Interview with Comrade Tarif Khalidi: his new translation of the Qur'an

This is a new feature: and the idea belongs to comrade Tarif Khalidi. I will post brief interview that I will conduct via email with certain individuals. Before I even posted this, somebody asked me whey I did not interview women. I kid you not. I mean, I have not started yet. Please give me a break a bit. Madawi Al-Rasheed and Hamid Alger are on my immediate next list. Here are the questions I sent to Tarif, and his answers are below:

1) at what point you realized or felt that there is a need for a new
translation. Was it one bad translation of the Qur'an that bothered you?
2) how long did it take you?
3) What was more challenging? The Arabic or the English?
4) when you would deal with a particular verse that is subject to multiple
interpretations (hammalu awjuh, as Ali bin Abi Talib described it), did you
try to maintain the vagueness of the verse or did you settle on an
interpretation?
5) Do you read the Qur'an differently now? Did you discover hidden meanings
or new meanings?
6) Can you describe the mechanics of the translation? Like how did you do
it: do you start with the Arabic text and then refer to standard
interpretations and then deal with the translation?

Answers:

Answers to As`ad’s questions

1. The crucial question in any new translation of the Qur’an, or of a similar text, is: does a new translation bring new understanding? In the case of my translation, there was one problem with practically all earlier translations that needed to be addressed. The Qur’an speaks to us in many voices: narrating, legislating, threatening, promising and so forth. The mood is constantly changing, from lyrical to legal to dramatic, to “poetical” and so forth. It was clear to me that translating the Qur’an as if it were a monotone prose text , all on the same prosaic level, as in almost all current translations, was not an accurate reflection of its overall effect. So I decided to bring out this diversity of voice and mood by dividing my translation into horizontal prose when the text is legal or narrative, and into vertical “poetry” when it is in any sense dramatic or lyrical. I also divided the translation into paragraphs to mark off where I thought what I called a “burst of revelation” ended and another began. Does all this amount to a new understanding? My readers would need to judge this.

2. The translation itself took about 4 to 5 years.

3. These are really two different challenges and thus incommensurate. In Arabic we possess a vast tradition of Qur’anic commentary to choose from. In English, the challenge is the strategy of translation one wishes to adopt. In essence this boils down to the following: do we modernize the text, treating it as if were our contemporary, or do we bring out its archaic and “alien” or alternatively its eternal character if you are a believer? This is always a very tough decision. I myself inclined to the latter strategy while choosing an English style that I called measured modern English, certainly not colloquial and certainly not Victorian or archaic.

4. Any translation which glosses or comments or overlays the text with exegesis is, in my view, giving it a particular “spin” that reflects the translator’s juridical or theological position. The Qur’an itself speaks of its verses as divided into muhkamat (clear in meaning) and mutashabihat (ambiguous) and indeed invites its listeners or readers to reflect, to think for themselves. In my view a translator of the Qur’an should aim at capturing what it meant to its earliest listeners, without glossing it in any way, except perhaps to explain in a brief glossary at the end a few proper names or terms. This means, on the whole, a literal translation, and accuracy in preserving the ambiguity wherever it occurs. The mystery or multiple layers of meaning is to my mind an essential aspect of the text and should not be explained away but left exactly as is so that readers can make of them what they will. Of all sacred texts, the Qur’an is probably the most insistent in demanding rational reflection and in emphasizing human freedom to understand or misunderstand the signs of God. The responsibility of the translator is therefore a very heavy one: he or she must allow the text to speak for itself. For a translator, to offer any commentary or any gloss, is to exercise a false authority.

5. I think this question is partially answered above.

6. My constant guide, my guru among Qur’an commentators, was al-Tabari. Of course he has an axe or two or three to grind but his massive commentary preserves most faithfully the earliest layers of Qur’an interpretation, especially the philological, which concerned me most."