People might think that the Quranic Tafseer is the concise and complete translation of the Quran.
Well...
Yeah, I've been there. Especially being someone who is a complete 'loser' in Arabic language..haha
BUT...
There are something missing.
Be it in any language translated. Malay, English, etc.
"Sooo.... what is missing?!"
The poetic and emotive elements of the Quranic language.
I was reading this book called "The Muslim Next Door" by Sumbul Ali-Karamali, an Indian-American
Muslim woman.
Generally, this book talks about Islam in general and its target audience is American people.
It was written prior to the 9/11 incident.
Even though some of her views are quite liberal, in a sense.
But, most of it enlightens you with knowledge and new ways to look into Islam, in a perspective of being able to explain it to the non-Muslim.
Alright, enough with the book already. Back to the main topic....
When the verses of Qur'an translated into different languages, it lacks the poetic and emotive elements.
And sometimes, these translations leads to the non-Muslims to misunderstand Islam itself.
That's why.. it make sense when the Imam or anyone who REALLY study the Arabic language
Find that Quranic language is very unique and special. And it makes them cry easily.
It's nothing like daily spoken Arabic.
It also make sense, why the Musyrikin during the prophet Muhammad's (SAW) time were so envy of this particular literature.
When we lack these poetic and emotive stuff..
Some verses, for example, when Allah talks about Hellfire, when we read it in English or Malay, Allah seems angry...
When in fact, the wording and the vocabulary used in the Qur'an, Allah said it in a very sad tone.
That's an ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE! >.<
According to that book, the Qur'an is tender and compassionate and all about forgiveness.
Why else would every Surah (except At-Taubah) starts with the phrase "In the name of Allah, most Merciful and most Compassionate"?
The Quranic verse also has some sort of very dynamic word usage for gender.
It simply means that, when in English, it could mean, "her" or "it" or neither is instead, at times, translated as "him"
English or other languages, I suppose, does not have such capabilities.
Lost of this gender dynamic, is what leads to the most misleading stereotypes about Islam.
It makes people think that Islam is rigid and male-centered.
When in fact, Quran contains much more of a female presence than what the translation showed us.
What we may think of male, could also refer to female as well.
Well, you definitely have to go into the linguistic elements of it to know the very details of it.
But my point is, to understand the Quran the way prophet SAW, the Companions as well as the Tabi'in..
We need to learn Arabic as well, or the least that we could do, is by learning or referring to a reverent tafseer like tafseer Al-Azhar, etc.
Because, like I said earlier, the translated Qur'an misses some important elements of the language.
It would be great to extract some of the sentences from the book
Here it goes...
"Whenever I hear the Qur'an chanted it is as though I am listening to music; underneath the flowing melody there is sounding all the time the insistent beat of a drum
.........
It is like the beating of my heart."
Wow... it is a music after all. Maybe because we don't know the actual thing, that's why we're missing it.
The Quranic voice gets lost in translation.
SO... Let's learn Arabic Language... (Slowly I suppose, get to know them a little bit) \ (^o^) /
がんばって、みんな (Lets work hard everyone!)
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