cerebus23 said:
fail to see how a text cannot be translated, in this big wide open world. so you are saying because, i assume there is some law that it cannot be translated in muslim land, that means that noone else has done it? and therefore that poster could not possibly be reading an accurate translation of it?
yea stop applying a relgions laws to the entire world that is all. part of the reason we have these problems is because some idiots decided that their religion rules us all and if we disagree with that then we are evil.
only stuff i see "christians" get this worked up about is science judging from the way that stuff gets trolled constantly on youtube. gays do not even get the amount of hate anything science related gets.
and i also find the whole greece thing as a mix of amusing and disgusting, considering that whole nations history of homosexuality.
grats on reaching troll worthiness islam you deserve it.
There's two ways to look at it. One demands that you have respect for other people, and an awareness of how religious thought works. The other one is a bit more secular.
First one is pretty simple, really. The Qur'an is a religious work. It must be read with a religious lens, otherwise you are projecting onto it a reference invalid to it.
So you put the religious lens on to try and interpret this thing. Okay. Now part of the claim here is that this is a book written by god. God wrote it, in that language, in that way. He chose the words, one by one. He chose the terms, the metric, the rhyme, everything.
Now, still with the religious lens on. Can a human equal god's work? I would assume not. So can a human get this text, interpret it, and then write another set of words, with another metric, another rhyme, another everything and claim that it is just as good? That it is equivalent?
No, a human couldn't. That means that attempting to translate it invalidates the work. That means there is no true translation of the work.
So that's number one. You may not believe the claim that it is written by god, but I assume you can understand (And possibly respect) their belief in this matter.
It further serves to lead to number two. Due to this belief, there is no accepted, condoned, or in any way authorized translation of the Qur'an. There are interpretations and studies, and some of those are meant to help non-muslims who do not speak arabic have an understanding of islam. Yes, it's true. But they are not to be considered accurate. Having worked as a translator, that is a policy that makes plenty of sense to me: Accurate translations of complicated (As opposed to complex) cultural works are not possible.
However, if something claims to
be the Qur'an, but is in english, and is being handed out in schools to anyone who wants one... And knowing what I just said... Should that not get some warning bells going?
PS: As said, my knowledge on the subject is second-hand. If I am wrong and someone has better knowledge about this, please correct me.