Mark Durie has posted an important blog which examines a major translation issue in the Qur’an. He explains:
There are many verses in the Quran which refer to fighting and killing. I would like to consider the difficulty inherent in reading verses which attempt to translate the verb qātilū, found, for example, in Sura 9:29 ‘Fight the People of the Book…’; Sura 2:190 ‘Fight in the path of Allah those who fight you’ or Sura 2:193 ‘Fight them until there is no more temptation (fitna)’.
Durie shows that the rendering “fight” disguises the real force of the verb. There is no idea of fight to subdue here, but rather of fight to kill.
After reading Durie’s article I consulted with an Arabic-speaking friend asking him if Durie was being fair in his treatment of this term. He responded:
Mark’s article is amazingly accurate. I probably came across the translation of fight and did not pick up its gross deficiency compared to the Arabic. The Arabic meaning of the word and all its derivatives unambiguously mean killing no less and the analysis of the II is also very accurate and is simply understood in Arabic (does not require deep knowledge of the Arabic grammar). When we think about this soura in Arabic that is the only and straightforward meaning we get, but it is fascinating to think how the English reader would get a very diluted idea from the translation.
See: “On the Difficulty of Reading the Quran, Part B: Fighting and Killing”; http://markdurie.blogspot.com/
Posted May 2, 2011
www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au
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