by Robert Doto

Note:  This article is contesting specific instances of bias found in translations of the Qur’an, and not the Arabic Qur’an itself. That endeavor is between a person and God.

The art is "Palimpsest Test Corrected" by Terry Maker  

1. “Literal translations” and other lies to help you sleep at night 

I remember the day as if it were yesterday. Sunny summer evening in the mountains. I was talking on the phone to an ex-girlfriend.

“Oops. I have to go. The mail is here.”

I hung up the phone and opened the only piece of mail that mattered. The Message: A Modern Literal Translation of the Qur’an published by ProgressiveMuslims.Org. I thought to myself: Finally, a translation that accepts change in society as a valid occurrence—a Qur’an translated without a hopeless string of “thy”s, “thou”s, and “ye”s. Not to mention they used the word “progressive” to boot. How contemporary! The book had a low-budget, independent, DIY feel. So far so good. The text retained the prose of the original Arabic. No fancy line breaks for this translation. I turned to the back. It read, “There are no footnotes or addition of words between brackets to interfere with the Quranic text or message.” Great! No more mysterious bracketed words a la Abdullah Yusuf Ali. “The translation is based on a ‘literal understanding’ approach, which means that no sources (besides an Arabic word dictionary and common sense) are used to determine the meaning of the text or translation.” Meaning? Common sense? I don’t usually go for this. But, I was too excited. I’ll give them a shot! I then flipped to the inside. Oooh. An index! This should help me with my own index project. “Marriage.” “Charity.” “Fighting.” “Water.” “Honey.” “Mules.” “Homosexuality.”  What the fuck?! Homosexuality?! In the Qur’an? Where? Lut? I thought that was about rape. I knew of the Lut story already and since I don’t consider homosexuality synonymous with rape, it never occurred to me that the story of Lut was about gay men. I thought to myself: I never considered heterosexual married men who forced their penises into the asses of innumerable men passing by their front gates to be gay? I always considered those types of people to be violent rapists. Is this what ProgressiveMuslims.Org meant by “common sense?” A feeling of embarrassment and anger coiled and pulsated within me. At that point it was clear to me that I was confronting something serious: a most vicious and clandestine bigotry so matter-of-fact as to be considered poison. I vowed from that day on to never be duped by bigotry again.

PS. Whereas The Message merely lists “homosexuality” in the index, Muhammad Asad’s translation The Message of the Qur’an does us the favor of being even more clear with the citation “homosexuality condemned.” Thank you Mr. Asad for your input.

2. What’s IN a word?

Many of us in the United States too young to have had an awareness of apartheid South Africa, may still know the word kaffir. Most of us have a specific knowledge of that word. We may not recall where we heard it first, but we definitely made a note of it. I remember reading the book Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane in high school and being told that the word kaffir was a kin to the word nigger (a word that will forever send chills down anyone’s spine within earshot). South Africans I would meet, however, would always qualify the word kaffir as having “even worse” connotations than nigger. My response has always been Say no more. I can only imagine. This is true. I can only imagine. Being white, I was never the direct subject of these horrendous terms, however it has been made clear that its usage has indeed made subjects of us all. It should come as no surprise that when I began to study the Qur’an, finding out that kaffir was Arabic in nature was a bit of a shock. This of course was a word that I was to come across numerous times in the Qur’an, and it would indeed be used to delineate something other.

The question of how and in what ways other has since been at the forefront of my inquiries. A survey of both historic and modern translations of the Qur’an proves to be insightful (though problematic) on how this word is translated and what connotations are intended to be conveyed. One of the more recent translations of the Qur’an is Thomas Cleary’s The Qur’an. While this book came to me as a beacon of light with its rereading of the dress-code suras, it ultimately came short of what I had hoped to encounter. For starters, Cleary translates k-f-r as “atheists.” Compare this to Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s translation of k-f-r as “those without Faith,” or ProgressiveMuslim.Org’s “rejecters.” Compare these still to Muhammad Asad’s rendering of k-f-r as “Those who deny the truth” For me, Asad’s translation hits closer to home, however, like many cases in his mammoth translation, Asad’s notation on why he has chosen this term ultimately reveals an even clearer translation, which contains multiple connotations simultaneously: “one who covers.”

