A Lesson in the Translation of Arabic Muslim Terms

Yigal Carmon
Google Images

In the MEMRI Daily Brief No. 106 (October 7, 2016), Yigal Carmon has published his article "Lost In Translation In The U.S. Media - Part I: 'Allahu Akbar,' 'La Ilaha Illa Allah,' 'Istishhad'," in which he corrects the routine mistranslation of Arabic Muslim terminology in the media:

Allahu Akbar, la ilaha illa Allah, and istishhad are routinely mistranslated in the American media.

[The] word istishhad ["martyrdom," "death of a martyr," or "heroic death"] . . . [denotes] a religious act of faith in which a believer strives to kill as many perceived enemies as he can, at the price of his own life as a means of getting closer to Allah, with the prophets, the righteous, and the martyrs in Paradise. The goal of this act of faith is to make Allah's religion supreme on Earth, in what the perpetrator believes to be an imitation of the battles of early formative Islam of the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the four righteous caliphs. This is often recklessly and inaccurately translated as "suicide," which is an act motivated by personal desperation, and for which a different word – intihar – is reserved in Arabic.

Allahu Akbar and la ilaha illa Allah – both statements of faith that embody the religious concept of the supremacy of Islam and of Allah – are mistranslated . . . . [The] rendering of Allahu Akbar in the U.S. media as "God is great" omits the aspect of superiority in the word Akbar (which . . . means "greater" or "greatest," not merely "great") and blurs the specific reference to Allah rather than to another deity. In the same vein, la illaha illa Allah is often translated in the U.S. media as "There is no god but God" (rather than "There is no god but Allah"). Omitting the supremacy of Allah over all other deities is a mistranslation.

Thanks are due to Carmon for these translations. I was aware of the true meaning of Allahu Akbar and la ilaha illa Allah, but istishhad was new to me, in that I didn't  know the Arabic term.

Anyway, Western media should take note - or better, take notes, as this is some necessary schooling for them.

Martin Kramer: "October 1973: Panorama and Myopia" and North Korean Art

Hafez Asad and Kim Il-Sung
Sandbox: Martin Kramer on the Middle East

Professor Martin Kramer commemorates the 40th anniversary of the October 1973 War with Israel by visiting panoramas in Cairo and Damascus depicting the victories of Arab armies, though Israel won the war, of course, and Kramer could visit only online. Of interest to me is that the panoramas are painted by North Korean artists:

The construction of panoramas has become a North Korean specialty, and the Egyptian and Syrian panoramas are of North Korean design and execution.

Kramer comments insightfully, even humorously, on each image, including the one above:

What are friends for? Hafez Asad and Kim Il-Sung hang together at the Panorama. They met in real life in September 1974, when Asad paid a state visit to North Korea. Both leaders have since been succeeded by their sons, who went on to collaborate on bigger projects. And if you, too, are one of a dwindling number of dictators, you might consider contracting Mandusae of Pyongyang to build a monument to you. Here is a sort of prospectus:

"Need a massive monument built for cheap and on short notice? In this age of post-Soviet malaise, no one has maintained the time-honored art of building massively unnecessary bronze and concrete monuments. No one, that is, except the fine revolutionaries of the Mansudae Art Studios, one of the largest contributors to the DPRK's economy. Not content with keeping all of the giant monuments and statues to themselves, the 4000 artists of the studio work in glorious revolutionary harmony to provide the world with great monuments to great men. Mansudae's work can be found in Syria at the October War Remembrance Panorama, in Senegal at the African Renaissance Monument, and at state houses all over Africa."

Order yours now—before it's too late.

Quite an amusing little satire -- even Hafez Asad and Kim Il-Sung are smiling! But there's a serious side to this work of art above. Concentrate on the position of the hands and ask yourself who is 'presenting' whom. If the photo here isn't large enough, go to Kramer's site and enlarge the image. I think viewers will agree that Kim's right arm is shown in the stronger position, with his wrist apparently straight and his fingers above Asad's left hand. Asad's hand, by contrast, is depicted palm up, with left arm and wrist subtly twisted into an unnatural, weak position. This symbolism is not overt, for we are gazing from below, but it is apparent if one looks for it -- which I was doing, for I'm familiar enough with North Korean propaganda to know that no North Korean painter could depict Kim in a work of art without implying that this 'Great Leader' is the greater man.

