[Dean's World] Aziz P: The allusiveness of Arabic

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Posted by Aziz P:
The allusiveness of Arabic
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1166726375.shtml


     "The possibilities in Arabic for the use of figurative language are
     endless; its allusiveness, tropes and figures of speech place it
     far beyond the reach of any other language... Arabic loses on
     translation but all other languages gain on being translated into
     Arabic."

     -- Joel Carmichael, The Shaping of the Arabs (1967)

   Arabic is a tremendously complex language, which means that the Qur'an
   is a subtle text. Those who translate the text into English and those
   who interpret the text literally are in essence committing the same
   sin of truncation - they are taking something three-dimensional and
   reducing it to two. That missing dimension is the cultural and
   symbolic context which the writer in Arabic embeds his words - a rich
   layer of meaning that is inferred rather than simply transcribed.

   The specific way in which this occurs is difficult to explain. Blogger
   H.D. Miller [1]described it thus:

     individual Arabic words are formed from simple three letter roots.
     To these simple roots suffixes, prefixes, and infixes are added,
     and vowels are changed to produce a large number of individual
     words which have, either actually or metaphorically, meanings
     somehow related to the idea behind the simple root. For example,
     the Arabic root k-t-b is expressed as a verbal infinitive as
     kataba, meaning "to write". From that basic root we can then get
     the words kitab "book", kAtib "writer", maktUb "written" (with a
     metaphorical meaning of "predestined"), maktab "office", maktaba
     "library", makAtaba "correspondence", kutubi "bookseller", kuttAb
     "elementary school", istiktAb "dictation", makAtib "correspondent"
     or "reporter", muktatib "subscriber", and about a hundred more
     variations all produced from that original three letter root.

     All of the words springing from the triliteral root k-t-b have that
     similar three letter sound to bind them together, which means that
     each of the words shaped from the root, when spoken, are capable of
     evoking any of the other words shaped from that same root. To this,
     an extra layer of complexity and evocativeness is added by the fact
     that many of the Arabic consonants sound remarkably similar, so
     that there are two h's, one "hard" and one "soft", two s's, two t's
     and so on. This means that when you say k-t-b you're also evoking
     q-t-b "hunch" as in "hunchback", q-T-b (with the "hard" T ) which
     gives the root meaning of "to gather or collect", and about a dozen
     other groups of words. To the native speaker all of these various
     meanings resonate at either the conscious or unconscious level.
     This is what I mean when I speak of evocative and allusive, this
     feature of Arabic which links together hundreds of words, many of
     them with very different meanings.

   This is why any theological interpretation of the Qur'an that starts
   from an English translation as its source text is immediately invalid.
   English translations exist, of course, and are not in themselves
   harmful. In fact they are valuable in providing the baseline meaning
   from which one can proceed with [2]tafsir (interpretation). However if
   you begin and end your scholarship of the Qur'an with the translation
   alone, then you are not talking about Islam. You are talking about a
   reflection of Islam as seen from the translator's eyes, filtered
   through your own biases.

   For example, three well-known translations are by M.H. Shakir,
   Abdullah Yusufali, and Marmaduke Pickthall. Consider the differences
   in their translations for [3]Qur'an 3:23:

     003.023

     YUSUFALI: Hast thou not turned Thy vision to those who have been
     given a portion of the Book? They are invited to the Book of Allah,
     to settle their dispute, but a party of them Turn back and decline
     (The arbitration).

     PICKTHAL: Hast thou not seen how those who have received a portion
     of the Scripture invoke the Scripture of Allah (in their disputes)
     that it may judge between them; then a faction of them turn away,
     being opposed (to it)?

     SHAKIR: Have you not considered those (Jews) who are given a
     portion of the Book? They are invited to the Book of Allah that it
     might decide between them, then a part of them turn back and they
     withdraw.

   Immediately we see that Yusufali interprets this as a faction that has
   declined arbitration via the Qur'an, whereas Pickthal sees the
   rejection as outright opposition to the Qur'an. Meanwhile Shakir
   interprets the passage as applying specifically to Jews, even though
   in the actual Arabic there is no specific mention of Jews aka "Yahudi"
   or the tribe of Banu Israel therein. Each of these writers carries
   baggage with them and that shapes how they interpret the passage. By
   cementing the passage into english, the meaning is rendered static.
   All the allusiveness that Miller described is irrecovably lost.

   This is not to say that muslims don't adopt such strict
   interpretations as valid. The problem here is that most muslims simply
   don't have time or knowledge to go through the Qur'an line by line and
   translate the text. This creates an opening for those with agenda to
   define the faith and wrap their own biases in Qur'anic legitimacy.

   While I certainly believe that there is a "correct" interpretation of
   the Qur'an, the fact remains that Islam is a living religion. But he
   who interprets the Qur'an in the worst possible light is no more
   representative of Islam than he who interprets it in the best. Since
   we have empirical evidence that one billion muslims worldwide have not
   risen up in slaughter against their non-muslim neighbors, and that the
   actual number of muslims who interpret the Qur'an to justify violence
   is a tiny percentage of the total number of believers, there's nothing
   innate about Islam or the verses of the Qur'an that leads to such
   behaviors. Anyone who asserts, for example, that verse X:YY of the
   Qur'an permits muslims to lie to unbelievers (taqqiya), for example,
   is making a factually untrue statement. The correct statement would be
   that such a verse has been used to justify lying to non-believers, but
   until such time as someone proves that a significant fraction of
   muslims habitually lie in such fashion, it's merely an anecdote, not
   an observation with any kind of predictive power.

   The average muslim does not walk under a cloud of Qur'an ayats burned
   into his brain, dictating their every move. Muslims interact with
   others based on the same types of prejudices, experiences, good and
   bad knowledge that everyone else carries. The Qur'an is a generalized
   influence, but not the sole one and ccertainly not a specific one.
   While I certainly wish I could carry the entirety of the Qur'an in my
   brain and have relevant ayats appear in memory as life proceeds apace,
   it's simply not possible. Rather, I recite the Qur'an in Arabic as a
   duty and base my relationships with my community on the sermons and
   teachings of my authorities and role models. And sometimes quote it on
   blogs in responses to someone (usually non-muslim) telling me what
   Islam really is.

References

   1. http://travellingshoes.blogspot.com/2002_07_14_travellingshoes_archive.html
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafsir
   3. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/003.qmt.html