For me, the difference is crystalline, and each author’s bias sits arrogantly on the surface of the page. Cleary’s translation of k-f-r as “atheist” is simply presumptuous. He clearly has it in for atheists as to assume they are in complete opposition to Islamic belief. This is of course routinely discredited for anyone who has friends who are simultaneously spiritual, “moral,” and atheist. The biggest problem with this translation is that it codifies a belief system as broad as atheism as to be simply an opposition to Islam’s call to submission; this being a rather bold statement to make in light of recent jihad-ism.

Yusuf Ali’s translation of k-f-r as “those without Faith” is problematic in a number of ways. To start, this translation assumes that those who disagree with some of the precepts of Islam are “without Faith,” as opposed to people simply exploring a specific stage of their path to submission: doubt. In a way, this translation denies the Qur’an’s numerous statements that all beings return to God (3:83; 5:48; 7:29; 23:115). If this statement were actually the case, stating that the opposition to those who submit to God’s will were “those without Faith” would simply be irrelevant. Ali might as well have translated k-f-r as “those without Pants,” since at least those people would be identifiable. To translate k-f-r as “those without Faith” generalizes to such an extent as to include even those Muslims who have vowed to observe the path, though who may still be questioning it’s relevance to their lives—questioning being an act the Qur’an looks highly upon (17:36). One needs to continuously assess one’s motives and intentions so that a person who is attempting to surrender may be certain that their surrender is done so without compulsion (2:256).

The main problem with ProgressiveMuslims.Org’s translation of k-f-r is the oppositional stance it takes in delineating who is in the Islam club and who is outside of its steep walls. This group of people seems to infer with their translation that those who “reject” the practice of Islam for another path, are therefore in opposition to Islam and should be seen as such. This, of course goes against God’s willing diversity among people (2:136, 148; 5:48; 16:36; 22:67; 23:79; 30:22; 49:13). Judging by their website’s material, it is clear that the people within the organization intend to be at least slightly pluralist in world-view. We may conclude than that this translation is simply careless. My Buddhist friends have certainly “rejected” Islam as a path for themselves, yet they are no less guided in my opinion.

The problem with these translations, is that they arrogantly assume that there is a singular meaning to the root k-f-r, and that they the translators have found this meaning. There is an assumption that by looking up a word in a dictionary, by finding out what its other usages in the Qur’an “mean,” and by understanding what people said one-thousand years ago will ultimately lead a person to the one true meaning of the word in question. These acts may help, but where is one’s own history in this process? All of this is in sharp contrast to the idea that there is no one meaning, that oneness does not exclude difference, and that individual appreciation of the word’s three-dimensional non-containable qualities is most important.


3. You say tomato, I say deadly Babylonian nightshade.

Regardless of what we’d like to believe, words do not evoke singular meanings. There is no word that means one thing, and there is never a time when a person says “tree” that another person thinks of the same tree. The universal connotations and meaning of “tree” are forever in a state of potentiality. Steve MacCaffery, non-semantic sound-poet and leading theorist of the language-writing school of poetics, states in his collection of essays North of Intention that “Meaning does not stand outside of language, as some kind of transcendental rule more fundamental than the materiality of the word, but describes itself within the scenes and sequences of particular word usages” (MacCaffery 50). This statement, in contrast to the motives of translators who intend to represent back to the reader a single identifiable meaning, challenges the idea that “out there” is a monolithic reference imbedded within each word inscribed, and that once we are presented with this ideal the reader may be “saved.” However, we as readers know that a more complex psychology determines the inferences and connotations of the words presented—the words themselves being subject to our own histories. In fact, the mere construction of sentences is an almost instinctual effort to bridge these gaps in meaning.

