Translation and the world of the text: on the translation of the word hijab in the Qur’an

Abstract

The article addresses questions of semantics, reference and the ‘world of the text’ (Ricœur’s term) through a detailed comparative analysis of the ways in which the word hijab in the Qurʾan has been translated and understood. The translations of the word hijab and the meanings that attach thereto demonstrate the risks inherent in privileging a putatively all-important referent over several valid signifieds. The article falls into two parts, the first presenting a theoretical exposition of the stakes involved in these translations, while the second traces the operation of the word hijab in several English translations of the Qurʾan. We argue that, in the Qurʾan, the word hijab demarcates the place that enables communication between the divine and the human.

Keywords:

• Qur’an translation
• hijab
• Paul Ricœur
• Qur’anic exegesis
• semantics
• hermeneutics

NB: References to all tafsirs, as well as to Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Quran (1936) and Muhammad Asad’s The Message of the Qur’an (1980), are through the altafsir.com website . All online sources, including Brill Online titles, were consulted April-May 2015.

All references to the text of the Qur’an are by verse rather than page number, unless an annotation or translator’s note is cited.

Notes

1. [Q]ue devient la référence [Ricœur’s translation of Frege’s Bedeutung] lorsque le discours devient texte? C’est ici que l’écriture d’abord, mais surtout la structure de l’œuvre altèrent la référence au point de la rendre entièrement problématique. Dans le discours oral, le problème se résout finalement dans la fonction ostensive du discours; autrement dit, la référence se résout dans le pouvoir de montrer une réalité commune aux interlocuteurs; ou si on ne peut montrer la chose dont on parle, du moins peut-on la situer par rapport à l’unique réseau spatio-temporel auquel appartiennent aussi les interlocuteurs; c’est finalement le « ici » et le « maintenant », déterminés par la situation du discours, qui fournissent la référence ultime à tout discours; avec l’écriture, les choses commencent déjà à changer; il n’y a plus, en effet, de situation commune à l’écrivain et au lecteur; du même coup, les conditions concrètes de l’acte de montrer n’existent plus. (Ricœur 1998, 126–127)

[What happens to reference when discourse becomes text? It is here that writing, first, and then above all the structure of the work change reference to the point of making it wholly problematic. In oral discourse, the problem is resolved in the ostensive function of that discourse; in other words, reference is resolved through the ability of pointing to a reality common to the interlocutors; or, if the thing being spoken of cannot be pointed to, at least it can be situated in relation to the unique spatio-temporal network that they inhabit. In the last analysis, it is the ‘here’ and ‘now’ determined by the discursive situation that provide the ultimate reference point of all discourse. When it comes to writing, things start to change: There is effectively no longer a situation common to both writer and reader. By the same token, the concrete conditions enabling the act of pointing no longer exist.] [translation needs to be attributed]

2. The issue is covered very thoroughly in Siddiqi 2015. The verses and translations are listed in the appendix and bibliography respectively. In our sample, the translator who uses the term ‘veil’ to translate hijab most frequently is Arberry.

3. This question of word and object, or more properly, as Steiner puts it, word against object, has a long genealogy in studies and theories of translation including Steiner’s own (Steiner 1998, 118–129).

4. Although the entirety of the Philosophical Investigations is arguably about the relationship, indeed the identity, between meaning and use, clear assertions of Wittgenstein’s argument are found in Wittgenstein 2001 (§§ 30, 43).

5. The verse reads:

In the Khalidi translation this reads:

O Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters and women believers to wrap their outer garments closely around them, for this makes it more likely that they will be recognized and not be harassed. God is All-Forgiving, Compassionate to each.

6. The pericope reads: In the Khalidi translation this reads: ‘And let them wrap their shawls around their breast lines.’

7. Both arguments are well represented in the commentaries on this verse. Al-Tabari, al-Baydawi and al-Zamakhshari argue that the subject of the verb is the sun, though al-Zamakhshari allows that the other reading is possible, while al-Razi makes a strong case for the subject of tawārat being the horses. One of the most intriguing, if unorthodox, recent interpretations of this pericope comes from Youssef Seddik, who reads the entire episode as a parallel of the story of Alexander as narrated by Plutarch and Arrian in (Seddik 2004, 147–149).