A Juche Leader depends on no lesser being . . .

Hani Nakshabandi: Islamophobe?

Hani Nakshabandi
Memri

The writer Hani Nakshabandi expresses Islamophobic doubts that Muslim Spain was a cultural light unto Europe:

I believe that we, who oppose occupation, practiced the same kind of occupation ourselves. We fought against the French occupation of North Africa, and against the French and British occupation of the Levant, but we practiced the same type of occupation in Spain . . . . Everything that is written in our history books should be reexamined. We present Europe as if it had been immersed in darkness and ignorance, until we came along and ushered in an era of light . . . . [I]n Saudi Arabia, we still have villages with no electricity. Wherever you go in the Arab world . . . you see villages where people still live like cavemen, yet you say that we ushered civilization into Europe?! . . . I lived in Spain . . . Well, I didn't really live there, but I visited there a lot, and I went to the museums and libraries. What kind of civilization did the Arabs leave behind in Andalusia? Cordoba . . . . is a Spanish city. What new things did [the Arabs] leave there? Even the Umayyad Mosque was a church they turned into a mosque, just like the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, which still bears the hallmarks of a church to this day . . . . Who created the image of Andalusia that we have in our minds? People attack me because their image of Andalusia is the Andalusia of songs and of dancing women or the Andalusia that they see on TV soap operas -- with water fountains, trees, and beautiful women . . . . This is not Andalusia. Andalusia was a real political tragedy [for the Spanish]. It is not true that the Arabs spread Islam there. Is Spain a Muslim country? It is the pinnacle of Catholicism in the world. ("Saudi Author Hani Nakshabandi: We Should Reexamine Our History Books, The Arabs Were Occupiers In Spain," Memri, Special Dispatch No. 5431, September 2, 2013)

How Islamophobic of Mr. Nakshabandi! Everyone knows that Andalusia was Europe's intellectual center, that the Muslims brought enlightenment to a continent groping in the darkness of ignorance (jahiliyya). The poor, deluded man must be suffering from Islamophobia, an irrational fear of Islam. Except that he's a Saudi Muslim:

Hani Nakshabandi was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He edited Sadiyah, a London-based Arab women's magazine, then moved to live and work in Dubai, editing Al-Majallah magazine and presenting a television news show. He has two novels, Ikhtiras [The Interloper] and Sallam, excerpted here, both with Dar al Saqi. (Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, Banipal 34, "The World of Arab Fiction," 2013)

As a Muslim, albeit a liberal one, Nakshabandi can't be an Islamophobe. But I do wonder if he's entirely right about Muslim Spain. While the Muslim presence was an occupation and suppressed Christians and Jews as dhimmis, Islamic Spain was at times a center of learning and intellectual exchange, as often happens within empires . . . or so I read in my history-of-science days. Perhaps there's been some historical revisionism since my student years, but that sort of revising goes back and forth, and there's usually a bone of contention with a bit of meat on it, else there'd be nothing to argue about.

Whatever one might think about Andalusia -- or any other Muslim issue -- both Muslims and non-Muslims should be free to express their opinions openly without charges of 'Islamophobia' or, far worse, being charged with 'hate speech' for criticizing Islam.

Why North Koreans Don't Revolt . . .

Economist Logo
(Image from Economist)

A recent, unsigned article in the Economist, "Food and stability in North Korea: Deprive and rule" (September 17, 2011), asks a common question, "Why does North Korea's dictatorship remain so entrenched despite causing such hunger and misery?" But it gives an uncommon answer as to why the North Koreans do not revolt:

One intriguing explanation comes from Go Myong-hyun, a statistician at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, which has just held a conference in Seoul on the viability of the North Korean regime. On the basis of satellite imagery of crop areas, vegetation and human settlement, Mr Go believes that both North Korea's crops and the population that tends them are more geographically scattered than outsiders have hitherto thought. He contests UN estimates that over three-fifths of the country is urbanised. That would require every farmer to sustain nearly two city dwellers, which a shortage of fertiliser, farm machinery and fuel precludes. Mr Go reckons that urbanisation could be as low as 25%, based on data from the Global Rural Urban Mapping Project, a global population map. That would imply three farmers for each city dweller. It suggests that, even though much of the country is cut off from the food-distribution system, rural dwellers survive precariously through subsistence farming.

