Arberry ' s Qur ' anic Translation Pitfalls : Analysis , Implications

Though Arberry's translation of the Qur'an into English is widely recognized as the best translation, it contains several inaccuracies that have minimized the significance of his work. Apparently, Arberry has not made such pitfalls deliberately to distort the intended message of the Qur'anic verses on a sectarian basis. His failures seem to derive from his lack of familiarity with the subtle meanings of some Qur'anic terminology and some cases of grammar including morphology and derivation, though he once served as professor of Arabic at Cambridge University. This paper intends therefore to highlight some of his failures in rendering the Qur'anic text into English in those respects and discuss their implications for the interpretation of the Qur'an.


Introduction
The orthodox Muslim view holds that the Qur'an cannot be translated, but can only be interpreted.For this reason, Arberry chose to call his rendition of the Qur'an into English an interpretation" rather than a "translation" on grounds that the translation might be equated with the word of God whereas interpretation is a human's words offered to explain the meaning of the Divine Revelation.
One basic criterion for interpreting the Qur'an's meaning and conveying it accurately to the target language is the translator's familiarity with the target language, which also involves his familiarity with its nuances.Mastery of the grammatical rules of Arabic, which is the primary focus of the present study, can help one get over potential interpretation problems.One should bear in mind when interpreting a book as great as the Qur'an that the classical rules of Arabic are highly founded on the Qur'an, and that grammar books and dictionaries were first made to protect against any potential future distortions against the Arabic language as a corollary of the expansion of the Islamic Caliphate.Most Arabic renowned dictionaries were not just mere records of word entries and their meanings.They had quotes from the Qur'anic interpretations and hadith of the Prophet, as well as commentaries of major Muslim scholars specialized in the interpretations of Qur'anic verses and the Islamic tradition such as Ibn Kathir and Attabari.
In a word, the great Arab dictionaries represent a great asset to consult when someone needs help in various braches of Grammar including morphology, declension, origins of verb roots and forms and their associated senses.

Methodology
This paper will discuss a number of pitfalls that Arberry had in interpreting the Qur'an.Examples of such faults are drawn from several chapters and highlight Arberry's occasional failures to grasp the nuances of the Arabic language.When the interpreter has acquired excellent knowledge of Arabic grammar, he becomes more capable of rendering the subtle shades of the Qur'anic terminology appropriately and hence eschewing confusions between Arabic words.This paper will not account for every pitfall Arberry had in his work.Rather, it will provide some illustrative examples of his misinterpretation to bring them to the light.This is not to slight the significance of his overall work, but to show that a message may be largely distorted because of failing to grasp a specific grammatical point.
As for the transliteration system, the author employs the International Romanization System (ISO 233) for the transliteration of Arabic characters.Its merit lies in applying stringent conversion principles that allows for international communication of the written message in such a way that gives access to automatic transmission and reconstitution.

Signification of Diacritics and Derivation
The term "diacritics" derives from the Greek word "diakritikos", to distinguish, to discern.In Arabic, a diacritic is an additional small sign added to the letter for pronunciation, grammar precision and accuracy.It is thus used in the Qur'anic texts to help the reader adhere to correct pronunciation and grasp the nuances of words correctly.To illustrate the point, let us take nouns as an example.Nouns in Arabic can be either definite or indefinite.Definite nouns are generally prefixed with the definite article al, English "the".When a definite singular noun occurs in the object position, the ending sound of the noun is marked with fatha, a vowel sounding like English "a".When the indefinite singular noun occurs in the object position, the ending sound of the noun is marked with double fatha known as nunation.According to the declension rules of Arabic, finals of indefinite proper nouns, either in their object or genitive positions, are not marked with double fatha "nunation".Instead, they are marked only with a single fatha because they are diptotes.Thus, marking misr "Egypt" with a nunation violates basic Arabic grammatical rules, which stipulate that diptotes require only a single fatha in the genitive and accusative cases.By applying this rule to the following verse: Ihbitū misran fa'inna lakum mā sa'altum [Qur'an 2:61], we find that Arberry's interpretation "Get you down to Egypt" is erroneous, simply because he disregards the fact that the ending sound of misran is marked with double fatha, which means that it is not denoting Egypt as a definite noun, rather, it denotes any inhabitant city.Thus, the reader should recognize the significance of such diacritical points in the Arabic language, which radically change the meaning of the entire text.Thus misran is not what is now Egypt as a country.Rather, it denotes any inhabitant city.
