This lecture covers a set of problems related to the understanding of the Koranic text at a linguistic level, and sheds light on what theological potential it contains for reform in Muslim societies pertaining to human rights, democracy, religious tolerance, and inter-religious dialogue. The lecture addresses the issue of how the Koranic text, after more than 1400 years, is still viewed as a source that helps producing new views and approaches, particularly for non-Arabs who practice Islam exclusively under the instructions of local, oftentimes conservative clergies resisting any novelties and even new translations.

Before I move to the main focus of my today’s lecture for those who know a little about Islam I guess I need to start with clarifying the definition of the word “Islam” as the name of the religion that is mostly not only misunderstood by many peoples but also mispracticed by Muslims themselves at the variety of points. “Islam” literally means submitting to God, or surrendering to God. In other words, it calls on people to believe that there is no divinity but God. Prophets or God’s messengers should not be worshipped at all despite all advantages they enjoy as being chosen by God Himself. That is the main philosophy of Islam placed in Koranic text but not other religious sources that the majority of Muslims focus on practicing their religion. This philosophy embraces all human values shared by people who view the religion as a system of values that should be rather lived in their authentic and dynamic version than accepted as a system of protocol and ritual values.

One of the reasons of widely spread wrong ideas about Islam is the absence of the investigation of the very logic of the holy text both in scientific and popular publications. This logic makes the monotheistic idea absolute. People who do not know the gist of Islam well enough, mainly pay attention to the external manifestations of the historized Islam - traditional, protocol - ritual, and along with the further development of this religion, often nationalized and politized ones. The historic and political reasons of this are very deep and may be a subject for separate investigations. We shall only note that for these reasons Islam in Koranic version has gone away from its pure origin, lost its dynamics and become to be considered as a system of traditional values by its supporters and opponents alike.

Departing from the Koranic logic, we discover that Islam stands higher than traditionalism. Thus, pagans, resisting the prophets' appeals for monotheism, justify themselves, saying they "follow their fathers". The Koran blames them for that. But it is important to remember that not tradition as a definition but simply blind observance and obedience to the "fathers' way" being painted in some religious color are barriers against the realization of monotheism and the progress of the mankind.

Having made ourselves familiar with the Koran, we discover that the most of the Koran's verses (approximately two-third, according to the calculations) are dedicated to secular life problems. The Koranic logic considers a man's constructive and creative actions and activities as good for God. That is why such actions represent different kinds of prayer. Of course, a secularized mind, for which religious and secular are different definitions, can hardly accept the aforesaid as different kinds of prayer.

Koranic verses order the believers to appeal only to God, and this appeal must be only addressed directly to God, and not to anybody or anything else. According to Koran, even Muhammad, the Prophet, cannot be deified. He is God's messenger and only delivers the cosmic divine information: "But if they turn aside, we have not sent you as a watcher over them; on you is only to deliver the message" (42/48).

Basing on the Koranic philosophy I have to note for those who are present here and preach other religions that there is no deep differences between Islam and Christianity or Judaism if we look at all of them at the level of doctrines that they produce. They all advocate monotheism. Moreover, Koranic text says that this Holy Book was sent down and revealed by God through His angel Gabriel as a confirmation of previous Scriptures, including Old and New Testaments. By the way I would refer to the Koranic instruction how to get into dialogue with people who seemingly represent other faiths but in fact share the same divine values as those who are considered as believers surrendering to God’s will. It says: “Do not argue with the People of the Book unless It is in the poutest manner, except for those of them who do wrong. SAY: "We believe in what has been sent down to us and what has been sent down to you. Our God and your God is [the Same] One, and we are committed to [observe] peace before Him”(28/46). Moreover, what speaks for the free choice of faith is a Koranic verse that states: “There is no compulsion in religion” (2/256). Of course, there are some verses that sound at first sight kind of irreverent towards Christians and Jews but this is not about the these religions because these are seen as part of the great monotheistic traditions and ideas but rather against those followers of theses religions who claim to be the leaders keeping grip on power over peoples. Similar attitude but more aggressive is about Muslims who show insincerity to Islam while pretending that they are true Muslims. There is a separate chapter about them which is called Hypocrites while there is a chapter that is called Mary for the sake of Mary the Virgin. Moreover, Koranic text has a great deal of respect towards Jesus Chist as one of the greatest prophets in the history. At this point I can not help mentioning a seemingly funny story with my article about how Jesus Christ is seen in Koranic verses. After this article was published in Azeri newspaper “Azadlig” a young poet working for this newspaper gave an interview to another one and stated in his interview that he was so fascinated by Nariman Gasimoglu’s article about Jesus Christ that he decided to convert to Christianity although I wrote about Jesus Christ from the Koranic point of view. The young poet did not care about the theological approaches I came up with but rather adopted the notion that Jesus Christ is associated with Christianity in Muslim public mind. If in the past I used to be accused by fundamentalists of being supportive to Zionism but after the mentioned article I got labeled by those as a secret Christian missionary.

