| Visiting Professor of Islamic Studies,Markfield Institute of Higher Education,Leicester, UK.March 23rd, 2007 | Syed Salman Nadvi |
Thankful praise be to Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful for sending down His Blessed Book for the guidance of human beings. Peace and Blessings be on our beloved Prophet who conveyed the Message of Allah to humanity. The need to understand the Qur’ānic message and guidance so that these can be implemented in one’s life is of paramount importance. It is for this reason that a few years back I compiled a preliminary publication explaining the words in Sūrah al-Fātiḥah.1 This attempted to understand the basic concepts. My intention was to cover the whole of the Qur’ān and, Alḥamdulillāh, and after five years I was able to fulfil this task. In my earlier book I have given the reasons for using this approach to understanding the Qur’ān for those who rely solely on English translations. Some relevant passages are reproduced here.
Reasons for This Compilation
Every science and discipline has its own vocabulary and terminology. A person lacking familiarity with the technical words used to expound that science will fail to grasp the essence of the message conveyed. The Holy Qur’ān revealed by Allah subḥānahū wa taʿālā is the guidance for mankind until eternity. It was revealed in the Arabic language at a particular time during mankind’s history. Those living in the West today, in different cultural and linguistic traditions, who try to understand it and reflect upon it without an adequate knowledge of Arabic, are really handicapped in reaching the essence of its message.
Translations help in overcoming language barriers, but no matter how faithfully accomplished, translations can never capture the true meaning and import of the ideas of the original. Encountering this very difficulty, one of the eminent translators of the Qur’ān into English, Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall, frankly admitted in his Foreword to the Meaning of the Glorious Koran that “The Koran cannot be translated. That is the belief of old-fashioned Sheykhs and the view of the present writer.” What Pickthall is trying to convey is that a mere literal rendering, word for word, will not help the reader understand the true meaning of the Qur’ān. Commentaries (Tafāsīr) to some extent, provide some means of overcoming this problem, but unfortunately there are as yet not many good ones available in English.
To alleviate this problem, I think explanatory notes on some of the basic keywords employed in the Glorious Qur’ān will be helpful. What do we mean by keywords? How can they help towards a better understanding of the Qur’ān? To answer these questions we need to look at the process by which a language is changed to give new meanings to old words. The study of any language reveals that words may gradually acquire very different meanings from their original use. For example, words like culture, industry or family used to convey different concepts in earlier centuries than what we mean by them today. This is discussed extensively by a distinguished sociologist, Raymond Williams, in his book, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. After the Second World War, when the author was released from the army and returned to Cambridge to resume his studies, he and his old friend noticed so many changes in the English language that it was as if younger students did not speak the same language as their elders. He observed: “Yet it had been, we both said, only four or five years. Could it really have changed that much? Searching for examples we found that some general attitudes in politics and religion had altered, and agreed that these were important changes. But I found myself preoccupied by a single word, culture, which I was hearing very much more often…” (p. 12). This led him to the development of Keywords in which he wrote notes on about 125 such words.
The dominant vocabulary in the modern world is that of the secular-Christian West. The direct political hegemony of the West may have shrunk, but its ideas and its ideology still rule the world. Thus, the vocabulary that prevails today is the vocabulary of Western ideology and its institutions. The perceptive mind of Khurram Murad has observed this and he also has identified the importance of keywords. In his Introduction to Sayyid Mawdūdī’s The Islamic Movement: Dynamics of Values, Power and Change, he writes:
Vocabulary, however, is not defined by the dictionary alone; that may well be only a surface meaning. Each keyword carries within it a deeper world of meaning. It has its own epistemology, its anthropology and ecology; its psychology and sociology, its politics and economy and its history and ethos – all acquired from the culture within which it develops. For words do not exist in isolation from man and his society. So the language of contemporary culture embodies the culture of Western language. (p. 14)
This is very well illustrated by Urdu and Hindi, which are linguistically and grammatically the same language, but represent two totally different cultures by their use of keywords. The words ghusl and ashnān both mean ‘to take a ritual bath’ but there is a world of difference in their meaning for a Muslim and a Hindu.
Thus, in order to understand the message of the Qur’ān we have to clarify the concepts which each Qur’ānic term conveys in the language with which we are familiar. Unless these concepts are fully understood we may be just skipping over the surface. One of the reasons why the Muslim Ummah at large, despite its reverence for the Qur’ān, has failed to be inspired by its message, is the lack of appreciation of what the message really means. I would like to quote Khurram Murad again, who has described this problem very succinctly in his Introduction to the work cited above:
For example, at one time, Lā ilāha illā Llāh possessed the meanings which could shake its hearers. Today it can be proclaimed without causing even a stir, even in the realm of false ilahs (gods). Can such words regain their power without being understood in the contemporary context? Perhaps translating the original meaning of the Qur’ān in a language within which Muslims live today is the most critically important task the Ummah has been challenged to address. (pp. 16–17)
It is very difficult to take up this challenge. Perhaps there are more qualified people in all respects who will attempt to bridge this gap. What I intend to do is to provide brief notes on some of the keywords of the Qur’ān. I hope that these will help to clarify and provide understanding about the dynamic ideas portrayed in the Qur’ān.
Some Important Sources
I have used the following sources extensively in compiling these notes. These have helped me immensely in developing my understanding of the Qur’ān as well. Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī’s Tadabbur-i-Qur’ān is a monumental work of eight volumes in Urdu. Its unique contribution to tafsīr literature is that it provides the logical explanation regarding the internal arrangement of the verses of the Qur’ān as well as the relationship of each sūrah to its preceding and subsequent sūrah. Iṣlāḥī also provides plenty of notes on the meaning and etymology (origin and history) of words.
Sayyid Abul Aʿlā Mawdūdī’s Tafhīm al-Qur’ān is his magnum opus of six volumes in Urdu. Sayyid Mawdūdī’s translation in contemporary Urdu idiom attempts to do justice to the beauty of the Qur’ān. It is an immense treasure-house of knowledge providing a systematic exposition of social, political, economic and legal teachings.
Sayyid Mawdūdī also wrote a very valuable book on the Four Key Concepts of the Qur’ān. His explanation of these four terms, namely Ilāh, Rabb, ʿIbādah and Dīn, provide valuable insights into the real message of the Qur’ān.