Parenthesis and Morons!
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الحمدلله رب العالمين والصلوة والسلام على اشرف الانبياء
وسيدالمرسلين نبينا محمد صل ا لله عليه وعلى آله واصحابه وازواجه اجمعين - امابعد
All the praises and thanks be to Allaah, Sustainer of the Universe, and blessing and salutation to be the most distinguish of the Messengers and foremost among the Prophets, our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allaah be on him and on his wives, children and Companions.
It must be self-explanatory to the readers that this author has an absolute and willful disregard to those who are subject of this treatise. We are talking about those morons who attack and questions Islaam and especially Glorious Qur’aan, using alleged “parenthesis” as pretext to discredit the Glorious Qur’aan. They quote the English translation[s] of Glorious Qur’aan, which by the way is the word of man based on his/her understanding and/or knowledge. It is not the truly revealed word of Allaah. These morons include enemies of Islaam, ignorant Muslims and pseudo-Muslims.
Thus, when an attack is initiated against the Glorious
Qur’aan quoting the English translation of an Ayaah and/or Ayaat and using
the {word[s] in} “parenthesis”
as pretext to discredit the Qur’aan, Muslims should know that the
attacker is plain stupid and an absolute ignorant; who does not have
required knowledge of any language, translation rules and especially of Arabic
language.
Arabic is not at all easy to
translate, and the difficulty is increased hundred times when translator has to
render into English, with any degree of accuracy and precision, a work so rich
in meaning, so pithy in expression, so vigorous in style and so subtle
in implications as the Glorious Qur’aan.
The impediments confronting an honest translator may be summed up under
six main parts and various sub headings, however, we will only discuss here the
relevant parts about, why “parenthesis” are used in translations,
especially Arabic into English.
The very first things are the
comparative poverty of the English language in several respects, for instance there is a large number of Arabic verbs
untranslatable into English as verbs, such as: اَبطَلَ ـ اَسرَفَ ـ صَدَقَ ـ etc. Thus, one has perforce
to render each of these words not by a single word but by a combination of
words. Thus, يبخل has to be translated as “is niggardly”
[(is) niggardly], يسرف as “is extravagant” and صَدَقَ as “is truthful.”
There is no equivalent for the
Arabic مضارع (aorist) in English. This
would also explain the why the Bible does not make sense and is confusing,
since the Greek language also has same aorist. I wonder how the
translators of the Bible get around this without compromising the accuracy of
the text. However, the Arabic مضارع is both
present and future tenses combined, contrary to that in many other languages
including English a tense is either present or future. Thus, thousands
of Arabic verbs are to be rendered in English, only incompletely.
In English grammar there are only
two ‘numbers’ i.e. singular and plural, and there is no single
word to convey the sense of the Arabic dual تثنيه in nouns as
well as verbs, both in the 2nd and 3rd persons.
There is an absolute comparative
dearth of اسماعافاعل (nomina agentis) in English
language, whereas they abound in Arabic. مفلحون ـ معجزون
ـقانتون ـ مستقدمون ـ مستاخرون مشرقون ـ متقون ـ شاكرون ـ صادقون ـ آخرون and many similar words have to be rendered as adjective or
participles, not as substantives.
In Arabic, the feminine plural in
the 2nd and 3rd person is always distinguishable from the
masculine. Whereas in English both genders are covered by “you” and “they.”
Another serious difficulty is caused by the case with
which ellipses occur in the best and finest Arabic style, while both words and
phrases have to be supplied by the reader to make the sense complete. At one
time, it is only subject that is mentioned and the predicate is entirely
suppressed; and at another time, the reverse is the case. The obvious duty of
the translator at all such occasions is to supply the omission, although his
attempts is many cases must be hazardous.
Another perplexity is caused to
the translator by the abrupt grammatical transition, in one and the same
sentence that are frequent in Arabic language.
1. Of person, as from the first and second person to the
third, or vice versa;
2. Of number, from plural to singular, or vice versa;
Another obvious complication is
caused by what is known as انتشار ضمار i.e., a personal
or relative pronoun having different antecedents in one and the same sentence.
The translator cannot afford to allow such ambiguities, thus, he/she has to
make his or her choice.
Also, there is no real
equivalence in the import of many of the Arabic and English words generally
held to be synonyms. The Arabic words Zina زنی for instance, has no equivalent in
English, both adultery and fornication being of much narrower
import. Similarly English has few words to express such closely related (متقارب المعنی)
Arabic terms as: خوف خشيت ـ اشفاق ـ ترهيب ـ تقوی. Nor is English perhaps rich enough to
indicate the shades of meanings of such sets of words as: قادرـ قديرـ مقتدـ رحمنـ رحيمـ ثعبانـ حيةـ and جان.
Alfred Guillaume writes:
‘Arabic is fitted to express
relations with more conciseness than the Aryan language because of the
extraordinary flexibility of the verb and noun. Thus, the ideas in breaks,
shatter, try to break, cause to break, allow to be broken, break one another,
ask someone to break, pretend to break, are among many variations of the
fundamental verbal theme which can. Or could, be expressed by the vowel changes
and consonantal augments without the aid of the supplementary verbs and
pronouns which we have to employ in English. The noun, too, has an appropriate
form for many diverse things, such as the time and place of an action, bodily
defects, diseases, instruments, colors, trades, and so on.’
What we have stated above is
merely the tip of the iceberg or a drop in the ocean not to mention it does not
shine any light on Islaamic
Shariah rules of elucidation and interpretation, which is a separate
subject. However, it is sufficient enough for Muslims to spot a complete
ignorant and a plain stupid person who uses the English
translation of the meaning of the Glorious Qur’aan (an absolute words of man)
to attack and question, the Qur’aan (the truly revealed word of Allaah)
using “parenthesis” as his/her only argument. Nevertheless, the above
information will help Muslims to sift the morons out, enabling them to save
their time. Because no one can win with ignorance. Some of the attackers using
“parenthesis” as pretext to show their non-existing scholarship and to
discredit the Glorious Qur’aan; are Christian missionaries (mainly of website
“answering-islam”), pseudo-Muslims especially pseudo-Muslim Akbarally
Meherally of website “mostmerciful.com.”
Saturday, March 12, 2005