8. Michel Dousse develops the parallels between Mary’s and the Biblical Abraham’s rupture with his family to argue for her gesture of departure and seclusion as a moment of re-orientation (in the full sense of the term, since she seeks out an Eastern location according to the text of the Qur’an) or ‘reoriginement.’ This new beginning breaks the standard generational cycle to mark a new beginning at which Mary makes herself available to God alone (Dousse 2005, 102–106). Michael Sells sees in this verse an instance whereby the feminine is placed at the centre of the experience of creation and prophecy (Sells 1991, 258). Neal Robinson detects in the language of the hijab, both in Q33:53 and Q19:17, a reference to the suffering of the Prophet and ʿAʾisha with respect to the experience of calumny and slander. He also mentions the argument that the use of the term hijab in Q19:17 is a reference to the Protoevangelium of James 10:1, which states that Mary was engaged in making a veil for the temple (Robinson 2001, 28–29, 34 n).

9. One might speculate as to why the translators prefer ‘veil’ to ‘screen’, not least in view of the impenetrability of the hijab behind which God speaks (see below). Yusuf Ali, by far the most generous annotator in our group, adds a short note explaining that the veil in question, is ‘not, of course, a material veil, or screen, or Purdah, but the mystic Veil of Light, or 70, 000 Veils of Light,’ thus linking this verse to the hadith stating that that God has 70,000 veils of light and darkness and Al-Ghazali’s treatment of Q24:35 in his Mishkat Al-Anwar (The Holy Quran 1968, 1321 n., 920–924).

10. Al-Razi makes the case that all forms of communication mentioned in Q42:51 can be considered forms of wahy.

11. See in particular al-Zamakhsharī ad loc, English translation in Gätje 2004 (45–46). The Mosaic intertext is doubly important, not only because Moses is the only prophet who spoke to God directly and without the mediation of a messenger according to the Qur’ān, but also because al-Zamakhsharī lists as one of the reasons behind the revelation of this verse a conversation in which Muhammad was questioned by the Jews and asked whether he had spoken to God directly like Moses. One key difference between the Moses of the Qur’ān and the Moses of the Hebrew Bible is that the latter speaks to God ‘face to face’ (Deuteronomy 34:10) while God’s invisibility remains central to the Qur’ānic account (see below). Josef van Ess relates the questions raised by the Mosaic dialogue with God in early tafsīr to the idea of revelation in van Ess 1996 (187–188).

12.

In the Khalidi translation this reads:

When Moses came to Our appointment and his Lord spoke to him, he said: ‘My Lord, show me Yourself that I may look upon You.’ He said: ‘You shall not see Me, but look instead upon that mountain. If it remains firmly in place you shall see Me.’ When the glory of his Lord appeared upon the mountain, it levelled it to the ground. Moses fell down, unconscious. When he came to, he said: ‘Glory be to You! I have repented before You and I am the first among believers.’

Cf. other passages dealing with God’s conversations with Moses: Q20:11–17, Q28:30, Q19:52 and Schöck 2015.

13. The operation of the veil in Ibn Arabi’s work is more complicated and well beyond the scope of this essay, but William Chittick provides a useful guiding principle that anticipates our own conclusions: ‘Inasmuch as everything in the cosmos prevents seeing God’s face, everything is a veil, but inasmuch as everything discloses wujud [Being], everything is identical with His face’ (Chittick 1998, 104). On Ibn Arabi’s reading of Q42:51 see (Chittick 1998, 104–112), and on the operation of the veil as a persistent principle in any moment of contact between the human and the divine, see Chittick 1989 (45, 230–231). Ian Almond takes this idea much further in his study of Derrida and Ibn Arabi (Almond 2004, 19, 34–36).

14. Izutsu has described extensively the importance of this ‘veil’ as part of the structure of kufr: it is precisely because their hearts and minds are veiled in this way that the unbelievers fail to believe (Izutsu 2002a, 128–129). Cf. Jomier 1996 (150–151). Elsewhere Izutsu relies on Q42:51 to analyse the nature of revelation in Islam as a three-person problem. He explains the instance of communication from behind the hijab as being one that involves a ‘mysterious being’ (not the angel Gabriel) who speaks to Muhammad in a ‘very strange way’, as alluded to in the hadiths wherein the arrival of the revelation is compared to the ringing of a bell or the sound of flapping wings (Izutsu 2002b, 189–191).