Coming back to our main theme I would emphasize Koranic interpretations that have become more or less commonly traditional, interpretations where Koranic verses are accepted to be viewed through the so called Sunna literature, prophetic sayings and acts many of which seem disputable as they are mainly verbal fables written 150 years after the death of the prophet and don’t match the gist of Koranic verses at many points. I’ll get back to this when talking about theological challenges one can face working on translation of Koran.

Nevertheless the Islamic tradition describes the Koran as a vast ocean of knowledge that never ceases in its wisdom, no matter how much you study it. You may want to continue investigating the Koran, looking for new perspectives, challenges, and insights.

Of course, the Arabic present in Koran never changes, but the translation of it into any other language is based as much on interpretation as it is really impossible to cover all endless meanings it may produce with the passage of time depending on the level of understanding we as human-beings achieve for time-being. So the word "translation" in regard with Koranic text is used conditionally as a traditional word applied to the literary transmission of this or other foreign text. As to me I called my first work, first version of Koranic translation in Azeri “Holy Koran: commentary in Azeri Turkic penned by Nariman Gasimoglu”.

However, some scholars say that translations by Muslims are not always acceptable, at times the translated texts can be affected by sectarian tendency the authors may belong to. I believe they are partly right as I have encountered a lot of translations written by non-Arab Muslim scholars, which speak in many respects for their religious sectarian views they naturally follow being part the certain religious circles where they live and work. Such authors along with being scholars appear to be also believers who try to make their best to convey the holy message in their own languages in a way that could match the religious views that have been developed over many centuries and thus have become part of people’s mode of thought. The other reason why Muslim authors at some points might seem not that correct is about cultural background that serve as a definite obstacle hard to be overstepped to get rid of historical, cultural, traditional stereotypes embedded in their brain. As for me I have to tell you I am also a believer. And what I feel good about is that my belief in God has never been a product of certain upbringing or education or religious instructions one could get since his or her childhood and carry through the life. As my father was a prominent poet, a believer but never practicing religion, and mother was a doctor who never paid any attention in the family to the religious matters at all. I have graduated from Arabic department of Baku University which has nothing to do with religious education. Along with that I must also state that the traditional religious consciousness of Azeris is also more flexible than in many other countries partly due to historical realities and national cultural legacy.

I want just to cite an episode from the popular Azeri love legend titled “Asli and Kerem”. Asli a Christian girl, daughter of Christian priest. Kerem a Muslim guy who falls in love with Asli who also loves him back. Her farther proves to be very stubborn and does not agree that his daughter marry the Muslim guy. Kerem is ready to sacrifice everything he has in order to soften her father up and accepts all the conditions her father puts before him. He agrees to all conditions, including shepherding pigs that you know Muslims don’t eat and hate, hanging cross over his neck as a sign of being converted to Christianity. Kerem does all that stuff and the priest finally agrees on their marriage but the story ends up with tragedy arranged by the priest who sets in motion a witchcraft. And when Kerem enters the room of his bride whose dress is buttoned through and once he tries to strip her, touching the buttons they burst into flame on her dress and both beloved being taken aback by flame die. The similar love story exists in one the tragic dramas by Huseyn Javid, a very famous Azerbaijani poet and playwright who was repressed by Stalin regime and died in Siberia. In his drama “Shekh Sanan” is the similar story with the hero Sheykh Sanan, a young Muslim religious leader who finally gives up his religious identity and converts to Christianity. But the interesting episode in this drama is that when he agrees to be humiliated by priests demanding that he burn the Holy Koran he says I dare you don’t put such a cruel demand because I am not sure you will be pleased with burning papers of Koran while it contains a lot of lovely verses about Jesus Christ and Mary the Virgin.