Moreover, communication and transportation in North Korea are so bad that an uprising is hardly conceivable, let alone likely to succeed. North Korea is thus utterly unlike the Arab states of North Africa and the Middle East that have recently risen up in revolt. Those Arab states are highly urbanized, and their populations are interconnected via social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter, thereby enabling large groups to maintain connections and organize resistance.

North Korea, however, is a largely rural society with as much as 75 percent of its population involved in agriculture, and it has no such social networking services. Its most urbanized part is centered on Pyongyang, "where the elites live, enjoying perks and protected by an overwhelming security apparatus." There will thus be no revolt unless the North's economic decline were to grow severe enough for the privileged in Pyongyang to see their perks slipping away or for the military and security apparatus to see their own status threatened. I think that what one can hope for, instead, as markets develop, is for corruption to undermine loyalty to the regime and the legitimacy of the state as authorities begin to obtain more money and power through bribes than through official patronage networks.

The article, by the way, also has an eye-opening slideshow of nine photos from Panos Pictures showing scenes of the North's backward agricultural society.

Kupchan on Democracy in the Middle East

Charles A. Kupchan

(Image from Council on Foreign Relations)

In an opinion piece for the New York Times titled "Be Careful What You Wish For" (February 24, 2011), Charles Kupchan offers a cautious reminder on euphoria concerning the revolutions sweeping the Arab world:

Western observers and policy makers had better stop operating under the illusion that the spread of democracy to the Middle East also means the spread of Western values.

Actually, a number of commenters have made this point, but the point is worth making again, and Kupchan expresses succinctly the civilizational difference and historical development that account for his caution:

In the West, modernity has meant the separation of church and state. Christianity is a religion of faith, not law; its outsized influence on European politics during the medieval era stemmed from a longstanding alliance between secular rulers and the Catholic Church. After the Protestant Reformation, politics in the West took a secular turn that only deepened with the arrival of democracy.

In contrast, Islam is a religion of faith and law, in which there is no separation between the sacred and the secular. Beginning soon after the birth of Islam in the 7th century, state and mosque became inextricably bound.

More democracy in the Gaza strip, for instance, has brought the Islamist movement Hamas to power, and democratic elections in the 1990s would have brought Islamists to power in Algeria if the military there had not intervened. Consequently:

This track record makes clear that the more democratic the Middle East becomes, the greater the role that Islam -- even if a moderate brand -- will play in its politics. This outcome is neither good nor bad; it is simply a reality in a part of the world where politics and religion are intertwined.

Neither good nor bad? I wouldn't put the point quite like that myself. The democratic outcome can be tolerable, if moderate Islam plays a moderate role, although a clear separation of mosque and state would be better, but relations with the governments that arise can be very bad if serious Islamists take power with an intent to impose shariah domestically and to offer hostility in foreign policy. Recall Iran in 1979.

Current signs are that these democratic revolutions may play themselves out differently in different countries. Tunisia might get a secular government like in the West. Egypt might get an Islamist Muslim Brotherhood hankering to be like Gaza's Hamas. Libya might get the tribal chaos reminiscent of Somalia. And I won't even try to imagine any 'mighty' eventualities elsewhere.

Not that my imagination isn't working . . .

Whither Egypt? -- Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Yusuf al-Qaradawi

(Image from Wikipedia)

The recent Arab uprisings began while I was vacationing in regions with slow internet access, so I missed out on those beginnings and have been playing catch-up ball ever since. I did express a passing opinion last January 30th when I managed to access the Marmot's Hole:

If the protests bring down the Egyptian government, the Islamists will almost certainly take control.

The government hasn't quite fallen because the military retains control, but the Islamists in Egypt are positioning themselves to take advantage even though the January 25th Revolution was largely led by secular youth. One needs to recall the events of Iran's 1979 Revolution, in which the secular revolutionaries were edged out by Islamists guided by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Do we see anything similar happening in Egypt? According to Dan Murphy, "Egypt revolution unfinished, Qaradawi tells Tahrir masses" (Christian Science Monitor, February 18, 2011):

Leading Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi returned from Qatar to rally hundreds of thousands at Tahrir Square today in his first public speech since 1981 . . . .