Lacking such kind of grammatical competence would lead to a false interpretation that Moses and his folk returned to Egypt after they had fled it and God saved them from Pharaoh and his men.
Knowledge of Arabic diacritics is so important for understanding the relation of one part of the sentence with another.Let us consider this verse: Arberry translates this verse thus: Moses said, 'Our Lord, Thou hast given to Pharaoh and his Council adornment and possessions in this present life.Our Lord, let them go astray from Thy way; Our Lord, obliterate their possessions, and harden their hearts so that they do not believe, till they see the painful chastisement.' [Qur'an 10:88] The portion "Our Lord, let them go astray from Thy way" is rendered incorrectly due to Arberry failing to notice that the Arabic verb form yudillu is transitive, though not explicitly taking an object in this case.The root of the word in the target language dictionaries is tri-literal ḍ-l-l, where the second and third radicals are identical.When this root verb is used in prosody, it gets conjugated and therefore the second and third radicals are reduced to one geminated letter, with the middle unvowelled.Such geminated verbs contain doubled root consonants that can change word meaning and create meanings that are related, but not the same The point is that the verb yaḍilu, he goes astray from the right path, and yuḍilu, causes someone to go astray, are two different verb measures signifying two different meanings.This difference has been overlooked, or put it differently, Arberry mistook the transitive yuḍilu for the intransitive yaḍilu.
In light of this explanation, Moses is not asking the Lord to let Pharaoh and his council go astray.Rather, He is critical of Pharaoh and his council for not having been thankful to their Lord for the grace he bestowed upon them.Instead of being thankful, they drove people away from the way of the Lord.
Other forms derived from the three -literal root verb ḍ-l-l are not easy for Arberry to grasp.For example, Arberry is mistaken in his rendition of the following Arabic verse, which addresses the Prophet: wa waǧadaka ḍāllan fahadā [Qur'an 93:7], Did he not find you erring and guided thee?The word ḍalāl has actually multiple meanings that can be figured only by considering the contexts in which they are used.It expresses different types of people such as those misguided, unjust, misled by those whose business is to force others off the right path of God.None of these obscene descriptions applies to the Prophet.It is therefore erroneous to describe the Prophet as deviant from the right path: God witnessed that His messenger was faultless before and after the declaration of his prophet-hood.The assumption that the prophet was going astray from the God's light or was erring actually contradicts the sublime morality, which God has ascribed to his Prophet: wa innaka la'ʿala ẖuliqin ʿadim, "you are of sublime morality" [ Qur'an 68:4] If we look up the word ḍāl, literally astray in Taǧ ' ʿl-ʿarūs dictionary, we would find that 'Al zubaidi (1965) lists several meanings under this entry, which diverge from its most common sense-astray, lost.ḍāl in the above dictionary denotes arms, pine like trees that grow in Yemen, darts, a mountain, the tip of a sword, an arrow and the like.
Al-Gortubi (1900) notes that the word ḍāl expresses a type of liking, love or tender attachment in particular contexts such as in: These examples show that ḍalāl denotes not only misguidance or deviation from the true path of righteousness, but also a deep sense of love or devotion towards something or someone which Arberry failed to account for.The latter sense of ḍalāl, "love "applies to the Prophet Mohammad who was engrossed in love of God, or, as an alternative interpretation, his people failed to appreciate his worth, so God guided them through him.This interpretation runs contrary to Arberry's interpretation, which does not hold much water as it is attributing erroneousness to the Prophet.Even the use of waǧada, "to find", gives the impression that this verb was intended to be taken literally, as if God was looking for Mohammad and he finally found him to guide him.It is impossible to imagine how God can "find" when nothing in the universe acts like Him.It follows that Arberry should have refrained from using this word in its literal sense and, instead, opted for "knew" as an appropriate allegorical alternative for "found".

Familiarity with Augmented Verbs Ad Root System
The Arabic root system implies lexical meaning because it communicates a general semantic field within which an actual lexical item can be located.However, there are verbs that fall within the same semantic field, but are not the same, though they may look alike.Arberry for example fails to notice the subtle difference in meaning of verbs derived from the same radical root letters.Let us consider this verse concerning Gog and Magog: fama stāū 'an yadharūhu wamastatāū lahū naqba [Qur'an 18: 97].Arberry interprets it thus "So Gog and Magog were unable either to scale it or pierce it".This rendition indicates that ascending and digging through the wall are of equal difficulty for Gog and Magog.This rendition does not capture the subtle difference in meaning as reflected in the Qur'anic verse.He probably assumes that the two words are semantically related as equal.