Koranic language is so subtle and so flexible and so context-driven that one thing it might lead is putting translators at risk of being confused if they are not that mush prepared for doing this great job not to mention taking possible extreme meanings as well. The risk is pretty high when you assume that the text itself addresses the believers on all levels.

The problem stems from the fact that the Koran uses the same unique elegant language to explain a variety of topics: faith, theology, acts of worship, spirituality as well as complex legal issues as family laws and the civil and criminal penal code. The Koran addresses such topics with varying degrees of simplicity and sophistication. But the language is always the same: a beautiful classical Arabic styled in poetry-prose, which made it possible for the entire book to be memorized by millions, including those whose mother tongue is not Arabic. Many scholars, Muslims and non-Muslim, who are fluent in Arabic maintain that the Koran is a literary miracle.

The interpretation of Koran is at two levels. One is at the personal level as the Koran states that God made it easy for everyone to understand it. In Arabic, or in a good translation, a vast majority of the Koranic verses lead to direct and simple interpretation, readily available to be applied in one's life. Thus the difficulty is in practicing the Koran but not in understanding it. The other level of interpretation is at the scholarly level. More popular versions of such scholarly interpretations are available as aides to one's personal interpretation. In Islam there is no church. Hence every Muslim is responsible for his/her own interpretation and practice of the Koran.

Among the linguistic challenges to translators I would be citing first of all some lexical ones that are related to finding the appropriate translation equivalent. Some terms in Arabic do not have identical equivalents in other languages. This might be due to the fact that Arabic texts as well as many parts of Koranic verses appear to be highly emotive, which makes translators feel hard time transmitting the emotiveness some Koranic verses contain. I’d rather contrast some examples not with Azeri but English ones as you may get a little bit of impression on the matter. For example, a Koranic verse in the chapter Abraham in the language of original says: “la tahsubanna-llaha gafilen amma ya’malu-z-zalimun” It sounds this way and contains a portion of emotiveness that address the religios feelings of believers while in English it’s commonly translated as “Don’t think that God does not heed the deeds of those who do wrong”. The word (do wrong) is not the best equivalent for the word /zalimun/ since this word involves more than treating someone wrongly which is not enough motivation for being punished and put in hell. It involves being treated unjustly regardless of the being Muslims or non-Muslims. Luckily in Azeri we have the same word but Azeri version of the word zalimun does not cover all the meanings it contains in Arabic.

The other problem is tied to Arabic grammar. For example, the first Koranic chapter Fatiha (The Opening) states:

In the name of God, the Mercy-giving, the Merciful! Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe,
the Mercy-giving, the Merciful!
Ruler on the Day for Repayment!
You do we worship and You do we call on for help.
Guide us along the Straight Road,
the road of those whom You have favored,
with whom You are not angry,
nor who are lost!

“Praise be to God” sounds in the language of the original as “al-hamdu lil-llah” which contains certainly not only this meaning but rather broader sense because the prefix “li” along with what it serves as indicative prefix in many cases is used in the sense of pointing to ownership. So the best option to translate the above mentioned phrase should be in the sense “The God is the only one who possess the right to be praised”. In other words, if you are a good Muslim you should never think to praise whomever but God because nobody else except for Him has this right. Otherwise you risk to put yourself at risk of getting into idolatry, paganism and being viewed by God as the one who nevertheless commit a sin equated to associating God-being with idols which could be in the shape of wooden or stone pagans or just people ranging from your chief to your director to president and so on.

I believe that the translator is responsible for accurate interpretation of Koranic text as much as he or she can, depending on his or her erudition or insight but the translators should never be under the pressure of commentaries made long centuries ago as Koranic text is a living one and gives the interpreter good commands not to go far away for what it actually says. Proficiency is needed at the intuitional level not to lengthen the brief sentences so much bringing in many traditional interpretations from the secondary sources, from hadith literature whereas the translator should stick to the text itself and not add from himself or herself anything additional. If not it may cause some inaccuracies and lead the believers to wrong impressions. For example, when I thought to prepare for this lecture I also looked through one English translation that has been made by a Muslim scholar. In his translation the last Koranic verse in the chapter “Hijr” has been translated the following way: “Serve your Lord until there come unto you the Hour that is certain”. The word “hour” which means the arrival of judgement day is not placed in the original text at all. The translator got it from the commentaries which explains the related verse in the light of hadiths. But if we look at the original text it simply says that “serve your Lord until conviction comes to you” (15/99). What does the word conviction mean in this context let the readers decide for themselves. For me it means that as much you will serve God-being as you may be much certain about your belief and convicted of it, others might think that you may be much certain that God will grant you successes or whatever. In other words, I believe the translator should try as much as he or she can to leave the readers to decide what some verses could mean for them as to make such an approach fit in with Koranic logic itself which does not claim at all to monopolize the very matter of understanding the holy text which has been sent down not only for scholars. What speaks in favor of this is the Koranic verse which reads: “Read whatever seems feasible from the Koran” (73/20)