The devout crowd . . . was also a reminder that huge sections of Egypt take their Islamic faith seriously -- and that real and open democratic reform will almost certainly lead to a stronger role for the faith in the nation's political life.

"Qaradawi is very much in the mainstream of Egyptian society, he's in the religious mainstream, he's not offering something that's particularly distinctive or radical in the context of Egypt," says Mr. [Shadi] Hamid[, research director at the Brookings Institute’s Doha Center in Qatar]. "He's an Islamist and he's part of the Brotherhood school of thought, but his appeal goes beyond the Islamist spectrum, and in that sense he's not just an Islamist figure, he's an Egyptian figure with a national profile."

This doesn't bode particularly well, in my opinion. The Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, want Shariah (Islamic law) for Egypt, and that is what is ultimately meant by "a stronger role for the faith in the nation's political life." Hamid insists that Qaradawi is more mainstream, more moderate that other Islamists. Perhaps he is comparatively less extreme, but that doesn't make him a moderate. Magdi Abdelhadi, reporting for the BBC News, "Controversial preacher with 'star status'" (7 July, 2004), relates Qaradawi's views on suicide bombing against Israelis:

Defending suicide bombings that target Israeli civilians Sheikh A-Qaradawi told the BBC programme Newsnight that "an Israeli woman is not like women in our societies, because she is a soldier.

"I consider this type of martyrdom operation as an evidence of God's justice . . . . Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have and and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do".

Is this really so different in principle from Al-Qaeda's view that suicide bombings against the West are legitimate because Westerners are not innocent victims? Qaradawi distances himself from Al-Qaeda, but he seems to me to be of the same cloth.

And worrisome if true is this Agence France-Presse report in the Hindustan Times: "Egypt protest hero Wael Ghonim barred from stage" (February 18, 2011):

Google executive Wael Ghonim, who emerged as a leading voice in Egypt's uprising, was barred from the stage in Tahrir Square on Friday by security guards, an AFP photographer said. Ghonim tried to take the stage in Tahrir, the epicentre of anti-regime protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, but men who appeared to be guarding influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi barred him from doing so.

I've not been able to confirm this through any independent reports on other news sites, but if this should be an authentic report, it also does not bode well for the secular leaders of the January 25th Revolution.

Whatever the case on that report, let's hope that the youthful secular leaders of Egypt's January 25th Revolution prove tougher, cannier, and better organized than Iran's were back in 1979.

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: "Arabs emerged from the deserts in order to conquer"?

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi

(Image from Memri)

A former member of the Saudi Shura Council, Ibrahim Al-Buleihi was interviewed by Al-Arabiya TV on February 26, 2010 and -- in response to the interviewer's skeptical query about Arab indebtedness to the West -- had some interesting if controversial things to say:

Interviewer: So we should be offshoots of the West as well?

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: No, but we should benefit from this rich experience. It is the West that produced all this prosperity. To this day, we are a burden on the West. Even Japan admits that without benefiting from the West, it would not have developed.

Interviewer: Prosperity in what?

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: In everything. In the value, liberties, and dignity of human beings, as well as in the development of science, of technology, and of life. Do you believe that life today is the same as it was ten centuries ago? This tremendous change was produced by the West. Who else produced it?

Al-Buleihi's statement contrasts with much that we read nowadays about the West's debt to the Arab world in science and philosophy. In fact, however, there is a debt, as I know from the study of history, but so far as I understand, Muslims don't charge interest (riba), so only the principal is still owed, and I suppose that it can't be so much. As for Al-Buleihi, he thinks that the Arabs today have nothing to offer the world but delusions:

Interviewer: You have said that during their conquests at the advent of Islam, the Arabs emerged from the deserts in order to conquer, not to learn. What did you mean by that?

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: In my view, over the centuries, the Arabs believed -- and continue to believe -- that they have sufficient knowledge and wisdom, and that they do not need to learn anything from others, because they appeared, on the stage of history, in order to conquer, not to learn, to teach, not to study . . .

Interviewer: As guiders, not people seeking the guidance of others.

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: That's right. This delusion of the Arabs persists to this day, even though the entire world has changed. The world has changed, but they still believe that it is their duty to teach others, and it is the duty of others to heed them. The truth is that the Arabs have nothing to offer others, yet they continue . . . This horrible delusion, this belief in one's own perfection, the belief that others must learn from them, makes it impossible for them to benefit from modern culture.