According to the rules of Classical language, any increase of letters in the word suggests more in meaning.Thus, istatāū conveys more meaning than istāū because the former is more augmented: there are more letters prefixed to istatāū than to istāū.The implication of such augmentation in form suggests that digging through the wall is more difficult than ascending it, a difference not accounted for by Arberry.
Such a failure to realize the difference between these two words will bring about an interpretation that mismatches the translations of the great authoritative interpretation sources such as Ibn Kathir ( 2001) who asserts that the intensity of the verbal form reflects the intensity of the action, which has to do with the subtleties of meaning.Thus, although the two words are derived from the tri-literal root tawaʿa, "to accord with", "be manageable", as indicated in Lisān 'al Arab by Ibn Manzur (1999), they still diverge in meaning to some extent.
Such a failure to capture the intensity of the action is also evident in this verse: wa 'alalla ḏina yutiūkūnahū fidyatun taʿāmu miskin [Qur'an 2: 184] Arberry renders it thus: "And for those who are able to fast, a redemption by feeding a poor man".This rendition is actually contrary to the true meaning implied by the verb yutiqūnahu in the original.According to Hans Wehr (1974), tawaqa is to put a collar or a ring around someone's neck, to enclose.In light of this root meaning, when fasting is felt like a collar tightened a round someone's neck, a person is authorized to break the fast and should accordinmgly redeem it by feeding a poor man.
Likewise Almāwardi (1992) contends that the verb refers to those who can barely fast on account of sickness, nursing and old age because fasting under such conditions is life-threatening.Thus the derived verbal noun itāqah, does not denote just a mere ability, but something hardly affordable.Almāwardi notes that yutiqūnahu refers to those obliged to fast, but cannot afford it or are strained by the fast.This indicates that fasting is not an option to be dispensed with, but an obligation that is prescribed for those who believe.Put differently, Almāwardi deems the feeding of a poor man in lieu of the fast as a license for people to break their fast when they experience an unbearable condition.This meaning contradicts that of Arberry's which shows that any person that is able to fast, has to redeem a poor man by feeding him.
Undoubtedly, Arberry failed to notice the subtle shades of meanings rendered by the Arabic words yutiqūn, istāū and istatāū.He treats these three verbs as if denoting one English word "ability", without revealing the varying degrees of difficulty that they imply.One would detect the subtle difference between the first two words if he consulted Arabic root system and implications of augmentation of such verbs in great Arab dictionaries on which great scholars had relied.
In a similar vein, Arberry would not have been at fault in relation to the interpretation of yutiqūn had he consulted the great exhaustive reference Lisān 'al ʿarab, which provides a great deal of information on all the roots and all the words derived from those roots, which had been in use, together with ample illustrative examples.At times, the word is capable of multiple meanings, and only the context can help determine the intended meaning.

Pronoun Reference
At times, Arberry fails to match nouns and their corresponding pronouns in some Qur'anic verses thereby distorting the message conveyed.Let us consider these verses: yā qawmi la 'as'lukum 'laihi mālan in 'ǧriya illa 'la allah wamā 'na bitaridi llaḏina āmanu innahum mulāqū rabbihim ,lākinni 'rākum qawman taǧhalūn, waya qawmi man yansuruni mina allāh in ṭaradtuhum 'falā taḏakkarūn "O my people, I do not ask of you wealth for this; my wage falls only upon God.I will not drive away those who believe; they shall surely meet their Lord.But I see you are an ignorant people.O, my people.who would help me against God, if I drive you away?" [ Qur'an 11:30] Like many other languages, a transitive Arabic verb requires a pronoun object to replace and refer to its noun object.The pronoun object hum, "them" in taradtuhum, refers back to its object noun alladina āmanū, those who believe, and not to the addressees, folk of the Prophet Noah, who do not believe.Thus the prophet here fears God's punishment if he drives away those who believe, and not his people who opposed his call.
Arberry mistook taradtuhim, "drive them away" for taradtukum, "drive you away" which certainly skews the meaning of the verse and communicates a wrong message.The pronoun object on the verb must agree with the noun it refers to both in gender and number.
