In the previous issue of Tolu-e-Islam Magazine an article on the
above mentioned topic was published. It was mentioned in this article that a new
innovation is being created: Namaaz be offered in Urdu, or a translator may go on
articulating in high pitch its Urdu translation along with what the Imam recites in Arabic
language. This all is not appropriate. As a reaction to it we got a few letters from the
protagonists of this innovation where they laid stress that their objections be answered.
We put forth a collective answer to their objections, in lieu of responding to them
individually.
1. All
these letters have been founded on this objection: the ignorant Muslims, like parrot,
memorize the words of Namaaz; if under these circumstance, a group of people with
profusely good intention has took the initiative to familiarize a majority of the people
in a group with the meanings and exposition of the Arabic passage recited in Namaaz, you
consider it as if it would be a big crime liable to let benefits -for which this very innovation is being opted
– sink down deep the abyss.
You would have contemplated that this objection, without studying
deeply the article of Tolu-e-Islam Magazine, has been raised out of sheer anger.
Tolu-e-Islam, not from today but from the last twenty years, has been continually and
consistently harping upon this stark fact that reciting the Qur’an without
understanding is all in vein. This type of its recitation merits no reward – Sawaab. The words are meant to understand and never
to repeat meaninglessly. Even the Namaaz in which the human does not grasp its exposition
is not sound. In our previous article, we have elaborated it completely. But in spite of
it these people are proclaiming that Tolu-e-Islam is opposing the efforts of making the
ignorant understand the meanings of Qur’an or whatever is being recited in
Namaaz.
Tolu-e-Islam is not opposing as to why the ignorant are being
exposed to the exposition of Namaaz. It is opposing the very mode through which efforts
are being made to let the masses understand the exposition of Namaaz i. e. whatever the
Imam articulates loudly a person may go on repeating its translation. We had vividly
elaborated the underlying defects of this mode and are repeating once again:
DEFECTS
1. Firstly
take, out of the 5 prayers, 2 raka of morning, 2
of sunset, 2 of esha where the recitation is carried out loudly. In
the remaining raka, Imam and the followers offer the entire Namaaz silently. Now it is
evident that this mode (method of grasping and sharp-witting of the exposition can be
accomplished in six rak’a only.
2. In
the Namaaz with congregation, only Surah Al-Hamad
and one more Surah is recited loudly. The remaining entire Namaaz is offered silently. So
under this method the expositions of Surah Fateh
and one more Surah can be described only. Whatever-other-than-that is recited in Namaaz,
can never get any flurry of opportunity for the description of its expositions.
If, before offering Namaaz, those-offering-Namaaz are told the very
meanings of Namaz, then contemplate thoroughly whether or not this method would be better
than that the one mentioned above.
3. For
this innovation the greatest danger we pointed to was that it would create one more
faction. It is because the difference in Namaaz is a distinguishing feature among the
varying factions.
In response to it, it was said when Tolu-e-Islam is enduring the
present day factions of the Muslims, if one more faction is added to them, no hill of the
row it will make!
Who will tell these fellows that Tolu-e-Islam is enduring these
factions because it wields no power to vaporize them? To it factionalism is polytheism. So
when it perceives that a new addition is being made in this polytheism, then is straining its voice against it a crime or a misdemour? It is a matter of consternation:
what type of things the people give vent to in a miasma of anger!
It has also been said: when Tolu-e-Islam says that the factions may
continue offering Namaaz on the modes these are offering today, then why is objection
raised on the addition of one more type of Namaaz?
Tolu-e-Islam says to the different sects: do not gild mutual
carnage and massacre under the garb of their differences. If they are not so bold to rise
up above the bane of factionalism by synchronizing the Qur’an, they may, at least,
live in mutual peace till the caliphate-at-the-pattern-of-Messengerhood is established.
And it then transforms these sects into a well-knit unified Ummah in line with the one it
was at the time of the Messenger of Allah (S). That is the very reason by virtue of which
Tolu-e-Islam shudders even at the very concept of a new type of Namaaz and a de novo faction.
How can I conceive the goblet and bowl broken
Even the rubble of the bubble in the river fades my color away
4. Some
one says: “What a strange phenomenon have we jotted down that the Qur’an can not
even be translated?”
THE
QUR’AN CANNOT BE TRANSLATED
It means we can not even make any non-Muslim, whose language is not
Arabic, understand the Qur’an. This brother of ours has not even endeavored to
comprehend as to what it meant when we said, “The Qur’an can not be translated.”
We had said (and we repeat it here) that any translation can not inculcate what the
original words of the Qur’an originate. So no translation of the Qur’an can be
an equivalent to the original. The Qur’an is too exalted an entity. Translate any
couplet in any other language, it will devastate what it was in the original. Goethe’s
Foust, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Nietzche’s Baqoul Zurtusht (though it is a book of prose) have
been translated in numerous languages. But the people conversant with the original
languages, after going through these translations, involuntarily speak out, these
translations can not depict the original. The same holds true with the English
translations of Iqbal”s poetry.
It was what we had said. And what we had emphasized for it was that
the Muslims should definitely learn the language of the Qur’an so that they may have
direct access to it. But for others, the translations of the Qur’an are a must. It is
because we can not compel them to have know-how of the Arabic language. We have to
proselytize Islam to them. So we, anyhow, would have to converse to them in the mode of
their language. Similarly the Muslims, who are not yet conversant with the Arabic
language, can also be made to comprehend the Quran by means of translations. But that
would all be just by way of dissemination of knowledge alone. These translations can not
replace the original nor can they embed what the original words of the Qur’an
can.
SACREDNESS
OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE
5. Some
one has written: We narrate this entity on the “ false saunctite of the Arabic language.” With due
apology we have the honor to communicate to him: We are not obsessed with the sacredness
of the Arabic language, but do acknowledge the significance of the Arabic language. And it
is because the Qur’an (which we call as the ultimate aim of our life) is in the
Arabic language. Had the Qur’an been in Chinese language, the same would have been
the value of Chinese language to us.
6. Some
one has tauntingly articulated, “It means when we pray for in Punjabi language, God
would have become angry with us.”
We have no remedy to put forth for the taunting. We can only
request that we have never written anywhere that pray for should always be in Arabic
language. To us pray for is only the expression of human’s intense longings and
hankerings. And it is evident that this expression would be in ones own language (with the
exception that you have command in Arabic or any other language to such an extent that you
may burgeon thinking in that language too). To Allah, every language occupies equal status
and value. He, therefore, does never mire those praying for in Punjabi language. Nor He is
bittered with wrath on the Urdu translation of the Qur’an. The only entity worth
keeping pace with is that the words of any other language can never be the equivalent of
the original words of the Qur’an.