15. Indeed, one of the most perceptive readings of the idea of God addressing humanity from behind a hijab is found in Al-Qushayri’s gloss on Q42:51: it is the humans who are veiled from God in this instance [], as being veiled is a property that can only be applied to finite beings.

16. In this respect the logic of the hijab is reminiscent of the operation of another veil, analysed by Derrida in ‘Un ver à soie’: The tallith (prayer shawl) that becomes a means of self-appropriation (Derrida and Cixous 1998, 62–69).

17. We follow Maingueneau’s definition of discursive practises: ‘Nous parlerons de pratique discursive pour désigner cette réversibilité essentielle entre les deux faces, sociale et textuelle du discours’ [‘We will use the term discursive practise to designate this essential reversibility between the social and textual aspects of discourse’] (Maingueneau 1987, 39).

18. ‘On doit en effet se demander si la notion « d’intermédiaire » entre un groupe social et un discours est aussi simple qu’il y paraît’ [‘One ought to ask whether the notion of an ’intermediary‘ between a social group and a discourse is as simple as it seems’] (Maingueneau 1987, 38).

19. ‘Depuis 1988, les journalistes algériens multiplient les emplois polysémiques de certains mots pour trouver dans la langue française le moyen de servir leur cause: traduire une réalité bouleversante à l’aide de mots dont l’usage dépasse le cadre des définitions fixées par les dictionnaires […] Pour parler de la tenue islamique, les journalistes algériens utilisent indifféremment les mots, voile, hijab ou encore djellab. Il n’y a pas lieu de considérer ces mots comme des synonymes: chacun d’entre eux active certaines propriétés de l’objet (voile) et pas nécessairement les mêmes.’ [‘Since 1988 Algerian journalists have multiplied the polysemic use of certain words in order to find a way to serve their cause in the French language, thereby translating an overwhelming reality through words whose use goes well beyond their lexical definition… In order to speak of Islamic dress, Algerian journalists use the words veil, hijab or even djellab interchangeably. There is no reason to consider these words as being synonymous: each of them refers to certain properties of the object, and not necessarily the same ones’] (Oukil 1997, 148–149).

20. Cf. Pierre Cadiot’s description of what happens when we speak using a new definition or usage of a given term: ‘On peut dire alors qu’on parle (plus ou moins) métaphoriquement, non pour s’exonérer d’une éventuelle erreur de catégorisation, mais bien pour signaler qu’on se soustrait à l’horizon implicite d’objectivité des catégories dénominatives engagées […] Ainsi il est évident que la métaphore ne nous situe jamais entièrement dans l’objectivité, en entendant par là le versant stable et extérieur de l’expérience’ [‘In such a situation we might say that we are speaking (more or less) metaphorically, not in order to excuse ourselves from any possible error of categorisation, but rather in order to emphasise that we are removing ourselves from the implicit horizon of objectivity of the nominative categories that are in use […] Obviously metaphor never situates us in an entirely objective space, if by that we mean the stable and external aspect of experience’] (Cadiot 2006, 644).

21. Eco 2009 (9–10). Ricœur speaks of the paradox inherent in every translation in order to explain the insufficiency of equivalence as a criterion in translation; ‘une bonne traduction ne peut viser qu’à une équivalence présumée, non fondée dans une identité de sens démontrable’ [‘A good translation can only aim at a presumed equivalence that is not founded in a demonstrable identity of meaning’] (Ricœur 2004, 40).

22. ‘Grandeur de la traduction, risque de la traduction: trahison créatrice de l’original, appropriation également créatrice par la langue d’accueil: construction du comparable’ (Ricœur 2004, 66). Cf. Eco 2004 (178–182).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ziad Elmarsafy

Ziad Elmarsafy is Professor of Comparative Literature at King’s College London. He is the author of Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel (Edinburgh, 2012) and, along with Anna Bernard and Stuart Murray, co-editor of What Postcolonial Theory Doesn’t Say (Routledge, 2015).

Mustapha Bentaïbi

Mustapha Bentaïbi received his doctorate in linguistics from the Université René Descartes (Paris V). He has taught at the Catholic University of Louvain and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (Paris). He is the author of Quelques façons de lire le texte coranique (Lambert-Lucas, 2009).