Another evidence of failing to notice the connection between the antecedent and the pronoun referring back to it is obvious in: Those to whom We have given the Book recognize it as they recognize their sons.Those who have lost their own language makes the description more powerful since it takes the word beyond its defined or normal meaning.Great Arabic dictionaries make use of so many words along with their derivations and applications in various contexts.It takes effort and time to scrutinize all possible associations of a given Qur'anic item to render it accurately by drawing upon the subtle shades associated with it.It should be noted that meanings are not always consistent regardless of their contexts.
Arberry, for example, errs when he takes the Arabic word ẖauwḍ, "plunge", in its literal sense in this verse: 'a llaḏina hum fi ẖawdin yal ʿabūn [Qur'an 52:12], which he translates thus "such as play at plunging".Though terse, this translation is inaccurate.If the word 'plunge" is looked up in the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English, one can find entries such as "go suddenly and with force", "gamble deeply", "run into debt", "move forward and downward quickly".These entries do not seem to capture the intended meaning of the original in the context of the Qur'an.If we check this word in an Arabic-English dictionary, we may encounter otherwise entries.For example, in his Arabic-English dictionary, Hans Wehr (1974) defines ẖawḍ as "discussion", "treatment of a subject", "become obsessed or engrossed in", "to go into a subject".This is also reflected Lisān 'Al Arab by Ibn manzur (1999), who takes ẖaawḍ as indulgence in blasphemous or idle talk concerning God's revelations and Prophet-hood of His Messenger.Therefore, the kind of ḥawḍ proposed here points to the vain talk or discussion with which the blasphemous are busily engaged.This is actually the sense in which the word is used in the Qur'an.There are of course other meanings associated with ḥawḍ in various Arabic dictionaries, but have been ignored because they do not serve our purpose in this regard.
There is no escape, however, from admitting that the multiple meanings of a word can lead to confusion and misinterpretation when the translator is unaware of the possible range of meanings associated with the word in question.For example, the Arabic word jabal, literally "mountain" has other meanings that Arberry is apparently not acquainted with.This word indicates different things in different contexts, and hence takes on multiple connotations-grandeur, power and abundance of the thing.Mustafa, Zayyaat, Abdel qader, & Annajjar (1989) refer to some of these significations in 'Alma ʿǧam 'alwasit dictionary such as nation, a group of people, space, huge mass, and chieftain.Arberry, however, renders ǧabal in accord with its literal denotation in this verse: ‫ﻳﺸﺎء‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻋﻦ‬ ‫وﻳﺼﺮﻓﻪ‬ ‫ﻳﺸﺎء‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﻪ‬ ‫ﻓﻴﺼﻴﺐ‬ ‫ﺑﺮد‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻓﻴﻬﺎ‬ ‫ﺟﺒﺎل‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫اﻟﺴﻤﺎء‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫وﻳﻨﺰل‬ wa yunazzilu mina ssamā min ǧibālin fihā min barad fayusību bihā mayyašā ' wa yasrifuhū ʿ mman yaš ā ' [Qur'an 24:43], "And He sends down out of heaven mountains, wherein is hail, so that he smites whom he will with it; and turns it aside fro m whom he will".
It is obvious that Arberry's interpretation of ǧibāl as "mountains" in this context does not capture the allegorical sense that is intended in the use of ǧibāl (plural of ǧabal).In fact, ǧibāl is used here in its allegorical sense where clouds are driven then heaped into masses out of which rains are issued.The heaped masses of clouds are thus intended to denote ǧibāl.

Rhetorical Questions
Different words may suggest the same meaning if the translator is unaware of the subtle shades of the competing meanings of these words.The two Arabic interrogative words 'yyāna and matā, "when", are not quite semantically equal when considered in the Qur'anic discourse.Arberry takes both interrogative words as semantically equal without elaboration for the clarification of the subtle difference between them.They are rendered alike into the English "when".Let us consider these two verses:  'an 51:11] they ask: when will the day of resurrection be" The word 'yyāna is comprised of 'yy, a mere interrogative particle, and ān or 'wān denoting time.This interrogative particle inquires about a possible particular point in the future at which the Hour or the day of the doom will occur.According to Alǧalālain (1995), the question is asked by the disbelievers derisively to mock those who believe in the Hour or the day of the resurrection.The question therefore implies a denial that the day of the doom will ever take place.This implication was not captured in Arberry's interpretation.
In a similar vein, Arberry fails to elaborate a bit to capture the meaning of matā in this verse: wa yaqūlūna mata hāḏal waʿdu in kuntum sādiqin {Qur'an 67: 25), "They say: when will this promise come to pass if you speak truly?Again "they" here refers to the disbelievers who deny the occurrence of the chastisement in the day of the doom.
