War Books, local version

J.ScottShipman:

April 25th, 2017 at 8:05 pm

Hi Charles,
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Great post! I have read none of these books, sir! Zenpundit.com is contributing to my poverty! Keep those titles coming.

Michael J. Lotus:

April 25th, 2017 at 9:42 pm

Charles, thank you for this post. I have been looking for a cite to a reliable translation of the Koran, and it looks like this is the one.

Charles Cameron:

April 25th, 2017 at 11:35 pm

Michael:
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The Quranic Arabic Corpus is another invaluable resource. Of the versions there, Mohsin Khan is the English version the Saudis used to push, and if you look at the parentheses in Sura 1 v 7 you’ll see the additions they made without giving warning that the words in parens are not found in the Arabic. It’s good for knowing the Salafist reading of the text.
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Arberry, the last one listed, is fine in bth meaning and grace of language — an important facet of the Quran.
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Nasr’s Study Quran is (a) Sufisticated, (b) well adapted to the west, and (c) has the inestimable benefit of serious and wide-ranging commentary.

Lexington Green:

April 26th, 2017 at 1:54 am

What do you mean by “Sufisticated”?

Lexington Green:

April 26th, 2017 at 1:58 am

Also, what do you mean by ” well adapted to the west”?
Perhaps it is a product of my University of Chicago education, but I’m interested in a translation which is as literal as possible, and which is not trying to make any pre-fabricated case for one interpretation over another. Over the centuries there of been sophisticated societies which purported to be based on the Koran. And in our current age we have psychotic death cults, which are relying on the same Arabic original text. I would like an English translation which does not provide a predigested variant, which is in effect arguing for a more or less but nine version of the Koran by how it translates it into English. Do you know of such a very literal, “Straussian” translation?

Charles Cameron:

April 26th, 2017 at 3:35 am

SH Nasr is a University Professor at Georgetown, and technically a follower of Frithjof Schuon and the “Traditionalist” school of Perennial Philosophy, which sees in all the major religions avenues towards mystical union combined with local ethical paths for those not involved in the “direct ascent”. This naturally brings him into the sphere of sufism, although I do not understand him to be associated with any particular tariqat or Sufi order.
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That plus the general meaning of sophisticated is what I meant by “sufisticated”.
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It’s hard to provide a literal translation of so allusive a text as that of the Quran, which is why (most) all Muslims would insist on the Arabic text, all others being clearly seen to be interpretations. From Wikipedia:

Translation of the Qur’an has always been a problematic and difficult issue in Islamic theology. Since Muslims revere the Qur’an as miraculous and inimitable (i’jaz al-Qur’an), they argue that the Qur’anic text should not be isolated from its true form to another language or form, at least not without keeping the Arabic text along with. Furthermore, an Arabic word, like a Hebrew or Aramaic word, may have a range of meanings depending on the context – a feature present in all Semitic languages, when compared to the moderately analytic English, Latin, and Romance languages – making an accurate translation even more difficult.

Exploring the various translations in the Quranic Arabic Corpus linked above will give you an idea of the range of Enlish versions possible for a single Quranic verse in Arabic — sometimes the general meaning is pretty clear, often the ambiguity and poetry is distinctly hard to capture in a single English version.
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I am reminded of the Tao Te Ching, where the opening lines can be translated thus:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnameable is the eternally real.

or thus:

Lodehead lodehead-brooking : no forewonted lodehead;
Namecall namecall-brooking : no forewonted namecall.
Having-naught namecalling : Heaven-Earth’s fetation,
Having-aught namecalling : Myriad Mottlings’ mother.

— the latter being a philologist’s best attempt to capture all the nuance found in the original text.
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http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jeff/random-text/boodberg
http://www.taoistic.com/taoteching/taoteching-chapter1-versions.htm
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Nasr’s Study Quran attempts to give (a) a straightforward translation that also shows something of the beauty of the original, and (b) incudes commentary drawn from a wide variety of sources. One review from an Islamic source may give you a sense of its breadth (it incoudes Shiite as well as Sunni readings) and constraints:

The SQ approaches 2,000 pages in full. It is, according to the authors, the product of a decade of work, and the academic rigor is apparent after even a cursory reading. The exegetical commentary of the SQ references forty-one commentaries in total, with medieval commentaries constituting the predominant points of reference. [ .. ]
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The book has many strengths. For one, the SQ incorporates prophetic traditions (?ad?th) into the commentary, something that I suspect will not please structural reformists who anchor their efforts in a Quran-only epistemology. In addition, the SQ is not a work colored by the ideologies and agendas of secular liberalism (in its many forms). It makes no apologies for verses that appear inegalitarian, malevolent, or otherwise discordant with the metaphysical commitments of contemporary liberal society. Instead, the SQ contextualizes, elucidates the tradition, and offers an understanding of those verses within terms that the Muslim community (or at least some portion of it) has understood them for over a thousand years. This, I suspect as well, will not gratify reformists who view the majority of premodern jurists and theologians as having been prejudiced by patriarchy, exclusivism, and militarism.

http://muslimmatters.org/2015/12/14/the-study-quran-a-review/

Lexington Green:

April 26th, 2017 at 2:36 pm

Thank you, Charles. It sounds like the SQ is the best version to go with.

Charles Cameron:

April 26th, 2017 at 5:20 pm

Happy to be of assistance.

zen:

April 27th, 2017 at 6:13 pm

Great post! I’m interested in reading McCants on ISIS to see how it differs from Berger/Stern take

Charles Cameron:

April 28th, 2017 at 12:43 am

McCants up to date:

His book is a deep dive into their eschatology. This talk gives a recent comprehensive overview.

Jim Gant:

April 29th, 2017 at 8:09 pm

Charles,
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I am actually with John Kiser right now – working on a project. He sends his regards. I have a copy of ‘The Monks of Tibhirine’ and I will get it signed for you and put it in the mail next week…:)
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And again, The Glass Bead Game – was fascinating to me – and one of my favorite books of all-time. Actually still processing everything that it said to me.
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You and Mark keep up the great work – I am a faithful reader (and fan) of you guys!
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All the best,
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Jim

Charles Cameron:

April 30th, 2017 at 3:46 pm

Interesting quote (in light of my comment to Michael above) that I stumbled across while reading up on Umberto Eco:

‘Can the polysemic and nomadic meanings of a text such as the Qur’an overcome the unbewised to reduce it to a monologic decree?

That’s from Ebrahim Moosa, The Sufahä’ in in Qur’an Literature: A Problem in Semiosis — and footnoted:

MICHAEL M. J. FISCHER & MEHDI ABEDI, Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition, 148; see also ANDY RIPPIN, ‘Reading the Qur’an with Richard Bell/ Journal of the American Oriental Society, 112 (4), 1992, 639-647,esp. 637.

Not that I’ve gone that far afield..

Charles Cameron:

April 30th, 2017 at 3:50 pm

Jim:
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I will truly attempt a decent email to you today, long overdue!