Читать книгу Towards Understanding the Qur'an - Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi - Страница 12

Foreword

ecstasy,”1 as Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall has aptly put it. Even the best translations can never transport the Qur’an’s vast universe of meaning, or its astounding beauty and grandeur to their readers. The Qur’an, in this sense, was always and will always remain untranslatable. Imperfect though all such translations are always bound to be, nevertheless the effort to translate the Qur’an into other languages is absolutely essential to effectively communicate the substance of its meaning and message. Indeed it should be an ongoing activity of Muslim scholars for hopefully with the passage of time an increasingly better communication of the Qur’an’s meaning would be possible.

Now every language, including Arabic in which the Qur’an was revealed, has its own style, diction and ethos. The language of the Qur’an is characterized by a unique mental and moral ambience: it has a distinct style, supported by a value-laden idiom, a multi-dimensional phrase-structure, a sequential inter-relatedness, all of which is expressed in a literary style of unsurpassable beauty and force. The language and style of the Qur’an also reflect a set of values which are related to a number of concepts and ideas. All these go to make up an organic whole, a unique literary culture, and a self-sustaining spiritual and intellectual personality. In such a context it is evident that the translation needs to be really good to assist those who are not initiated to the ideas, values and spirit of this culture so that they are able to grasp the spirit and the meaning of the text. This is possible only if the translators have a good taste of the Arabic language, have remained immersed in the universe of the Qur’anic meaning, and have the ability to express it with clarity, elegance and force.

The translations of the Qur’an that are devoid of sympathy, understanding and reverence will fail to make their readers appreciate its message in any depth. It is unfortunate that several translations through which readers approach the Qur’an lack empathy for the Qur’an, and some even attempt, in our opinion, to distort and denigrate it. Even where a translation does not suffer

1 Pickthall, M.M.: The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (New York: Mentor), p.VII.

xi