Translation and Exegesis: Travis Zadeh’s The Vernacular Qur’an

Translation and Exegesis: Travis Zadeh’s The Vernacular Qur’an

By Michael Pregill

tz

The claim that Muslims do not translate the Qur’an, or rather that a translation of the Qur’an is not
 really the Qur’an at all but only a dim approximation of the basic sense of the text, has often been 
repeated by scholars. This notion has even informed the production of translations by Muslims 
themselves at times, as in the case of Marmaduke Pickthall’s famous The Meaning of the 
Glorious Koran (1930)—the title implying that the text in English represents only the meaning,
 with something substantial literally having been lost in translation. It is difficult to escape the
 conclusion that any rendition of the Qur’an into the vernacular—that is, into any language other 
than the original Arabic—should and must have a secondary and marginal status in Islamic
society.

But there is a paradox here, inasmuch as the public recitation and explanation of the Qur’an has
played a significant role in attracting converts to Islam since the earliest days of the community’s
 expansion after the Arab conquests. Historically, the process of reciting and explaining the 
Qur’an surely involved some element of translation; the parallel with the reading of the Torah 
and exposition of targum in Jewish synagogue services is obvious here. Further, scholars have
 often asserted (at least since the time of Goldziher’s seminal Die Richtungen der islamischen
 Koranauslegung, 1920) that tafsir (Qur’an commentary) most likely originated in this context, 
built upon the most ancient understandings of the Qur’an that had circulated among the earliest
followers of the Prophet. Initially grounded in the need to interpret the Qur’an’s essential message
for converts—often with considerable mythological and homiletic expansions—this tradition 
eventually coalesced into one of the core disciplines within the ulum al-Quran or “Qur’anic 
sciences.” All of this implies that translation of the Qur’an has in fact been central to Islamic 
society, at least at times, and that such translation has been absolutely vital for the survival and
 expansion of the community at numerous junctures in Islam’s long history.

The complex relationship between translation of and commentary upon the Qur’an is explored in
 depth in Travis Zadeh’s magesterial and far-ranging study, The Vernacular Qur’an: Translation
and the Rise of Persian Exegesis (Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of
 Ismaili Studies, 2012), which specifically examines the phenomenon of translation as it lies at
the foundation of both Persian literary and Iranian Islamic religious tradition. The significance 
of this study cannot be overstated. Iran was most likely the first region or culture area outside
 of Arabia proper to achieve a Muslim majority. Further, several of Iran’s urban centers became
preeminent centers of religious learning in the ninth and tenth centuries, producing ulama whose 
works became critical for the further development of the religious sciences, especially hadith; 
and, as is well known, by the high Middle Ages, so-called New Persian came to rival—and 
eventually surpass—Arabic as the preeminent literary language of Islamic society, at least in the 
eastern regions of the Dar al-Islam.

Zadeh’s study explores the intersections between theological and juridical controversies,
 devotional practice, and an emerging Persian literary culture, informed both by an admirable command of the theoretical literature on translation and a nuanced understanding of the complex 
conjunction of factors that contributed to the misrepresentation of Qur’an translation as somehow
 inferior or illegitimate. In Western scholarly discourse, the claim of the Qur’an’s untranslatability 
originates in medieval Christian polemic, in which Muslims’ supposed insistence that the Qur’an
 can only be approached in the original Arabic was caricatured as proof of Muslim “rigidity” 
and legalism – ritual rectitude purportedly being more important in Islam than rational 
understanding. This gross oversimplification of Muslim attitudes was then reinforced by the
 misapprehensions of more contemporary (and well-meaning) scholars such as Wilfred Cantwell
 Smith, who inadvertently conflated theological assertions of the Qur’an’s inimitability with some
 jurists’ opposition to the use of verses of the Qur’an in other languages in the devotional context
into a blanket prohibition on translation that somehow applied to all times, places, and contexts.

Smith thus characterized an opposition to translation as somehow essential to Islam, but as 
Zadeh demonstrates, the translation of the Qur’an into Persian, even for devotional purposes,
 appears to have been a basic fact in the Iranian milieu; the “early pattern of wrapping the sacred 
language of the Qur’an in Persian reflects the practical hermeneutic, if not liturgical, importance
 of approaching scripture through a linguistic medium other than Arabic” (133). Moreover,
translation into Persian was not simply driven by the practical considerations of disseminating 
the Qur’an in a recently converted, and thus only superficially acculturated, population. 
Rather, Zadeh’s theoretically sophisticated approach shows that the general recognition of the
 polyvalence of scripture—for example, the idea that the Qur’an was revealed in seven ahruf 
(modes or recitations)—opened up a wide discursive space in which many scholars not only 
tolerated but even explicitly sanctioned the ongoing use of the Qur’an in Persian and other
languages for a variety of purposes.