Let us take the word “apples” for example. To convey what I personally mean by “apples” when I say to someone I would like some apples often requires clarification if I intend to convey exactly my idea of apples (an idea that even I could not sum up).

Apples. Green apples. Shiny green apples. Shiny, but not too shiny green apples. Shiny, but not too shiny green organic apples. Shiny, but not too shiny green organic apples from local farms. Shiny, but not too shiny green organic apples from local sustainable farms. Shiny, but not too shiny green organic apples from local sustainable farms that remind me of an impending green revolution.

As humans we continue to add more and more words, themselves devoid of singular meanings, in an effort to convey what we are “trying to say.” In reality we never actually achieve a state of total comprehension, and as such go about our days basing entire lives on approximations. Though at times these approximations may yield undesirable situations, in reality it is our attachment to and obsession with completion and singularity that makes our gaps, slippages, and awkward silences uncomfortable.

I went to the store.
So.
I went to the store with Suzie.
Yes, and…why are you telling me this?
Don’t you get it? No one is supposed to know.
No one who?
Forget it.
Just tell me what you mean! Stop being so cryptic.


4. “Man’s best friend” or disease-ridden scavenger?

The human being is like a word in that we are approximations of what we’d like to think we are, and in so being, come to the slipperiness of words as slippery subjects ourselves. Every human comes to every text with baggage, with history. This baggage is the stuff that makes us who we are socially. It is the culmination of our entire being—our assumptions, associations, and interpretations; likes, dislikes, and projections, and it is this history that differentiates us from one another. This history maintains the lens through which we translate words and concepts to other people.

Take for example the statement: “You look like a little dog.” I love dogs. So for me this statement evokes images of adolescent puppies whose paws and heads are disproportionate to their bodies—dogs who stumble learning the various smells and sights of the world. These are dogs so cute you fear you might hug them to death, because love is not enough! However, for someone who grew up in a culture whose perception of the canine was less than cuddly, this dog may represent an impure scavenger whose disease-ridden life-carcass roams the streets at night rummaging through garbage in search of discarded bones. This same dog being so wretched, if it were to cross in front of you during prayer, would invalidate any of your efforts to commune with the divine. Are we still talking about the same dog? Do we intend to allow human beings, whose differences in associations vary so greatly from our own, to determine the language by which we call to our most intimate Source?

All this begs the question where are we in translations that do not truly forground their own bias? Where are we in translations that are not humble enough to present the reader with a clear picture as to the agenda of the translator? In these translations is their room for what is truly important: a person’s ability to be aware of their own vital histories in coming to the Arabic word of God: the omnipotent no-thing apparent wherever a person sets their attention?

How are we to approach God-manifest-in-words as our beautiful imperfect selves when the hand by which we are guided to read the Qur’an manipulates our experience? The Lut allegory is about homosexuality? Sura 24:31 is about covering oneself head to toe-face-hands in a sheet? What is “already apparent?” Isn’t what is considered erogenous at least in part socially and culturally dependent? Is not modesty relative? Is not the person who tries to “cover up” or hinder another person’s expression of Islam the only kufr? Or are atheists kufr? Are Hindus kufr? Are Buddhists kufr? Are Native Americans kufr? To be perfectly honest, I have met more so-called Muslims’ attempting to forbid my submission than I have any other group of spiritual people. Is their denying my submission, their denial of difference, their insistence on delineating who is in and who is out, kufr?


5. My humble advice: Embrace Dissonance! Embrace Awkwardness! Experiment!

Panelist: Afro-American, like Italian-American and German-American, is an awkward phrase.

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X): Well, we’re living in an awkward world. I think the whole race problem has made relations in America awkward. So you have to invent awkward terms to describe the awkward situation.


