Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
flashes of its splendour. At the same time, despite its wonderful aesthetic complexities, the Qur’ānic text is astonishingly clear, simple and straightforward in its style. The simplicity comes firstly from the economy and simplicity of Qur’ānic vocabulary and diction.1 A second factor is its strikingly uniform phraseology. A third factor is its characteristic syntactical structure made up either of short sentences, as in the brief Makkan sūrahs placed at the end of the Book, or of longer sentences wherein clauses and phrases are arranged in a serial logical sequential order. Were it not for this last characteristic of the Qur’ānic text, the approach adopted in the present translation would not have been possible.
The translation of a literary text is expected to meet the following four requirements: it should (1) be able to convey the meanings of the source text in an intelligible manner; (2) have a natural and easy form of expression; (3) convey the spirit and the manner of the original; (4) produce a similar response in the reader. While a translation of the Qur’ān can be expected to succeed in meeting the first two of these requirements in varying degrees, depending on the translator’s competence, there appear to be insurmountable barriers in the way of meeting, even partially, the last two requirements.
First, there are visible limits to the extent the translator can convey fully the meanings of the source text. Here the primary problem encountered by the translator is absence in the English language of semantically equivalent terms for certain Arabic words, some of which play a key role in the Qur’ānic message, such as taqwā, kufr, īmān, shirk, ḥaqq, bāṭil, ma‘rūf, munkar, fitnah, ghayb, sunnah, tawbah, walī, and ẓulm. In such cases, the translator has to suffice with approximations which fall short of conveying the full semantic scope and richness of the original terms, giving a truncated or lopsided sense to the message communicated.2
As to the second requirement, that the translation have an easy and natural form of expression, that depends mainly on the translator’s understanding of the nature, meaning and purpose of translation and his approach.
1 A comparison between the diction of the Arabic poetry of the period and that of the Qur’ān will make this fact evident.
2 There are other terms which pose problems in varying degrees, such as amr, āyah, ‘azm, baghī, barā’ah, ba’s, birr, ḍalālah, dhanb, dhikr, faḍl, faḥshā’, fasād, fisq, fujūr, ghāwī, ḥanīf, ḥaraj, ḥasanah, ḥarām, hawā, ḥayā’, hidāyah, ḥijāb, ḥikmah, ḥisāb, ḥukm, iḥsān, islām, ikhlāṣ, ‘iṣyān, istikbār, isrāf, ‘izzah, jahl, jannah, karīm, khabīth, khashyah, mala’, mann, mujrim, munīb, muṭaffīf, nabī, nifāq, ni‘mah, qiyām, raḥmah, rijs, rushd, ṣalāḥ, sayyi’ah, takdhīb, taskhīr, ṭayyib, ṭughyān, ummah, wakīl, zaygh. Their exact and complete meanings should be sought and elicited from the contexts in which they are employed in the Arabic text. Moreover, there are some common words, such as abb (father), akhkh (brother), and ukht (sister), which have a semantic field different from that of the corresponding terms in English. Abb may refer to an uncle (as with reference to Ishmael in 2:133, and also in 6:74, 9:114; 19:42-44, 26:69-70 with reference to Āzar) or an ancestor, akhkh may at times mean a compatriot (as in 7:65, 7:73, 7:85 with reference to the prophets Hūd, Ṣāliḥ and Shu‘ayb), and ukht may refer to a woman’s clan or lineage (as in 19:28 with reference to Mary). In these and similar cases, I have retained the Qur’ānic diction, leaving determination of the meaning to the commentaries.
