Monday, 13 May 2019

thousand different editions

Although most copies of the qurʾān are very similar to the copy of my neighbour,
when we look at all printed copies in the world, there a thousand dif­ferent prints:
they come in thirty books, ten, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one volume.
Some have marginal notes, others good/bad/in­different omen (cf. fāl-i Qurʾān),
some indicate the chrono­logy of reve­lation, some suggest end of prayer (because a new theme is treated in the next verse).
Some are "ayat barkenar", i.e. verse do not straddle pages (BTW: in the early manu­scripts words went on into the next line ‒ in some even the next page ‒ without any ado).
There are different systems of cutting the suras into verses.
The number of suras ­‒ 114 ‒ and their order are today the same every­where (which was not the case in the first century after the hijra). Their names can differ.
These differences are in the divisions of the qurʾān (verses, half, third, seventh/manzil, juz, ḥizb, half, quarter, eighth)
One more element belongs to this group: the pauses.
There are not only different systems of pause signs from 15 (India) to one (Morocco),
even when two copies have the same signs, they can have them at different places, or a dif­fe­rent one at the same place.

In the early manuscripts "end of aya" is marked, but there can be pauses within an aya, and sometimes there is no pause between two ayas.
(In some early manuscripts recommen­dated pauses are marked by an end-of-aya-sign, but these are not counted in the mumber of ayats given in the box at the beginning of the sura.)
Perhaps the best known example for the importance of pauses is 3:7 (the seventh verse of surat Āl ʿImrān)
Here are almost twenty published English trans­lation of the same (exactly the same!) words:

SahihIntern: And no one knows its [true] inter­pretation except Allah.
But those firm in know­ledge say, "We believe in it. All [of it] is from our Lord."
Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilal & Dr Muhammad Muhsin Khani (KFC): but none knows its hidden meanings save Allah.
And those who are firmly grounded in know­ledge say: "We believe in it; the whole of it (clear and unclear Verses) are from our Lord."
Yusuf Ali: but no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah.
And those who are firmly grounded in know­ledge say: "We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:"
Pickthall: None knoweth its explanation save Allah. And those who are of sound instruc­tion say: We believe therein; the whole is from our Lord;
but none knows their meaning except God;
and those who are steeped in know­ledge affirm: "We believe in them as all of them are from the Lord." But only those who have wisdom under­stand.
Ali Unal: although none knows its inter­pretation save God.
And those firmly rooted in know­ledge say: "We believe in it (in the entirety of its verses, both explicit and allegorical); all is from our Lord";
Aziz Ahmed: but none know the inter­pretation of it except Allah.
And those who are well-grounded in knowledge say, "We believe in it; it is all from our Lord";
Daryabadi: the same whereas none knoweth the inter­pretation thereof a save Allah.
And the firmly grounded in knowledge Say: we believe therein, the whole is from our Lord.
Faridul Haque: and only Allah knows its proper interpretation;
and those having sound know­ledge say, “We believe in it, all of it is from our Lord”;
Muh Assad: but none save God knows its final meaning.
Hence, those who are deeply rooted in knowledge say:
Shabbir Ahmed: None encompasses their final meaning but God.
Those who are well-founded in know­ledge under­stand why the alle­gories have been used and they keep learning from them. They proclaim the belief that the entire Book is from their Lord.
Sarvar: No one knows its true inter­pretations except God
and those who have a firm grounding in know­ledge say, "We believe in it. All its verses are from our Lord."
Ali Shaker: but none knows its inter­pretation except Allah,
and those who are firmly rooted in know­ledge say: We believe in it, it is all from our Lord;

AbdulMannen: But no one knows its true inter­pretation except Allâh, and those firmly grounded in know­ledge.
They say, `We believe in it, it is all (- the basic and decisive verses as well as the alle­gorical ones) from our Lord.´
Muh. Ali: And none knows its inter­pre­tation save Allah, and those firmly rooted in know­ledge.
They say: We believe in it, it is all from our Lord.
Sher Ali: And none knows it except ALLAH and those who are firmly grounded in know­ledge;
they say, `We believe in it; the whole is from our Lord.'
Rashad Khalifa: None knows the true meaning thereof except GOD and those well founded in know­ledge.
They say, "We believe in this - all of it comes from our Lord."

But they are not different because of the English language, but because of a particular pause or absence of a pause;

When you make a pause after "Allāh" he alone knows.
When there is no pause, he and some humans know.

Better known are the different readings, their trans­missions and ways/turuq.
These can differ in words, but not in meaning:
"We created" and "He created" are not the same, but they say the same: God created!.
Sometimes the meaning of a verse/aya in one reading differs from the same aya in another,
but this never affects the meaning of a paragraph.

Bombay

1358/1959 1299/1880