Translating the Koran

While surfing the net, I found a story about Laleh Bakhtiar. Ms. Bakhtiar decided, few years ago, to work on a translation of the Holy Koran. She is “an Iranian-American who adopted her father’s Islamic faith as an adult” and decided to fully read and work on the sacred texts. This kind of initiative is one of those we can applaud. Rather than being able to recite the entire text without understanding a single word, this courageous woman decided to scrutinize the Holy verses. Those of our gentle readers, who themselves wade through the Sacred Scriptures know that this it’s not an easy job.

Alas, Miss Bakthiar was in for some surprises as she embarked on her task. She almost dropped the job when she came upon a certain verse: Chapter 4, Verse 34.

“ Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them great over others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.” source

It seems, such a verse almost made her drop her translation project.

“I decided it either has to have a different meaning, or I can’t keep translating,” said Bakhtiar.

I’m not surprised at all even if we could point that every sacred text needs an interpretation to be fully understood. Alas, our dear IslamoFascists, didn’t bother to make an intellectual effort. Why should they, when the literal meaning is so conveniently obvious?

Miss Bakthiar further states:

I couldn’t believe that God would sanction harming another human being except in war.

I agree with you Ms. Bakthiar. I can’t believe it either, this verse has seemingly given a man full rights over another individual simply because she is a woman? At least we could understand this verse as a historical law which could be a for discussion.

At this point, you may think that this is an isolate verse, undoubtedly taken of context. But:

Bakhtiar worked for five more years, with the translation, which is to be published in April. While she found a way through the problem, few verses in the Koran have generated as much debate, particularly as more Muslim women study their faith as an academic field.

“This verse became an issue of debate and controversy because of the ethics of the modern age, the universal notions of human rights,” said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Egyptian-born law professor and Islamic scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The leader of the North American branch of a mystical Islamic order, Sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, said he had been questioned about the verse in places around the world where women were struggling for greater rights, but most of all by Westerners.

(strange isn’t it?)

Well, you may think that this verse is only interpreted in its obvious meaning by some extremists. Alas, it’s not:

In Germany last week, a judge citing the verse caused a public outcry after she rejected the request for a fast-track divorce by a Moroccan-German woman because her husband beat her. The judge, who was removed from the case, wrote that the Koran sanctioned physical abuse.

Yet, the article emphasizes “There are at least 20 English translations of the Koran.” I don’t think the German is so different that the most extreme interpretation is the right one. For example:

Daraba has been translated as beat, hit, strike, scourge, chastise, flog, make an example of, spank, pet, tap and even seduce…

At this point, the problem seemed unsurmountable, thus:

Bakhtiar, who is 68 and has a doctorate in educational psychology, set out to translate the Koran because she found the existing versions inaccessible to Westerners. Many Jewish and Christian names, for example, have been Arabicized, so Moses and Jesus appear in the English version of the Koran as Musa and Issa.

When she reached the problematic verse, Bakhtiar spent the next three months on daraba. She does not speak Arabic, but she learned to read the holy texts in Arabic while studying and working as a translator in the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1970s and ’80s.

Her eureka moment came on roughly her 10th reading of Edward William Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon, a 3,064-page volume from the 19th century, she said. Among the six pages of definitions for daraba was “to go away.”

“I said to myself, ‘Oh, God, that is what the prophet meant,’ ” said Bakhtiar, speaking in the offices of Kazi Publications in Chicago, a mail-order house that is publishing her translation.

“When the prophet had difficulty with his wives, what did he do? He didn’t beat anybody, so why would any Muslim do what the prophet did not?”

She thinks the “beat” translation contradicts another verse, which states that if a woman wants a divorce, she should not be mistreated. Given the option of staying in the marriage and being beaten, or divorcing, women would obviously leave, she said.

There have been similar interpretations, but none have been incorporated into a translation. Debates over translations of the Koran – considered God’s eternal words – revolve around religious tradition and Arabic grammar. Critics fault Bakhtiar on both scores.

The thing I find the most fascinating in this entire article (which I strongly recommend you read) is how a text often shown as the word of Allah, can be read in such a way that it is perfectly compatible with modern ways, or at last can be understood in a way which permits the respect of the basic Human Rights. But, it takes time, it takes energy and a strong will to avoid the most barbaric way of understanding such a great text. This is what I call: civilization. The IslamoFascists have shown themselves as lacking the very understanding of the spirit of the Islam they claim to profess. Their mental laziness, their convenient literalism is responsible for much mischief and even barbarian practices.

Samuel