Translator’s Grasp of the Original Meaning, Main Step in Quran Translation

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Translator’s Grasp of the Original Meaning, Main Step in Quran Translation

--There are three stages in translation, the most important of which being the translator’s grasp of the text’s main idea.

This is according to Salar Manafi Anari, English teaching professor in Allameh Tabatabaie University, who also said that any failure at this stage would bring about an unacceptable translation especially if religious texts are concerned.

Speaking at a forum investigating Quran translations into theEnglish language, which was held at IQNA on May 3, Dr. Manafi elaborated on the concept of translation from academic viewpoint, calling it a process of conveying meaning from the original to the target language that covers 3 stages, namely analyzing the text, grasping the main idea and reconstructing the text in the target language.

He stressed the importance of the second stage, adding: “A translator with no sense of commitment may misrepresent the main idea due to his/her own limited views and presuppositions, and this is quite unacceptable in translation especially in the case of the holy Quran and other divine texts.”

“That explains, according to some scholars, the reason of Prophet Mohammad’s (PBUH) illiteracy, as they believe pure Revelation might have been mixed with human knowledge had he been a literate man.”

Referring to the wide differences between the translation of the Quran and that of other texts, he asserted: “The holy Quran is divine in terms of style, form and content, and this is what Seyyed Hossein Nasr calls ‘divine presence’ which gives the book a unique characteristic.”

“A Quran translator tries to grasp the meaning based on the apparent form and put it in another form in the target language; therefore, the final translation will include a divine content in a human form, and the divine presence can never be conveyed through the translated text,” Dr. Manafi went on to say.

Also, Hossein Mollanazar, professor of translation in Allameh Tabatabaie University, referred to the translatability of the holy Quran and said: “God’s clemency requires that all humans have access to the Quran to find the right path, and that is why all Shia scholars agree on translating it into different languages.”

“Of course the holy Quran is immune to human mistakes caused by translation as God has guaranteed its preservation, and that is the point of difference between the Quran and the Bible.

Manager of "Translation Studies" scientific quarterly stressed: "Unlike Christians who consider the translations of their holy book as equal to the original text, Muslims believe that translations are all subject to change and can never equal the holy Quran.”

Another speaker in the forum was Mohammad Javad Gohari, translator of the Quran into English and professor of international law teaching in Oxford University, who emphasized the importance of translating the Quran and said: “According to various verses in the Quran, the book belongs to all people in the world; therefore, they all have the right of understanding the deep meanings of verses through translation.”

“Of course that does not negate the necessity of learning the Arabic language,” he further said adding that the Hebrew language would have disappeared if Orthodox Jews had not preserved it along with their religious teachings.

“Muslims’ solidarity is likewise due to their common understanding of Quranic verses regardless of different interpretations held by Shia and Sunni followers,” he went on to say.

The forum began at 10:30 a.m. with the speech of Hojat-ol-Islam Mohammad Ali Raghebi, rector of Quran Sciences and Culture University, about the necessity of translating the holy book, and was followed by the guests and experts intervention discussing Quran translation from the academic perspective.