If someone were to ask us as to why at all we publish this digest, our unhesitant answer would be: to present Quran and hadith. All the rest we consider of secondary importance wishing to direct our best efforts towards improvement of these two columns. These are, for us Muslims, the pupil and the eyeball through which we see this world of thoughts and deeds. We can go blind of eye, but not of these.

But important as they are, far from easy they prove to present. They are, first of all, best understood in their original language : Arabic. Translating them into any other language is like reducing a 3-dimensional colour photograph to a 2-dimensional black-and-white one. All the essential features are there of course but the beauty and impact is lost. No wonder then that according to imam Shafa’ee “It is obligatory (wajib) on every Muslim to know Arabic”., failing which, we say, he is committing a perpetual sin. And, we can add, no excuse can be accepted from those who fail to learn the language as, atleast as far as the Quran is concerned, it has used such simple language and such small vocabulary that requires little effort to learn at any time in life.

However, that was another thing. What we were saying is that translating the Quran and hadith into any language can mean great loss of charm and accuracy. And to render them into an un-lslamicised Western language can have much worse effects. Most skillfully done, the difference can be that of between a factory-made steel and glass table and a hand-made carved mahagony-cum-ivory one. There is no point in comparing them. English for instance is the language of a people whose religion, its meaning and essence, whose culture, its spirit and expression, whose social life, manners and behaviour, and whose thoughts, philosophy fears and hopes are as far removed from that generated by Islam as a treatise on political economy is from a piece of revelation. One is useful, the other elevating. One needs calculators and the other a tender heart.

The frustration then for the intending translator can run very high. He will find, for instance, no equivalent in English for terms such as Allah, al-Ghani, ai-Mutakabbir, a I-Jabbar al-Qadeer, nabi, rasool, noor, nar, adhab, thawab, neeyah, wa/i, sabr, taqwa, riza, tawakkul, jihad, takbir wa tahleel, and so on and so on with the list lengthening according to the demands of accuracy and fastidiousness,

Then, added to these general difficulties, there is that particular one related to the Quran. It is that of it being inimitable—as Marmaduke Pickthal, the most accurate English translator of the Quran acknowledged. It’s strength, beauty, force, tenderness, alliteration, all achieved through the right choice and combination of words give it that extra-ordinary force of appeal which requires super-human qualities to reproduce in any other language.

“The Arabic of the Quran”, says John Alden Williams, “is by turns striking, soaring, vivid, terrible, tender and breath taking. … It is meaningless to apply adjectives such as ‘beautiful’ or ‘persuasive’ to the Quran; its flashing images and inexorable measures go directly to the brain and intoxicate it…. It is not suprising then, that a skilled reciter of the Quran can reduce an Arabic-speaking audience to helpless tears,… (and) …. the ‘High Speech’ of seventh century Arabia has become the true accents of the Eternal.”

The challenge of the Quran still addresses itself to the non-believing great Arabicists such as Nicholson, Arberry, Hans Wehr, and numerous others of the past and present centuries, who, to say the least of their abilities, supplied the Arabs with dictionaries and literary works of lasting value.

“And if you are in (any) doubt concerning that
which We have revealed unto Our stave (Muhammad),
bring then a chapter comparable to it. And call
upon others (too) besides Allah (to assist you in this
task), if what you say be true. But if you fail to do
that—and you can never do that—then beware of the
fire whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the unbelievers.                                                                                                                                                                                                   (Al-Baqara )

Obviously then if humans cannot produce an equivalent of the smallest chapter of the Quran (which runs to 3 verses) in Arabic itself, who can attempt its equivalent in another language.

Yet, despite all the difficulties, the Quran has to be of course presented. For anything else will not give Muslims, however well-educated otherwise, the sight of eye.

Fortunately, there is one injunction of the ulama with regards to the translation that makes the job less difficult and less frustrative. They maintain that the permission for translation can only be given on condition that the translator also supplies notes explaining the text; with the notes of course based on accepted tafaseer (exegises).

That of course makes the task easier and more attractive. But the difficulties do not end. For when one looks at various tafaseer from the point of view of translating them, in order to escape from the burden and responsibility of himself supplying the notes, one faces a dilemma again. For the best of tafaseer which appear so very attractive in Arabic or Urdu, fall absolutely flat when rendered into this very rich but very poor language: English. The answer then is to translate one of those tafaseer which have attempted merely at fixing the meaning of the words of the Quran. For this we chose a tafaseer called Tanweer at-miqbas min tafaseer ibn-e-Abbas, collated and checked by two Egyptian authors, may Allah reward them. It is written in the style of the famous Jaalam in Arabic, or the kind of translation in Urdu done by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi, but much simpler, slightly enlarged, and what’s more, based entirely on notes and commentaries of Abdullah-ibn-Abbas, the first mufassir of the Quran.

The title itself of course defies the abilities of this translator. ‘Miqbas in Arabic stands for the piece of wood or stick that is used to catch fire from one hearth and transfer it to another. With little application one can both appreciate the beauty of the title (tanveer means ignition, kindling), as well as the difficulty in translating it in less than a paragraph. But the interior of the book happens to be not as challenging. In fact, to match the woefully poor Arabic of the translator, it is astonishingly simple.

From this month onwards then, we present a new series of the column “Quran Speaks . And the system followed will be this: First a simple translation of the text. Then the translation of Tanweer-al-miqbas followed by our notes. The translation of the text is actually an adaptation of that of Pickthal, slightly modified to accept modern words and phrases used by N. J. Dawood and others. For safety and reliance, this translation is checked against that of Maulana Thanwi’s. The Tanweer-al-miqbas is kept as close to the original as possible and the notes that follow will be checked to remain within that of Jalalain, VTafseer-ibn-Kathir (Urdu translation), Tafseer-e-Majidi(English), Tafheem-al-Quran and the Bayanul Quran.

Will our readers follow with as much care and attention?