inc., 2017), 861, note 24a.
Besides the economic and political support, the scholarly notes of Maulana Muhammad Ali contributed tremendously to the success of his translation.