stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
You said you just read the Quran as a stand alone text yet in this thread you have talked about a) Muhammad starting in Mecca then going to Medina b) assumed there are such things as Meccan and Medinan surahs c) talked about reading the Quran in 'chronological order' d) discussed Banu Qurayza
For all of these you are dependent on hadith/sirah literature (and often additional exegesis).
So can we agree that it is perfectly clear that you do not read the Quran as a stand alone text?
You claimed that Quranic translation is not influenced by hadith/sirah as "words are words". This is obviously wrong.
Quranic scholars have never been able to agree what many words and phrases mean in Arabic, how can you choose what to translate them to without relying on external information to decide what is correct? (for example the term ummi often translated to 'illiterate' and used to claim Muhammed was illiterate but could mean gentile, or not taught in scripture, etc. Some choose one of these options, some leave the term untranslated
You seem not to realise that translation requires adopting a particular methodology as linguistic features don't just magically replicate in different languages. So it is naive to think "words are words"
When translating what is most important? To preserve meaning (i.e. to preserve sectarian orthodoxy)? to preserve rhyme scheme? to replicate grammatical form? to simplify language and make easy to understand?
So you quote Sahih International. You may have noticed this contains words and phrases in (brackets), which are words that don't appear in the original and are added to clarify according to Sunni Orthodoxy based on hadith/sirah.
The Sahih International translation is an English Language translation of the Quran that has been used by Islam's most conservative adherents.[1] Published by the Publishing House (dar), dar Abul Qasim, Saudi Arabia, it is one of the World's most popular Quran translations.[2]
Translated by three American women, Emily Assami, Mary Kennedy, and Amatullah Bantley,[3] it uses un-archaic language.[4] Notable conventions include rendering the God in Islam as Allah as they believe it is not okay to use the English word.[5]
The translation has been described as biased towards "Sunni orthodoxy", which according to authors, requires words to be inserted in square paranthesis.[6] The translation has become the main version used in English-language propaganda put out by ISIS.[1] It has also been sponsored and promoted by Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi ideology. For these reasons it has been defined as an ultraconservative translation.[7]
This differs from say Arberry, which aims to preserve grammatical form as much as possible making it harder to read and understand. It is a less sectarian translation and does not contain interpolations, however even this relies on hadith/sirah to some extent. He even named the text The Quran Interpreted as he is aware that there is no such thing as a neutral translation.
So do you still claim that translation is not impacted by hadith/sirah as "words are words"?
I can't respond to this level of obfuscation and denial. What's the point? Have a good day.