T. B. Irving, The Qur’an: The First American Version; Translated and Commentary (1985)
go on and on. Moreover neither of these particles wāw or fā need always be rendered into English.
Some confusion in translation stems at times from the inability to distinguish between noun and verbal sentences, as occurs in other Semitic languages too: “Verily, I say unto you…” or “Verily I, say unto you…” as it should be punctuated, occurs in the New Testament in John 1:51 in the King James version, as well as other places, where the Aramaic dialect shines through the bad Greek. It is really, in contemporary English: “As for me, I tell you…” In the great hymn to “Light” we have the sentence “Wa-alladhīna kafarū aʿmālu-hum ka-sarābin bi-qīʿatin (24:v). This begins with a noun clause, and the resulting nominal sentence should be: “Those who disbelieve [will find] their deeds are like a mirage on a desert…” (Light 24:39). The need to put the subject first in English often leads us to use the passive.
The disjunctive pronoun precedes the common Spanish phrase: A mī me gusta… meaning ‘I like…’; somewhat similar to Le voici for ‘Here it is…’ in French. In The Opening chapter (al-Fātiḥa) we find this construction used in the fourth line: “You do we worship and You do we call on for help” (1:15). There is no “only” in this sentence, as some translators insert; the disjunctive position itself gives the needed emphasis they are trying to find.
Verbs cause some difficulty too since they can vary in their usage. The English verbs “to be” and “to have" are generally expressed in Arabic only by means of the syntax governing pronouns and prepositions. How things exist, and how they should be or how we would like to have them, yields a different quality in Semitic speech; the tone of its ethos has other distinct roots. “Act” and “mean” in my translation are not always placed between brackets since, similar to “to be" and “to have", they are implied as active, mental verbs: “Your Lord acts as an Observer” (34:ii (end). The verb “acted [honorably or charitably]” in 2:viii gives more force to the verbal quality.
“Giving” and “saying” are often not expressed clearly to a Western reader in other translations, and need to be assumed from the context and their prepositions. “Belongs” and “belonged to” are English verbs which sometimes must be inserted, as in “to God [belongs] the Unseen” — li’Llāhi… (16:xi); or “He owns whatever is in front of us, and whatever is behind us” in 19:iv. “Owns” is another verb that can be inserted for the prepositional phrase la-hu ‘to him [is]’, and at times is clearer than ‘he has’ (70:3).
Tense and conditional moods must be expressed with care, especially with the absent verb “to be"; Lā ikrāh fī al-dīn should be ‘[Let there be] no compulsion in religion’ (The Cow 2:xxxiv). The softened imperative here expresses the difference between how things exist and how they should be, or how we would like to have them.
Collective nouns are generally considered as abstract feminines in Arabic, exactly what we find in the English words “cattle”, “opera”, people”. Plurals in Arabic which do not refer to human beings become abstract feminines, and take their adjectives in the feminine singular.
