“The Role of the Sacred Reference in the Translation of the Holy Quran into Languages with Sacred References” 2017
By Professor Abderrahman Al-Sulaiman
The Knowledge Integration and Translation Laboratory at the University Caddi Ayyad organized in collaboration with Al-Kindi Center as well as the Translation Technology and Specialized Translation master program, a scientific lecture by Prof. Dr. Abderrahman Al-Sulaiman from the University of Louvain, Belgium. The lecture was entitled: “The Role of the sacred Reference in Translating the Holy Quran into Languages with a Written References”; the lecture took place On Thursday, April 13, 2017, at 3 pm at the Faculty of literature and human sciences. Dr. Soad Kotaiba from Caddi Ayyad University moderated this seminar, and she started first by welcoming the participants and extended her gratitude to the organizing committee for their invested efforts. She also thanked Professor AL-Sulaiman for his precious time, and then she gave the floor to Professor AL-Sulaiman to start his lecture. Prof. Dr.Abdul Rahman Al-Sulaiman said that he is very glad to be part of this project and showed gratitude to the organizing committee for their invested efforts especially the Knowledge Integration and translation laboratory that always seeks to achieve scientific advancement, especially in the field of Translation. Professor Al-Sulaiman stated that Religious Translation is a type of literary translation; however, it is restricted by the translator’s intellectual background. This reference can be religious, cultural or ideological. He stressed that the sacred books references have three different references that are considered as the intellectual reference for the translator: The first one : Sacred books reference itself (the old Testament / modern era) The second one: Cultural Reference (Culture: Form and Content) The third one : The ideological reference (especially that has left a great impact in the West such as communism) After that, the Professor explained that the main problematic of the research is the issue that the Jewish and Christian translations were used in the past to prove that Qur’an has Jewish or Christian sources and origins, from which Muhammad, peace be upon him, has got his inspiration. This idea originated in the middle ages and remained firmly in the minds of Westerners until the middle of the past century; there are many streams of translators who are very influenced by this reference. Hence, they have viewed Qur’an from the perspective of a conceptual network of the Bible, and therefore have used this reference in their translations consciously or unconsciously. Then, the professor set that the three divine religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, are called the religions of revelation; they ask mankind to worship the God. All these religions consider Abraham the first monotheist. The revelation was recorded in the books of the Old Testament in Hebrew. The first Christian texts were written in Surrealism and Aramaic, and then Islam appeared in Arabic, so all the three religions are inspired by heavenly laws written in close languages (island languages replace the term Semitic languages because their origin is Arabic). In order to confirm what the lecturer has mentioned, he presented examples that highlight the objective use of the sacred reference in the translation of the Quranic text, highlighting the problem of the development of institutional concepts and their differences, as well as some examples of the non-objective use of this reference. In writing, during the translation, sometimes deliberately and sometimes unintentionally, the lecturer showed that by many examples of the word \ “Zakat \” because it belongs to the common heritage, which means in Hebrew, Surrealism, Aramaic and Arabic innocence and purity, The word “Zakat” in the Quranic text is considered an Islamic pillar that has no equivalent in other languages, both in use or lexicon. He then referred to the issue of faux amis (false friends )posed by the non-objective use of the reference, including the words belonging to one family, although their semantic fields are different, such as the term pilgrimage, Al-Sulaiman sheds light on the phenomenon of “Luxembourg”, which explained his work in taking all the Arabic words found in the Qur’an, which have their homogeneity in Syriac, and pronounce them according to this Syriac pronunciation, and then translate them based on the concept of these languages, to arrive at the conclusion that the Quran is originally Syriac. This approach has been criticized by most scholars, because it is not based only on scientific grounds, but also on the shift of words (e,g,(ل ح م / لَحْم/ لِحِم). It is therefore a non-objective use, because it is considered the old framework of the reference. The professor continued his lecture by referring to the so-called Septuagint translation, which is a passage from the Old Testament. It was translated from Hebrew to Greek and is considered a very important document, but despite the loss of the original from which this translation was translated, Judaism and Christianity were based on this Septuagint. He explained that one of the most valuable texts of the Old Testament that were found; is the edition of “Stuttgart” of the oldest Dead Sea manuscripts;, as well as some of the Hebrew origins of the books that were dropped from the Septuagint. He also pointed out some of the problems posed by the treatment of these manuscripts, including the problem of dealing with the origin of the system of the movements and control pronunciation, and other problems in the treatment of the text at the historical and linguistic (morphological, vocal, grammatical and semantic). The professor concluded that it is impossible to understand the texts of the Old Testament in a way that is independent of any reference, which automatically means that it cannot be used to understand the Quranic text. The Jews of the Old Testament were the first to study the texts of the Old Testament, especially Ibnu Janah Al-Qurtubi, who criticized the scholars of the Talmud. In this way, Arabic and comparative linguistics were used to understand the Old Testament. The professor then went on to answer the central question: How do we translate the Quran into languages with sacred references? Referring first to the functional theory, which focuses on the intended purpose of translation whose ultimate goal is to dictate the strategies to be followed by translator’s during the translation. In terms of doctrinal matters, the lecturer notes that the verbal or lexical equivalence plan is the most appropriate to translate the Islamic term. In the case of impossibility of implementing this strategy, the explanation strategy can be followed in the text, or the translator can opt for “transliteration strategy “if needed, just like in the case of translating the term “Zakat ”. As far as to the Quranic stories that are paralleled to the books of the Old Testament, the lecturer distinguishes between two types: – The first type: A parallel type of homogenous stories of the Quran such as the story of Yusuf, peace be upon him, and the Table, and other stories that achieve communication in the best way. – The second type: A parallel type of stories of the Quran, it contains a moral problematic to the Western recipient and gives them a special feeling, this leads to a negative impact on the process of receiving translation. The professor suggested adopting the pragmatic equivalence approach based on the Skopos theory in translation, which requires the translator to recall the background of the cultural recipient on the one hand and to know the goal of the translation on the other. The professor ended his lecture by proposing a pragmatic equivalence approach based on equality of context, in order to translate the meanings of the Holy Quran into languages with religious and intellectual reference. He stressed the need to know the Quranic language in Arabic first based on a religious perspective. He added that we need to know religious terms in languages with sacred and religious references, especially Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, as well as having a deep knowledge of its conceptual systems, translation doctrines, techniques and practical strategies.
