Fetching
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Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1As the present introduction is only intended to furnish the reader with the necessary information to enable him to understand the Qur’an and its system, I will not dwell upon these and kindred matters which belong to the later history of the creed. One of the greatest blots on El Islam is that it keeps the women in a state of degradation, and therefore effectually prevents the progress of any race professing the religion. For this Mohammed is only so far responsible that he accepted without question the prevalent opinion of his time, which was not in favour of allowing too great freedom to women, so that when he had ameliorated their condition by modifying the unjust laws of -divorce, by enjoining kindness and equity upon his followers in the treatment of their wives, and by sternly repressing the barbarous custom of female infanticide, he thought, no doubt, that he had done enough for them. Similarly he provided for the better and kinder treatment of slaves, but it could never enter his mind that slavery was in itself a wrong or impolitic institu- Ixxvi THE QUR'AN. tion. The real fault lies in the unelastic nature of the religion: in his desire to shield it from change and to prevent his followers from ‘dividing into sects,’ the founder has made it impossible for Islim to throw off certain customs and restrictions which, however convenient and even necessary to the Arabs at the time, became grievous and unsuitable for other nations at distant periods and in distant lands. The institution of the ‘Hagg pilgrimage, for example, was an admirable one for consolidating the Arab tribes, but it is burdensome and useless to the Muslim communities now that they extend over nearly half the civilized world. That Mohammed had a due respect for the female sex, as far as was consistent with the prevailing state of education and opinion, is evident both from his own faithful affection to his first wife “Hadigah, and from the fact that ‘ believing women’ are expressly included in the promises of a reward in the future life which the Qur’4n makes to all who acknowledge one God and. do good works.
2do good works. The language of the Qur'an is universally acknowledged to be the most. perfect form of Arab speech. The Qurais, as the guardians of the national temple and the owners of the territory in which the great fairs and literary festivals of all Arabia were held, would naturally absorb into their own dialect many of the words and locutions of other tribes, and we should consequently expect their language to be more copious and elegant than that of their neighbours. At the same time we must not forget that the acknowledged claims of the Qur'an to be the direct utterance of the divinity have made it impossible for any Muslim to criticise the work, and it became, on the contrary, the standard by which other literary compositions had to be judged. Grammarians, lexicographers, and rhetoricians started with the presumption that the Qur'an could not be wrong, and other works therefore only approached excellence in proportion as they, more or less, successfully imitated its. style. Regarding it, however, from a perfectly impartial and unbiassed standpoint, we find that it INTRODUCTION. Ixxvii expresses the thoughts and ideas of a Bedawi Arab in Bedawi language and metaphor. The language is noble and forcible, but it is not elegant in the sense of literary refinement. To Mohammed’s hearers it must have been startling, from the manner in which it brought great truths home to them in the language of their every-day life. There was nothing antiquated in the style or the words, no tricks of speech, pretty conceits, or mere poetical embellishments; the prophet spoke with rude, fierce eloquence in ordinary language. The only rhetorical ornament he allowed himself was that of making his periods more or less rhythmical, and most of his clauses rhyme,—a thing that was and still is natural to an Arab orator, and the necessary outcome of the structure of the Arabic tongue, It is often difficult to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the old Arab poets, Mohammed’s contemporaries or immediate predecessors, because we cannot completely realise the feelings. that actuated them or identify ourselves with the society in which they moved. For this reason they have always something remote and obsolete about them, however clear their language and meaning may be. With the Qur'an it is not so. Mohammed speaks with a living voice, his vivid word-painting brings at once before the mind the scene he describes or conjures up, we can picture his very attitude when, having finished some marvellously told story of the days of yore, uttered some awful denunciation, or given some glorious promise, he pauses suddenly and says, with bitter disappointment, ‘These are the true stories, and there is no god but God; and yet ye turn aside!’
