زاجمةي
Chapter 3: Discussion
31. These! For them will be 'Adn (Eden)
77
to idly guess; and the ST noun بيغلاب allegorically implies, according to Asad, "all that is beyond the reach of a created being's perception".
This implicit metaphoric meaning is the intended one that is more effective and emotive than its denotative literal meaning. Though the cultural flavor of the text is lost in all four translations, this translation loss is unavoidable due to the cultural difference between the SL and the TL.
The below table clarifies the components of the abstract-to-abstract metaphor:
Table 3.2: Components of the TL metaphor.
The beauty of this metaphorical phrase is reflected precisely in its brevity, which is lost in Asad's lengthy translation by adopting the paraphrasing strategy to unnecessarily elaborate on it. Whereas Ali's translation by addition is inadequate and unnecessary, resulting in translation loss in economy as well as cultural loss; however, his footnote compensates for this loss. Abdel-Haleem's odd literal rendering may confuse target readers, because the complete layers of meanings of the ST rhetorical phrase are not fully conveyed. Therefore, Hilali-Khan's and Ali's communicative rendering, though failed to fully bridge the cultural gap, is in my opinion regarded as the most adequate translations, compared to the others.
Example 2:
Figurative Verse Asad Ali Hilali-Khan Abdel-Haleem
ْمُهَل َكِئَلوُأ ٍنْدَع ُتاَّنَج
ي ِرْجَت ُمِهِتْحَت ْنِم ُراَهْنَ ْلْا
َرِواَسَأ ْنِم اَهيِف َن ْوَّلَحُي اًباَيِث َنوُسَبْلَي َو بَهَذ ْنِم سُدْنُس ْنِم ا ًرْضُخ اَهيِف َنيِئِكَّتُم ق َرْبَتْسِإ َو
(18:31) theirs shall
78 ىَلَع
ِكِئا َرَ ْلْا ُبا َوَّثلا َمْعِن
ْتَنُسَح َو اًقَفَت ْرُم ) 31 (
be adorned with bracelets of gold and will wear green garments of silk and brocade, [and]
wherein upon couches they will recline:41 how
excellent a
recompense, and how goodly a place to rest!17
gold, and they will
wear green
garments of fine silk and heavy brocade: They will recline therein on raised thrones.
How good the recompense! How beautiful a couch to recline on!
(2374)18
adorned with bracelets of gold, and they will wear green garments of fine and thick silk.
They will recline therein on raised thrones. How good is the reward, and what an
excellent Murtafaqa ( dwelling, resting place, etc.)!
bracelets of gold.
There they will
wear green
garments of fine silk and brocade.
There they will be comfortably seated on soft chairs. What a blessed reward!
What a pleasant resting place!
Strategy adopted Semantic
translation, and a footnote
Semantic translation
Transliteration plus bracketed notes
Literal translation
According to Ibn Kathir's Tafsir, the above verse describes the joys of paradise, where rivers flow beneath them, meaning, from beneath its rooms and dwellings, and where its cloths are sundus and istabraq. Sundus refers to a fine garment, like a shirt and the like, and istabraq is thick and shiny velvet. They will be muttaki'in therein on the ara'ik, which implies lying down with one's legs crossed on a bed under a canopy, in a place called murtafaq, meaning a place to dwell and rest, in contrast to the evil murtafaq in verse 29 of the same Surah.
17 41 Like all other Qur'an descriptions of happenings in the hereafter, the above reference to the "adornment" of the believers with gold and jewels and silk and their
"reclining upon couches (ara'ik)" is obviously an allegory - in this case, an allegory of the splendor, the ever-fresh life (symbolized by "green garments"), and the restful fulfilment that awaits them in result of the many acts of self-denial which their faith had imposed on them during their earthly life.
18 This picture is in parallel contrast to the picture of Misery in the last verse.
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Generally, Arabic and English share in terms of meaning and structure the ground of this often-repeated metaphoric collocation راهنلأا يرجت which personifies the inanimate object 'rivers'. Therefore, this lexicalized metaphor is a universal image which can be clearly understood regardless of TR linguistic and cultural background, thus posing no difficulty in translation. That is why Asad and Abdel-Haleem translated 'rivers' into 'waters' and 'streams' respectively, and they imply different connotative meanings from the intended meaning. Besides, Asad's rendering of 'running waters flow', despite the fact that it is so well-established that it can be found in dictionaries, can be considered redundant unlike Hilali-Khan's accurate rendering.
Moreover, Hilali-Khan's translation communicatively renders the cultural nuances through adopting transliteration accompanied by a bracketed note, since transliteration alone does not elucidate the meaning to the English reader. To be more satisfied, for example, they rendered the Qur'an-specific term 'Adn along with its loan word between brackets '(Eden)' as well as bracketing its definition '(everlasting Gardens)' to further ensure comprehension, whereas the other three translators seem to disregard the proper noun ندع and only render its definition, thus resulting in distortion of transferring the exact intended meaning to the TR.
To be consistent with their strategies, Hilali & Khan also rendered the Qur'an- specific term Murtafaqa using transliteration plus definition between brackets to alleviate the degree of cultural remoteness or awkwardness. However, their equivalence of the word كئارلأا signifies different connotations from the TT term 'thrones', making Asad's rendering of his TT term 'couches' relatively the closest cultural equivalent, though partly, compared to the other three translators. In contrast to the other translators, however, Asad seems to be wavering between rendering the culturally- bound terms semantically and communicatively explaining its rhetorical meaning in his footnote.
Since Hilali is a native Arabic speaker, and his co-translator mastered Arabic, they seem to be fully aware, compared to the other three translators, of the cultural background of the visual image drawn in the given verse, by preserving, as much as possible, the spirit of the image in question. They also kept all the dimensions of meanings of the above cultural concrete terms, which signify abstractions, i.e.
symbolizing the joys of paradise, intact as much as possible.
80 Example 3:
Figurative Verse Asad Ali Hilali-Khan Abdel-Haleem
اَهَلُكُأ ْتَتآ ِنْيَتَّنَجْلا اَتْلِك ْمَل َو ْمِلْظَت اًئْيَش ُهْنِم
اَن ْرَّجَف َو ا ًرَهَن اَمُهَل َلا ِخ
( 33 )
(18:33) Each of the two gardens yielded its produce and never failed therein in any way, for We had caused a stream to gush forth in the midst of each of them
33. Each of those