دو فصلنامه ترجمان وحی
سال پانزدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 29، بهار و تابستان 1390)

Most of the scholarship conducted on the question of Qur’ānic oaths so far has concerned the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of the phenomenon as a speech act. Consequently a comparative study of this feature of the Qur’ānic discourse across source and target languages and the quest for insights into achieving a greater level of cross-lingual equivalence in translation has been chosen as the focus of this article. Through a diversified analysis of the subject, the article recommends ways for recognition of this rhetorical feature whenever it is used and explores the possibilities to account for its usage in translation within the confines of a target language. The goal is to produce the same level of impression on the target-language reader as though he were a native speaker of the source language. This would become possible only by carrying out comparative cross-lingual studies. Without a keen appreciation of delicacies of a particular linguistic and metalinguistic phenomenon, the translator would fail in reflecting its usage in his work. The target audience would then receive a deviant message with a weak degree of affinity to the original version. In the case of our study, the shortcomings in Persian and English renditions with respect to their success in properly accounting for implicit oaths and (non-standard) quasi-oaths have been particularly underlined. The results from our comparative survey show that in the case of explicit oaths, the translations have usually been effective in finding suitable equivalents. In the more subtle case of implicit oaths and quasi-oaths, however, they have generally offered equivalents which introduce inconsistencies into the sematic structure of the source message. This might be due to the translators’ superficial literalism or obliviousness towards these source-language features. The findings call upon the translator of the Qur’ān to correctly identify such usage and to capture it in such a way as to retain the implicit and indirect nature of the source language construction.

In Arabic, zayt, derived from zaytūn, refers to all kinds of oil. Similarly in English, oil is derived from the Latin word olea, meaning olive. Olive is indigenous to the Mediterranean region, in particular Syria. The word zaytūn is used six times in the Qur’ān. In Sūrat al- Nūr:35 Allah expresses Himself as the light of a lamp which is lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree which is neither eastern nor western. Translators almost agree on interpreting “neither eastern nor western” as the qualifying adjective for the olive tree. Nevertheless, the commentators have failed to explain the occasion or reasoning behind the description. In this author’s opinion, however, “neither eastern nor western” is a characterization of the oil which is the origin of Divine light and certainly not the tree. The Divine existence is preeternal, therefore requires no “rise from the east” and is perpetual, having no “descent in the west” either. God is thus “neither eastern nor western” but rather eternally existent. Classical Persian poetry is also strongly indicative and supportive of this interpretation In al-Mu’minūn:20 (23:20) zaytūn is not directly mentioned, but contextual evidence hints that by tree and oil, olive tree and oil is actually meant. Specifically, verse 19 of the same sūrah speaks of gardens of date palms and grapevines. The names of the same fruits accompany olive (zaytūn) in four other verses throughout the Qur’ān. The second hint comes from the juxtaposing the fact that the particular tree under consideration is a native plant of the Mount Sinai with al- Tīn:1, 2 (95:1,2), where Allah swears by olive and the Mount Sinai.

Metaphorical usage is either indicated by contextual (textual) clues or inferred from elements external to the immediate text. Analysis of the overall style of discourse of a speaker yields helpful clues of the latter category. By careful examination of a number of verses and paying close attention to the stylistic method of the Qur’ān, this article aims to uncover a number of such clues, including deducing figurative signification by taking into account other related verses or metaphorical interpretation imposed by logical, religious and other kinds of constraints. In each case the point at hand is illustrated using sample verses from the Qur’ān.

This article studies the syntactic structure of the generic construct “mā kāna li-yaf‘al” and the way in which Persian authors have accounted for it in their translations. A simple syntactic analysis of the expression reveals the following information: mā is the particle of negation; the subject of kāna is the implied pronoun huwa and its predicate is omitted and based on the meaning of the sentence is assumed to be murīdan, munāsiban or another similar word. The lam in li-yaf‘al is a genitive-marking preposition (harf al-jarr). The present tense verb is put into the accusative case by the accusative marking (suffix) –an. The present-tense verb is then implicitly transformed into an infinitive (by –an) which coupled with the prepositional prefix lam amounts to a full-blown prepositional phrase (al-jārr and al-majrūr) which is associated with the omitted predicate of kāna. The most accurate and representative translation therefore would be hargez (Persian for never). Of all the translators surveyed in this article, including Mojtabavī, Makārem, Khorramshāhī, Garmārūdī, Ostād-valī Safavī, Karīm-Zamānī and Rezāī-Isfahānī, only the last one had used our recommended Persian equivalent for the Arabic structure (with the exception of Yūnus:37 and Yūsuf:76). By contrast, Mojtabavī, Garmārūdī, Ostād-valī and Safavī never used hargez as the equivalent of their choice.

This article explores translation of a number of special Qur’ānic terms. Being a non-Muslim scholar, Ben-Shemesh conducts a close comparative study of several Qur’ān translations (English versions by Pickthall, Rodwell, Bell, Arberry and Dawood along with certain French and German works) with respect to their renditions of these terms which include al-rahīm, fir‘aun zul-’awtād, the meaning and etymology of sūrah, tasā’alūn-a bihī (al-Nisā’:1), hā-mīm (cryptic letters), the meanings of al-najm and al-shajar in context of al- Rahmān:6 (55:6) and wildān-um mukhalladūn as it occurs in al- Wāqi‘ah:17 (56:17).

The Qur’ān has thrice used various cognates of ikhbāt, for which commentators and philologist have given several different definitions. Its basic lexical meaning is to be placed in a vast stretch of barren wasteland. In the usage of the Qur’ān, however, it has a specific meaning which is the focus of this article. Other similar terms have also been discussed and compared. A supplementary section by the translator examines the three syntactically variant uses of the term (its derivatives) and asks if this is indicative of a more profound difference than mere syntactic diversity. Another interesting aspect is the widely differing renditions in Persian translations, none of which seem to adequately account for the full scope of the term’s meaning. This may ultimately be due to the underlying lack of a proper equivalent in the Persian language.

Translated and edited by: Bahā al-Dīn Khorramshāhī This section begins with a discussion of conjunctions, specifically the conjunctive wa (and). Some representative examples from the Qur’ān are quoted and it is noted that in majority of English renditions, a series of conjunctions (wa) in the source language is matched by a sequence of (expressions separated by) commas in all corresponding positions except the last one, where a conjunctive and is used. Subsequently the usage of other conjunctions, namely thumma and fa (both meaning then) is discussed and exemplified. Ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion, parallelistic structures and formulas are other linguistic textual features to be treated through provision of multiple examples from the Qur’ān.

Georgia, a country with a population of more than 4.5 million, has long seen peaceful coexistence among followers of different religions. On the other hand it was of the first of nations to embrace Christianity and its Eastern Orthodox branch still remains the official faith of the country. Georgian Muslims, Sunni and Shi’ite combined, make up about 10 percent of the total population and constitute thelargest religious minority in the country. Motivated by of the relative diversity of the Georgian Muslim population in terms of both sectarian and geographical distribution and the resulting pluralism in translations and interpretations of the Qur’ān, this article concerns itself with offering a history of Georgian translations of the Qur’ān and presenting an assessment of their qualities, relative strengths and shortcomings and their cultural and practical significance.