3To translate this worthily is a most difficult task. To imitate the rhyme and rhythm would be to give the English an artificial ring from which the Arabic is quite free; and the same objection lies against using the phraseology of our authorised version of the Bible: to render it by fine or stilted language would be quite as foreign to the spirit of ! How natural this was to an Arab may be inferred from the anecdote related in Part I, note 2, p. 126; see also p. lv. xxviii THE QUR'AN. the original: while to make it too rude or familiar would be to err equally on the other side. I have, therefore, endeavoured to take a middle course; I have translated each sentence as literally as the difference in structure between the two languages would allow, and when possible I have rendered it word for word. Where a rugged or commonplace expression occurs in the Arabic I have not hesitated to render it by a similar English one, even where a literal rendering may perhaps shock the reader. To preserve this closeness of rendering, I have had in several instances to make use of English constructions which, if not incorrect from a strictly grammatical point of view, are, Tam aware, often inelegant. Thus a peculiarity of the Arabic is to use the same preposition with a passive verb as the active and transitive verb required; for instance, ghazaba *halaihi, ‘he was angered against him,’ in the passive, ghuziba "halaihi, ‘he was angered-against,’ and the preservation of this construction is often absolutely necessary to retain the force of the original. An instance of this occurs in the Opening Chapter, where the words ellaDHina an’hamta ’haldihim, ghdairal maghzibi *haldihim are rendered, ‘of those thou art gracious ‘to, not of those thou art wroth with.;’ in Sale’s translation, ‘of those to whom thou hast been gracious, not of those against whom thou art incensed ;’ the placing the preposition before the verb gives a completely different ring to the English to that of the Arabic, to say nothing of the absence of that colloquial freedom which distinguishes the original. I have, as far as possible, rendered an Arabic word by the same English word wherever it occurs; in some cases, however, where the Arabic word has more than one signification, or where it would distort the sense to retain the same expression, I have not scrupled to alter it. Some of the Arabic words that occur in the Qur’4n are ambiguous, and have given rise to numerous differences of opinion among commentators. Thus the word istaw4 is applied to God, and is interpreted in some passages to INTRODUCTION. Ixxix
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1As the present introduction is only intended to furnish the reader with the necessary information to enable him to understand the Qur’an and its system, I will not dwell upon these and kindred matters which belong to the later history of the creed. One of the greatest blots on El Islam is that it keeps the women in a state of degradation, and therefore effectually prevents the progress of any race professing the religion. For this Mohammed is only so far responsible that he accepted without question the prevalent opinion of his time, which was not in favour of allowing too great freedom to women, so that when he had ameliorated their condition by modifying the unjust laws of -divorce, by enjoining kindness and equity upon his followers in the treatment of their wives, and by sternly repressing the barbarous custom of female infanticide, he thought, no doubt, that he had done enough for them. Similarly he provided for the better and kinder treatment of slaves, but it could never enter his mind that slavery was in itself a wrong or impolitic institu- Ixxvi THE QUR'AN. tion. The real fault lies in the unelastic nature of the religion: in his desire to shield it from change and to prevent his followers from ‘dividing into sects,’ the founder has made it impossible for Islim to throw off certain customs and restrictions which, however convenient and even necessary to the Arabs at the time, became grievous and unsuitable for other nations at distant periods and in distant lands. The institution of the ‘Hagg pilgrimage, for example, was an admirable one for consolidating the Arab tribes, but it is burdensome and useless to the Muslim communities now that they extend over nearly half the civilized world. That Mohammed had a due respect for the female sex, as far as was consistent with the prevailing state of education and opinion, is evident both from his own faithful affection to his first wife “Hadigah, and from the fact that ‘ believing women’ are expressly included in the promises of a reward in the future life which the Qur’4n makes to all who acknowledge one God and. do good works.