Although this interrogative particle occurs several times in the Glorious Qur'an, it does not ask about a particular future point of time.In other words, it is not asking about the exact date of the Hour or day of the doom, as 'yyāna implies.There is not even one verse in the Glorious Qur'an that reads yas'lūna matā yawmuddin, "They ask: when will the day of the doom come to pass" because matā is not signifying a specific day or Hour that triggers the resurrection.Put differently, matā is used in a more generic sense.That is, it seems inappropriate to substitute it for ayyaana-yas'lūna matā yawmuddin instead of yas'lūna 'yyana yawmuddin.
In his book, Mafātih 'lgaib, 'rrazi (1981, 2004) notes that the two interrogative particles imply derision because the disbelievers ask about the hereafter out of their disbelief in it.Yet, Arrazi asserts that 'yyāna implies not only that the thing in question will never occur, but also the disbelievers want it to take place soon were it true.
According to Arrazi, the disbelievers are cynical about the Hour [hereafter], which is called so because it will occur all of a sudden, and people will then be atoned in just an hour.Whereas matā implies that they ask about the hereafter without any specific reference to the day on which such event will happen, it does not imply that they want it to occur soon.

Implications for Qur'anic Interpretations
Although Arberry has been praised for providing the best English version of the Qur'an, there are pitfalls in his work that might slight its significance.The pitfalls presented earlier represent some of Arberry's linguistic deficiencies in Arabic.Areas as diverse as derivation, declension, and pronoun reference have a great effect on understanding the message of a Qur'anic text, and thus are of utmost significance in grasping the Glorious Qur'an.Derivation helps one grasp meaning and discerns the application of a meaning in every linguistic form that signifies the meaning.It will provide one's knowledge of language with rich resources because it assists in elucidating the way the Arabic root system works and thus shows the meaning of a word from different angles.
Of equal importance is that lack of familiarity with Arabic diacritics leads to syntactic errors, which cause the reader to misinterpret the message since these small markings appearing above and below letters actively govern meanings of words.
Also important in grasping the message is identifying correctly the proper reference of pronouns since they shift even in the same verse with the risk of ambiguity and skewing of meaning These branches of knowledge, which may represent various aspects of grammar can disambiguate meanings of Arabic terms and therefore brings about accurate translations in line with the meanings expressed in great Arabic dictionaries, which provide not only mere lists of word entries along with their primary senses, but a repertoire of Muslim exegetes as well ‫ُﻮا‬ ‫َﺎﻟ‬ ‫ﻗ‬ ْ ‫ِذ‬ ‫إ‬ iḏ qālū layūsufu wa 'aẖūhu ahabbu ilā ' bina minn ā wa nahnu ʿsbatun inna 'bānā lafi ḍalālin mubin[Qur'an12:  8].This verse is mistranslated by Arberry as "when they said, "surely Joseph and his brother are dearer to our father than we, though we are a band.Surely our father is in manifest error".Arberry errs in this translation, probably because he is unaware that the Arabic word ḍalāl is capable of multiple meanings, each of which is context-based.
It would even be ironic to think that Jacob, Joseph's father, is in a manifest error because he is particularly attached to one of his sons.Al-Qurtubi refers to ḍalāl as a rather manifest devotion of Jacob to his son.Such implication of love is also cited in the Classical Arabic poetry: 'ǧaban li 'zzaẗ fiẖtiyāri qatiʿati baʿdal ḍalāli fahabluha qad aẖlafa, "I am struck at how ʿzzata (his beloved) chose to cease her relation with me after having been in deep love .Lo!She did not keep her promise".Another example taken from the Arabic literature is: hāḏa ḍalālu ' ṣāba minni lmafriqa, "such love turned my hair white" ‫َﻟ‬ ‫ْﺄ‬ ‫َﺴ‬ ‫ﻳ‬ yas'l ūnaka ʿn issā ʿati 'ayyāna marsāha Qul innamā ʿilmuhā ʿinda rabbi lā yuǧallihā liwaqtihā illā huwa[Qur'an   7:187].Arberry translates this verse thus: "They will question you concerning the Hour, when it shall berth.Say: "the knowledge of it is only with my Lord; none shall reveal it at its proper time, but he"; and yas'alūna ayyāna yawmu ddin [Qur