Voice of British Muslim Women

Tooba Khokhar, Cambridge

All language is translation. We translate our thoughts into words, just as we interpret the expressions of others. In a sense, no two individuals truly speak the ‘same’ language.

In Persian, the term hamzabān refers to a person who speaks the same language as you. However, it carries a deeper meaning too. In classical poetry, it is used to mean someone with whom you share a deep affinity. In the opening of his Mathnavi, Molana Jalal-ud-din Rumi writes:

Were I joined to one in accord with me, I too, like the reed, would tell all that may be told;

(But) whoever is parted from one who speaks his language becomes dumb, though he have a hundred songs.

That is to say, speech demands understanding. If there is no one to correctly interpret your words, it is as if you are rendered voiceless. The sublime favour of translation, however, is that Molana’s verse crosses the boundaries of the Persianate world and lies before the eyes of English readers like you. It opens up a world of wisdom, some of which may feel closer to the language of your self than anything composed in your most familiar language.

As a translator, I believe the craft of translation is not simply one of carrying meaning from one language to another. In translating a text, we interpret (oftentimes having to narrow down to a single English equivalent a word rich in meaning in the original language), we relate (situating speech in the territory of the English language), and most of all we labour to preserve the fragrance of the original (so that it doesn’t lose its essence, or read entirely like an English text).

Translation has a broader role too. Throughout history, it is the thread that weaves together the story of mankind. In bridging the wisdom of the ancients and modern science, undoubtedly the greatest role was played by the Translation Movement in the Islamic world. It was the light of Arabic scholarship, including but not limited to translation and study of Greek and Roman texts, that ignited the intellectual curiosity of a Europe that was by its own later admission in the dire grip of ‘the Dark Ages’.

There is a Hadith or saying of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him): ‘The word of wisdom is the lost property of a Muslim, so that, wherever he finds it, he should take it.’ And if we look upon history fairly, without prejudice towards any nation we can indeed see how civilisations build on each other. Whether in the form of al-Khawarizmi who drew on Greek, Persian and Indian traditions to advance mathematics, or Avicenna building upon the ideas of Galen and Hippocrates to write the Canon of Medicine which was to become one of the most influential medical textbooks in Europe for centuries; translation has underpinned academia from its outset and connected scholars from faraway regions to one another.

The Hadith encourages Muslims to seek knowledge. It is likewise incumbent upon believers to spread knowledge too, as one of the acts of sadqah jāriyah or good deeds that will continue to incur reward even after we are gone from this world.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is active in translating a corpus of religious and spiritual texts into a vast array of languages. Its foremost concern is with translating the Holy Qur’an, which it has done so in over 70 languages. Of course, the translation of holy scripture is a task without parallel in the realm of translation — and has its own set of principles unlike those in any other kind of translation. The Community is also recognised for the breadth of its translation efforts, as part of its commitment to fostering understanding and spreading the teachings of Islam.

On 26 May 735, the English monk Bede passed away, having spent his last days translating the Gospel of John into English. Although the translation of the Bible into vernacular languages has generally been a contentious affair, Bede’s efforts do not appear to have been unwelcome and he was undoubtedly a venerated scholar.

Almost 1,300 years since the day of his passing— 1,291 years to be precise— translation is one of the fundamental pillars upholding the global economy, and one that allows us to explore regions new both in the physical world and in our own selves.

Perhaps there is no paean to translation to rival in sentiment the ode penned by English Romantic poet John Keats upon reading Chapman’s rather lyrical rendering of Homer’s Greek epics. “Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,” opens Keats as he vividly describes the experience of reading a translation in rich English verse that transported him to the lands of the ancient Mediterranean and beyond:

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men

Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien