FRIDAY NOTES FROM THE QURAN (7/4/23) - TRANSLATIONS

 

Non Muslims can skip this. It is too technical. 

I have not been too regular with my Friday column on the Quran. Once I even posted it on a Wednesday. My apologies to those who may have wanted to follow this series.

This Friday I would also like to say something about translations of the Quran and also about learning and research resources on the Internet.

For those who cannot understand the Arabic, there is not much choice but to read translations of the Quran. This is quite ok as it will give you a good grasp of what is in the Quran.

From my experience the English translations of the Quran are too much influenced by biblical terminologies (for example "holy spirit"). 

Surah 2:253  '.. And we gave Jesus, son of Mary, profound miracles and supported him with the Holy Spirit . .'  (Abdullah Yusuf Ali). 

Holy Spirit  is biblical terminology.  I do rely a lot on my favorite Indonesian, word by word, literal translation of the Quran. 

But to be most precise we have no choice except to learn the Arabic and read the Quran in the original Arabic. Which is really not a very difficult thing to do. 

You will be able to pick up things like the following. The four Arabic words (right to left) are sanat, 'aam, ha-ul and hijja (hajj).    Most English translations translate all four of these words as "year".  

The fact that these four Arabic words sanat, 'aam, ha-ul and hijja are different words, that they are spelt differently and also sound totally different from each other means that they also have different meanings. 

You cannot simply translate all four of these Arabic words to just one English word 'year'.

Here is the explanation. 

The first word sanat means the count of years. For example if you say 'I am 25 years old' the equivalent in arabic would be 'I am 25 sineen old (plural of sanat)'. It is a count of years.

The second word 'aam is used to refer to the four seasons in a year (or the year made up of four seasons - as per the climate in arab countries). Again this may not coincide with a calendar year like January 1st to December 31st. Instead it would be winter to winter or summer to summer. However in the Quran 'aam is also used to refer to 'year' (for example Surah 31:14).

The third word is ha-ul (pronounced howl). Ha-ul refers to any 12 month period. Say April this year to end March next year would be one ha-ul.  So in the Quran, after a divorce, a mother breastfeeds a baby for a period of two hauls or 24 months. During this time the father must provide for the mother (Surah 2:233).

The fourth word is hijja or hajj. This refers to the season of the hajj. Hijja indicates a temporary period (for example the season of the hajj) where a person is obliged to do something specific or experience something specific within that particular period of hijja. 

So this is one example where the English translations (ok maybe not ALL of them because I have not checked ALL the English translations) take the easy way out and translate all four of these different Arabic words sanat, ha-ul, 'aam and hijja into the same English word year.  It is perhaps in the ballpark but not exactly. 

As you can see above the differences are significant. Knowing their truer meanings will give you a better understanding of the Arabic Quran.

I gained this understanding from this YouTube video here https://youtu.be/s1zfdUWV7-g. It is a useful YouTube channel for those of you who want to learn the Quranic Arabic. 

Please note that there are really no such things as the deeper meanings, the inner meanings, the spiritual meanings of the Quran etc. 

Please do not get fooled by the religious conmen, the hocus pocus shamans or by your super dumb-dumb and ignorant uncles and aunts. 

This is just the meaning of the arabic words in the Quran. These are simple Arabic words and Arabic words have meanings. That is all. Nothing 'deeper', 'inner', 'spiritual' etc about them.

Some people also say there is a classical Arabic. What and where exactly is this classical Arabic? Here is one definition :

'Classical Arabic is the old and original version of ِthe Arabic language. This form is linked directly to Islam.'

Err...ok,  what about before the advent of Islam? (And then the fight started??)

All languages are made up of words and grammar. Grammar includes nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, past tense, present tense, future tense etc. To my knowledge (garnered from my Arabic lecturer at the Islamic University here) there is no such thing as a separate or different grammar for "classical Arabic" as opposed to what - other types of Arabic? There is no such thing.  

There is just Arabic, with words, their meanings and with the rules of grammar. 

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.