One of the most awkwardly enlightening linguistic experiences I have recently had was in reading Scott Kugle’s (Siraj al-Haqq’s) translation of the thirteenth-century Muslim Ibn Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari’s text The Book of Illumination. Although the main body of the book is priceless in subject matter, it is in the appendices where I found the most useful information. In the second appendix Kugle first considers the obstacles in translating Arabic into English. “That the proper noun ‘God’ is conventionally replaced by the pronoun huwa (he/it) only means that Arabic is a binary gendered language. In Arabic, every noun (whether referring to an animate being, an inanimate object, or an abstract concept) is rendered in pronoun as either ‘he’ or ‘she,’ for there is no neuter pronoun in Arabic like the English ‘it’” (Kugle 371). After this discussion Kugle present’s what I consider to be an experiment. One of the most subtle biases a translator can infect a translation of the Qur’an with is the gendering of Allah as “he” at the expense of translating other Arabic words in their grammatically coherent genders by introducing the English word “it.” In retranslating an excerpt of The Book of Illumination Kugle meets this challenge by inserting gendered pronouns for ALL words translated. To me, this re-gendering of language is brilliant in de-objectifying Allah as a “He-god” and creates a linguistic world where all subject-objects, perceivable or not, relate intimately to the One and one-another. (I use the word intimately with the understanding and intention of evoking its many connotations). Thus language becomes in effect transgendered. A proper (trans)gendered reading of Arabic as presented in Kugle’s text would read as follows:

“[God] is the Knower who encompasses in His knowledge each thing’s beginning and her ending” (377).

“He is the Provider, and He blesses creation by leading her to her sources of nourishment” (377-78).

It is through this re-gendering that the relational qualities of the omniscient become textually apparent.

This attention to language is not merely a detail. It is certainly not a detail when discussing/ contemplating/ practicing a spiritual tradition whose basis is contained in a book—the textual manifestation of the great Recitation! There are, however, experiments one can do in order to combat translation-fascism. If Arabic is not your native and primary tongue, an easy experiment would be to refer to your Islamic practice for a time solely in the language you are most familiar with. If English is your primary language, try referring to yourself as someone who is attempting to surrender oneself (one’s self) to God, rather than as a Muslim. Try referring to the practice of this surrendering as simply that: Surrendering to God. Do not use the term “Islam.” Admittedly for some, this may not simply be an exercise. Reassessing one’s language and usage of that language can be a catalyst for liberation (liberation from semiotic consumerism, as well as exotic/erotic consumerism). Try replacing the terms Allah or God with your own terms and conceptualizations. For me this might read as: I am attempting to surrender to the peaceful always already nature of the uncontainable totality of is/not ness. Allah. Not some codified frozen lifeless brand of Allah ™.

Let it be know, that this is not a New Age recontexualization of something “other” to fit our own non-committal pseudo-spiritualities. This is engaged revolution. This is a reclamation of our own ideas and the re-empowerment of our own unique representation of those ideas, even (especially) at the expense of sounding awkward. This is a call to reexamine our use of language in order to for the first time engage the Qur’an on it’s terms and not on the terms of the politically motivated translator. These experiments are meant to give us (those whose are not native Arabic speakers) greater control and appreciation of our own concepts for when we begin to fully engage the Qur’an’s Arabic and ultimately drop our conceptualizations. I believe that before (or at least during) one’s investigation of the spiritually infused language of Qur’anic Arabic, one may benefit from coming to the text as a linguistic anarchistic whose comfort in open-ended possibilities of inference is foregrounded as an opposition to exotic brand names in the guise of spiritual Truth.

May peace be with you always.

Robert Doto is Managing Editor of PARABOLA Magazine.  He blogs at IN/OF:
Once upon a world…, is co-founder of MAN experimental press, was once a member of SPRCSS, and is currently spinning dancehall/dub/reggae on two turntables for Many Hills Massive Sound System in NYC. His latest book of writings will be out in the summer of 2006 on SubDay.

Write Comment
Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site.. Such material will be removed
Name:	Guest
Title:
Comment:
	Enter what you see: * tips: hit Reload page before writing a text if you have difficulty reading characters in image

Powered by AkoComment 2.0! and SecurityImage 3.0.2