2do good works. The language of the Qur'an is universally acknowledged to be the most. perfect form of Arab speech. The Qurais, as the guardians of the national temple and the owners of the territory in which the great fairs and literary festivals of all Arabia were held, would naturally absorb into their own dialect many of the words and locutions of other tribes, and we should consequently expect their language to be more copious and elegant than that of their neighbours. At the same time we must not forget that the acknowledged claims of the Qur'an to be the direct utterance of the divinity have made it impossible for any Muslim to criticise the work, and it became, on the contrary, the standard by which other literary compositions had to be judged. Grammarians, lexicographers, and rhetoricians started with the presumption that the Qur'an could not be wrong, and other works therefore only approached excellence in proportion as they, more or less, successfully imitated its. style. Regarding it, however, from a perfectly impartial and unbiassed standpoint, we find that it INTRODUCTION. Ixxvii expresses the thoughts and ideas of a Bedawi Arab in Bedawi language and metaphor. The language is noble and forcible, but it is not elegant in the sense of literary refinement. To Mohammed’s hearers it must have been startling, from the manner in which it brought great truths home to them in the language of their every-day life. There was nothing antiquated in the style or the words, no tricks of speech, pretty conceits, or mere poetical embellishments; the prophet spoke with rude, fierce eloquence in ordinary language. The only rhetorical ornament he allowed himself was that of making his periods more or less rhythmical, and most of his clauses rhyme,—a thing that was and still is natural to an Arab orator, and the necessary outcome of the structure of the Arabic tongue, It is often difficult to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the old Arab poets, Mohammed’s contemporaries or immediate predecessors, because we cannot completely realise the feelings. that actuated them or identify ourselves with the society in which they moved. For this reason they have always something remote and obsolete about them, however clear their language and meaning may be. With the Qur'an it is not so. Mohammed speaks with a living voice, his vivid word-painting brings at once before the mind the scene he describes or conjures up, we can picture his very attitude when, having finished some marvellously told story of the days of yore, uttered some awful denunciation, or given some glorious promise, he pauses suddenly and says, with bitter disappointment, ‘These are the true stories, and there is no god but God; and yet ye turn aside!’
3To translate this worthily is a most difficult task. To imitate the rhyme and rhythm would be to give the English an artificial ring from which the Arabic is quite free; and the same objection lies against using the phraseology of our authorised version of the Bible: to render it by fine or stilted language would be quite as foreign to the spirit of ! How natural this was to an Arab may be inferred from the anecdote related in Part I, note 2, p. 126; see also p. lv. xxviii THE QUR'AN. the original: while to make it too rude or familiar would be to err equally on the other side. I have, therefore, endeavoured to take a middle course; I have translated each sentence as literally as the difference in structure between the two languages would allow, and when possible I have rendered it word for word. Where a rugged or commonplace expression occurs in the Arabic I have not hesitated to render it by a similar English one, even where a literal rendering may perhaps shock the reader. To preserve this closeness of rendering, I have had in several instances to make use of English constructions which, if not incorrect from a strictly grammatical point of view, are, Tam aware, often inelegant. Thus a peculiarity of the Arabic is to use the same preposition with a passive verb as the active and transitive verb required; for instance, ghazaba *halaihi, ‘he was angered against him,’ in the passive, ghuziba "halaihi, ‘he was angered-against,’ and the preservation of this construction is often absolutely necessary to retain the force of the original. An instance of this occurs in the Opening Chapter, where the words ellaDHina an’hamta ’haldihim, ghdairal maghzibi *haldihim are rendered, ‘of those thou art gracious ‘to, not of those thou art wroth with.;’ in Sale’s translation, ‘of those to whom thou hast been gracious, not of those against whom thou art incensed ;’ the placing the preposition before the verb gives a completely different ring to the English to that of the Arabic, to say nothing of the absence of that colloquial freedom which distinguishes the original. I have, as far as possible, rendered an Arabic word by the same English word wherever it occurs; in some cases, however, where the Arabic word has more than one signification, or where it would distort the sense to retain the same expression, I have not scrupled to alter it. Some of the Arabic words that occur in the Qur’4n are ambiguous, and have given rise to numerous differences of opinion among commentators. Thus the word istaw4 is applied to God, and is interpreted in some passages to INTRODUCTION. Ixxix
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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