The Koran in English: A Biography by Bruce B. Lawrence

Author:Bruce B. Lawrence [Lawrence, Bruce B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Islam, Koran & Sacred Writings, History, Middle East, General, Theology
ISBN: 9780691155586
Google: Q2iYDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: PrincetonUP
Published: 2017-06-20T19:35:09+00:00

What is important to recognize is not just the translation strategy—how to introduce rhyme and rhythm into English that echoes the original Arabic—but also how to frame the visual flow of words in print for English readers. The overriding purpose is to engage the reader as a reciter. In the same way that the original Qurʾan was a spoken not a written text, the feel of its English equivalent must goad the reader to speak out loud, to announce, and then repeat the words that appear on a page. In this sense, Toorawa hits on the final end rhyme as the hook that will keep the reader/reciter engaged in the flow of the Arabic text from beginning to end. Habib and Lawrence share the same goal with Toorawa but follow another trajectory: to mark the flow of words through a hesitation or pause after each line, in order to capture the full tone—the emotion as well as the meaning—of the entire verse. Both endeavors seek to expose what Navid Kermani, echoing the eleventh-century scholar al-Jurjānī, depicts as “the explosive power of each verse of the Qurʾan.”17 The strategy is to appeal to the full spectrum of sound/meaning, to draw from each fragment/sign/verse a sense of the whole that engages, elevates, and motivates the listener. In both cases there is attention to the aesthetic aura of the Qurʾan not merely to the literal rendition of its original meaning. No translator or translation has succeeded in that endeavor, making the “perfect” or even the “near perfect” rendition of the Koran in English, a goal as elusive as it is desirable.

Often the efforts of numerous well intentioned individuals are thwarted, or distorted, by forces beyond their control. It is the interference of political actors, with institutional and nationalist agendas, that concerns us in the next chapter. The most rigorously puritanical custodian of Sunni orthodoxy occupies center stage: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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