Al-Buleihi's claim that Arabs believe "that they have sufficient knowledge and wisdom" and "do not need to learn anything from others" reminds me of Rémi Brague's remark that the Islamic world saw no need to preserve the original texts of works once they had been translated into Arabic because the mere process of translating such works into Islam's sacred language had perfected them, such that there was nothing remaining to be learned from the original writings and thus no reason to revisit them for re-translation.

But I don't know for certain that Al-Buleihi is making a similar point, especially since I have only these excerpts, and I don't doubt that his polemical statements about Arabs would be hotly debated among Arabs themselves.

Nagla Al Imam: Ex-Muslim convert to Christianity . . . but what of her other views?

Nagla Al Imam

Jewcy.com

(Image from Al-Arabiya TV)

According to the ex-Muslim convert to Christianity Nonie Darwish, in an article "If You Convert You Die" (August 03, 2009) written for Front Page Magazine, the Egyptian feminist Nagla Al Imam has converted from Islam to Christianity:

[The] prominent Egyptian lawyer and women's rights activist, Nagla Al Imam, recently announced her conversion to Christianity in Cairo, Egypt. The announcement brought shock waves in and beyond Egypt. This is perhaps the first case ever of its kind, where a Muslim woman, who is also a Sharia expert, has openly challenged Islamic apostasy laws from within the Muslim world.

Ms. Al Imam's incredible courage was on display in an internet chat room, where she announced that she is not afraid, will stand up for the human rights of apostates and refuses to leave her homeland, Egypt. This was immediately followed by attacks and calls ('fatwas') for death of the 36 year-old graduate of Al Azhar Islamic University.

This is certainly surprising news, especially in light of Ms. Al-Imam's expertise in Sharia -- implying that she understands the deadly consequences -- but in certain respects somewhat less astonishing than the report about this same Al-Imam from last November 18 (2008), when Front Page Magazine posted the MEMRI translation of an interview on Al-Arabiya TV (October 31, 2008):

"Egyptian Lawyer Calls Out For Raping Jewish Girls."

Despite the article's title, Ms. Al-Imam was apparently ambiguous on what, precisely, she was calling for, whether harassment or rape. Asked to clarify the point, she seemed to rule out rape, for when the interviewer inquired, "Does this also include rape?" she replied:

"No. Sexual harassment."

Ms. Al-Imam also explained her reasoning:

"This is a form of resistance. In my opinion, they are fair game for all Arabs, and there is nothing wrong with [it]."

Pressed still further, she explained her justification in calling for this form of 'resistance':

"First of all, they violate our rights, and they 'rape' the land. Few things are as grave as the rape of land. In my view, this is a new form of resistance."

When the interviewer inquired, "As a lawyer, don't you think this might expose Arab youth to punishment for violating laws against sexual harassment?" Ms. Al-Imam replied:

"Most Arab countries . . . [w]ith the exception of three or four Arab countries, which I don't think allow Israeli women to enter anyway, most Arab countries do not have sexual harassment laws. Therefore, if [Arab women] are fair game for Arab men, there is nothing wrong with Israeli women being fair game as well."

Hmmm . . . was she speaking ironically here? She is, after all, a women's rights activist, so she surely does not believe that Arab women "are fair game for Arab men." Did she intend her remarks as criticism of Arab men's treatment of Arab women? If not meant in irony, Ms. Al-Imam's argument is odd, even bizarre. Even if ironic, the argument is overly convoluted.

Whatever she might have intended then, while still Muslim, I'd like to know her views now that she has converted to Christianity. I can't quite imagine that whatever Christian church she has attached herself to would officially affirm her statement on the right of Arab men to sexually harass Israeli women who are visiting Arab countries as tourists.

I respect her courage as an open apostate in a Muslim country (even if that seems rather foolhardy), and I support her free speech to say what she thinks (despite my visceral reaction to her words), but I'd definitely like to know if she genuinely approves of Arab men's right to sexually harassment Israeli women. I'd then better know what to think about her.

Unless her outrageous 'rape' statement and her very public 'conversion' are extreme publicity stunts . . . but to what end?