Let me give you a few more examples. In Arabic text the verse 50 of the chapter The Criteria (25) starts with the words if translated literally that “We have spent it, or put it into circulation or made it away or distributed it or detailed it or spelled it” then come the words “amongst them in order that they may remember”. The word “it” in many places in Koran mean “him” or the Holy writ so many translators on the one hand are inclined to translate this as a “Koranic text” in the above mentioned verse as it seems quite logical that God might say “We have detailed the Koran amongst people so that they will remember or get proper lessons” and moreover, in other verses the word “sarrafna” in the sense “we have detailed” is paired up directly with Koran itself. But on the other hand if you get back to previous verses where the talk is about God having created mankind firstly from water as He did with each living creatures, then having sent the distilled rain (by the way the rain can really be used as a distilled water) and gave the life to the nature and so on. So in this context the translator can mean it as a water instead of Koranic text because the word water will fit in with the context when God says that “we have put it into circulation so that you remember” Remember what? Remember that you have been initially created from the water so please be respectful to protect the nature. Anyway, I am in favor of not adding whichever word and leave it as it is and let the reader to ponder over what it might mean so that he or she can get his or her lesson. The bad thing is that many translators try to enrich the translation with some common ideas, the thing that I believe can doom the Koranic text to have the static meanings and strip it off the flexibility it contains and put the text in the end at risk of serving stagnation of holy messages.

I would give another example. In the chapter “Poets” (26) there is an episode when the prophet Hud, one of the God’s messengers at ancient times addresses his compatriots and says “Are you building a sign on every hill just so you may fool around?”(128) and then he says “Are you setting up “masani” so that you may live for ever?”(129). The word “masani” in Arabic is a plural of the word “masna” which means factory, mill, workshop that stem from the verb “sanaa” – to produce, in other words it means the place where some industrial products are produced. If adopted literally the above mentioned verse means that the prophet Hud blames his compatriots for building the masani – factories (of course the talk here is not about the contemporary factories existing at present) for their own selfish interests instead of taking care of poor people. In many translations I saw the word masani being translated as mighty castles or big water reservoir or something else not because the translators don’t know the real meaning of the word but as likely as not the word itself sounds pretty modern thus a bit confusing as it doesn’t prove matching the historical context of the message. But I believe the translators might use any words meaning workshops or whatever. By doing so it should have been more accurate and should have tied the readers intuitively to the modern times.

There are lots of examples with this regard but to give you one more example I would cite also Koranic verse where God addressing prophet Muhammad says that he sees when the prophet stands. In Arabic it sounds “allazi yerake hine tagumu” or in English literally “who sees you when you stand” (26/218). The word “tagumu” is translated as “stand” or “stand up”. In many commentaries it’s believed to mean stand up for prayer, in some others it means stand up for struggle as the verb itself contains many meanings. But I guess that the translator should leave it to the readers to think what it can mean for them rather than impose on them his or her own version which could turn quite subjective one.

Lexical problems create theological ones as well, which is good I believe because it may serve reforming ideas so needed in Muslim world nowadays and in the West as well to understand the gist of Islam being targeted a lot particularly on the wave of Islamophobia that many politicians seem to be obsessed with.

In this regard I would refer to Jihad and state what it certainly means if you proceed from Koranic text itself and look at it not from the position of the second source of Islam commonly accepted in Muslim world which is called the sunna where jihad is characterized as war or battle against non-believers. Even in the Azeri dictionary the term jihad is explained as a holy war against infidels as a result of long centuries traditional commentaries while in Arabic it stems from the verb ja-kha-da, meaning mainly striving, struggling, in the Koranic context striving and struggling on the path of God for good deeds to be implemented. The nouns that stem from this verb are Juhd, Mujahid, Jihad, and Ijtihad. The other meanings are: endeavor, strain, exertion, effort, diligence. Of course, Jihad should never be confused with Holy War. Jihad is not a war to force the faith on others, as many people think of it. It should never be interpreted as a way of compulsion of the belief on others, since there is an explicit verse in Koran that says: "There is no compulsion in religion".