Astonishingly, Zadeh’s treatment of his subject stretches from the period just after the Arab
 conquests of the seventh century all the way to the flourishing of Persian tafsir in the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries with figures such as Abu’l-Futuh al-Razi, Surabadi, and Isfara’ini, as well
 as discussing the later reception of this tradition in subsequent centuries. Even as the use of
 Persian renditions of Qur’anic verses was largely abandoned in specifically devotional contexts,
 the dynamic interplay between the Arab and Iranian cultural and linguistic milieux continued to 
inform the evolution of Islam in the Persian-speaking world. As their tradition matured, Iranian 
scholars continued to have a complicated relationship with Arab Islamic religious authority and
 exegetical discourse—especially the latter, as “exegesis served as a platform for the articulation
 of religious commitments” (448), particularly as attitudes towards Persian came to inform and in
 turn be inflected by sectarian considerations.

This brief notice hardly does justice to Zadeh’s wide-ranging, yet lucidly argued and eloquently written, treatment of the Qur’an in Persian and the Persianate world. We may hope that his nuanced and imaginative study draws attention to this long-neglected subject and inspires new scholarly research in this area in the future.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2013. All rights reserved.

On Qur’anic Studies and ‘Ulum al-Qur’an

By Emran El-Badawi

The Qur’an is not merely the scripture that gave birth to Islamic Tradition but also–in the words of the late Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (d. 2010)–a “discursive text.” Its eloquence, argumentation and history engaged generations of Muslim scholars who dedicated numerous monographs and essays to different studies on the Qur’an. early scholars meticulously studied their scripture’s grammar (i’rab), rhetoric (balaghah) and loan words (mu’arrabat); they also documented its earliest codices (masahif), variant readings (qira’at), and wrote mammoth tomes on exegesis (tafsir).

Within the field of exegesis alone there is a good deal of variety. Among other exegetical works, Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari’s famous Tafsir (3/10th century) uses prophet stories, insights from the earliest generation of Muslims (like ‘Abdulah b. Abbas; d. 68/687) and his own personal insights on matters of language to elucidate the verses of the Qur’an. Along similar lines Abu Bakr b. al-‘Arabi’s Ahkam al-qur’an has an unmistakably juridical flavor, as does Mahmud b. ‘Umar al-Zamakhshari’s Kashshaf a subtly Mu’tazili one (both 6th/12th century). The efflorescence of different academic fields of Qu’anic study lead to a great deal of specialization, divergence and variety.

From gomdl.com

From gomdl.com

The need to integrate these different academic fields and preserve the rich insights of earlier scholars into a unified discipline surrounding the Qur’an gave rise to what is traditionally known as ‘ulum al-qur’an, or ‘Qur’anic Sciences/Studies’ (a term better encapsulated in the German “koranischen Wissenschaften”). There are two major pre-modern ‘ulum al-qur’an works, Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi’s Burhan (8th/14th century) and Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti’s Itqan (ca. 905/1500). The latter goes into seemingly exhaustive detail concerning many subjects, including the number and types of qur’anic verses, loan words, problematic passages, script, i’jaz, semantic and rhetorical debates–principally based on the insights coming from generations of earlier Qur’an scholars. Suyuti’s Itqan is, by itself, a major resource for any student of the Qur’an.

More recent works of ‘ulum al-qur’an include Muhammad ‘Abd al-‘Azim al-Zurqani’s Manahil al-‘irfan (1943) and a useful English abridgment of this traditional discipline by Ahmad Von Denffer called Ulum al Qur’an: An Introduction to the Sciences of the Qur’an  (1994; revised 2009). Zarqawi and Von Denffer wrote five centuries after Zarkashi and Suyuti–who were themselves just as far removed from the earliest authorities on the Qur’an like ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abbas. Yet their works stay true  to ‘integrating and preserving’ earlier scholarship on the Qur’an, uniformly and adding little new information.

This was the principle critique of Abu Zayd leveled against pre-modern ‘ulum al-qur’an works. He argues that the problem with many traditional Qur’anic Studies works are (1) their tendency to reproduce old and sometimes outdated insights and (2) an absence of original insights. The emphasis, therefore, of works like those of Zarkashi and Suyuti are not the Qur’an itself, but rather Islamic Tradition. In his book, Mafhum al-nass, Abu Zayd proposed a bold, systematic, fresh inquiry into the Qur’an’s text in light of its own ‘hermeneutical instruments,’ and exploring–among other things–who the speaker(s) of the text is in different passages. Abu Zayd’s commitment to the text directly–his simplicity and originality–rather than the verbosity of tradition, removes so much obfuscation and mystery surrounding the study of the Qur’an.

Abu Zayd was also someone who believed in building bridges between Islamic and western societies. Since the Qur’an is a text of world historical importance, he realized the value of exchanging ideas on the Qur’an across cultural lines. With this in mind there is some common ground between the traditional discipline of ‘ulum al-qur’an and the academic discipline of Qur’anic Studies in the western academy today. In this respect the traditional study of the Qur’an’s loan words (mu’arrabat) or foreign language (gharib)–especially from Aramaic–can be viewed as part of what the academy calls Semitic Linguistics. Furthermore, as an integral part of world literature the Qur’an is also in dialogue with other scriptural traditions–especially the Hebrew and Christian Bible (al-tawrah wa al-injil)–that can prove illuminating. Qur’anic Studies in the western academy can also benefit from studying the Qur’an, not just as a text of history, but also as a text that lives within Islamic tradition.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2012. All rights reserved.