So in my second translation of course I have translated it in accordance with the meanings that are correct not only with the original Arabic meanings but also with the Koranic logic.

The other disputable term that I guess you might be interested in is related to Muslim women’s headscarf which is commonly called hijab.

First of all I would refer in this regard to a Koranic verse that says: “He has picked you out and has not placed any constraint upon you concerning religion” (22/78).

The word "hijab" in Koran is the term used by ordinary Muslim believers to describe Muslim women’s head cover that may or may not include covering their face except their eyes, and sometimes covering also one eye. The Arabic word "hijab" can be translated into veil . Other meanings for the word "hijab" include, screen, cover (ing), mantle, curtain, drapes, partition, division, divider. The word "hijab" is used in Koran 7 times. None of these are used in Koran in reference to what the traditional Muslims call today “hijab” as a dress code for the Muslim woman. For example, there is a Koranic verse that says “She {Mary} set the curtain (“hijab”) between her and them” or in another translation “She chose to be secluded from them” (19/17). Another verse reads: “It is not [fitting] for God to speak to any human being except through inspiration or from behind a curtain” (“hijab”) (42/51)

Some scholars point out that "hijab" or veil can be traced back to early civilizations. In Greco-Roman culture, both women and men wore head covering in religious contexts. The tradition of wearing the veil (by women) and the headcover (by men) was then adopted by the Jews who wrote it in the Talmud then the Christians adopted the same.

Let me get back to Koran where there is a verse that is quoted by many Muslims to justify women’s veil not by the word hijab as I explained it has other meanings but the word “khimar”. This word can be found in Koran as one of the dress code for women. The related Koranic verse that is common by many interpreters as following: “They should draw their veils (or shawls) over their bosoms”(24/31). In Arabic it says: “val-yadrubne bikhumurihinne alya juyubihinne”

"Khimar" is an Arabic word that means, cover, any cover, a curtain is a Khimar, a dress is a Khimar, a table cloth that covers the top of a table is a Khimar, a blanket can be used as a Khimar and so on.

In the orijinal version of the verse God is asking the women to use their cover
“khimar” to cover their bosoms, not their heads or their hairs. That is it. The Arabic word for head “ras” or hair “shar” are not in the verse. The commandment in the verse is – cover your chest. In this regard I would say also that dress code for people in general is to be the modest one which Koranic text insists on and it’s up to people how to follow the Koranic instructions at this point. There is a very interesting verse that says: “O ye Children of Adam! We have bestowed raiment upon you to cover your shame, as well as to be an adornment to you. But the raiment of righteousness,- that is the best”(7/26). So the belief in God is not conditioned by any dresses or other conditional things that people in general are obsessed with. In my translation of course this will be placed in accordance with the real meaning of the word as well as other things that need to be put in Koranic translations.

The good thing about this Holy text is the flexibility of the context which can prove to be applicable to the contemporary realities, the thing that makes it living one and enjoyable for believers and more importantly can meet the contemporary needs of religiosity of people in favor of creating free-minded generation of believers.

The problem is that Sharia Islam followers have arrogated to themselves the monopolized right of owner to deal with religious thoughts and show painful reaction to religious dissent and heterodoxy. The new translations I believe can promote de-monopolization of Islamic religious market, encouraging the propaganda of new interpretation of religious postulates for the sake of purposes and tasks of humanity and democratic values.

Religious interpretations of Koranic logic in general are targeted at religious justification of generally accepted values of democracy, human freedoms and can lead to a grate extend to critical reconsideration of Shariat norms, etc. We deeply believe that provoking in a positive way a certain shift in the religious conscience of Muslims towards perceiving the values of democracy as religiously generated or justified ones and thus not alien or forcedly planted from abroad can help prevent from spread of religious fundamentalism among the population.

The objective of strategic direction of such theologian initiatives, which serve democratic values, is identified today in such a way that believers are gaining the opportunities and skills to express their ideas more openly on various religious postulates, despite prohibitions imposed by religious leaders, and accordingly, the discussion of religious topics may begin to withdraw from under monopoly of religious structures. It’s important also because traditional theologian arguments of circles interested in politicization of Islam are subject to neutralization in face of well-reasoned approaches.

*This lecture was delivered at Central European University, Budapest, March 22, 2007

<<<