Doubts of Calvin

Supposing an Englishman goes to China and knows not a word of its language, and supposing he hears in the street something like "chen chu chih shan", evidently he would not understand what is meant by that; and if it is the regional translation of the well-known call to prayer, the Allah-o-Akbar, he would fail to perceive it and would miss the weekly prayer on Friday, or the congregational prayer of the moment.

Similarly a Chinese Muslim, traveling through other countries, would find nothing in common with his co-religionists if these others said their congregational worship in their local tongues. So a universal religion requires certain basic things to be common to all the faithful. A passing remark may be made about the fact that sometimes words of two different languages sound alike but have different meanings, at times the harmless word of one signifying something ridiculous or obscene in another. Such a risk is greater in languages with which one is utterly unfamiliar, and hears them only during a journey for example. This would be contrary to the dignity of the service of worship to Allah. Things familiar from childhood avoid such complications, even if the individual is a non-Arab and recites in Arabic the required formulae.

One cannot neglect the psychological aspect of human beings who have at times shown prejudices of xenophobia. Occasions would arise daily when political (national) or even personal and individual frictions would induce, for instance, an Englishman not to participate in the Salat led in French or Russian or some other language. Arabic, as the language of the Qur'an and the Hadith, has a respect and a halo in the minds of every Muslim, and one employs it not as the language of the Arabs but as the language of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the language of the Mothers of the Faithful, the language Allah Himself has chosen for revealing His latest Word to us.

The needs of unity among the co-religionists can never be too much stressed upon. One should create new links to strengthen their ties of fraternity, rather than destroy those that already exist.

There is another aspect of the question which is no less important. In fact no translation ever replaces the original. There are for instance, nowadays numerous translations of the Holy Qur'an in English (as also in practically every language of the world), yet every now and then there are new and unceasing attempts to produce another translation, thinking that the older ones are partly defective. This is true not only of English but of every language of the world, and true also of the translation of any and every work. Should one utilize a defective thing or the perfect one, the translation or the original?

Let us recall in this connection that practically no religion, except Islam, possesses today integrally the original of the Revelation on which it is based, the original teaching of its founder: It is the translation, or at best fragments, of which dispose the Christian, Jewish, and other communities. How fortunate the Muslims are that they form an exception, and possess integrally the original text of the Revelation, the Holy Qur'an!

One should not lose sight of the fact that in the entire Salat there are very few passages to recite. There are first the Adhan and Iqamah (call to prayer). Then inside the service of worship there are the formulae Allah-o-Akbar, Subhana rabbiyal-'azim, Subhana rabbial-a`la, the short chapter Al-Fatiha, two other short chapters, the Tashahhud, and that is all. The totality does not exceed a page or two, and most of the words of these texts are commonly understood by the Muslim masses and have penetrated into all the languages of the Muslim countries, so much so that even a child or a beginner learns their meaning without pain or strain. And once the significance of these formulae is learnt, the Salat of a Muslim remains no more a mechanical recitation without understanding.

There is an aspect of Arabic language which merits to be brought into relief here. Apart from its incomparable musical qualities, the Arabic language itself, in its literary form, has not changed since at least 1500 years neither in grammar, nor vocabulary, nor spelling, nor even pronunciation. Those who understand the language of Arabic newspapers and radio broadcasts today understand as perfectly the language of the Holy Qur'an. For a religion brought by the last of the Messengers of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets, and also destined for all times till the end of the world, is it not providential that the language selected for this Message should also be otherwise stable and unchanging?

 Of course, there are provisions for exceptional cases, such as the needs of a new convert: immediately on his embracing Islam, he has to commence to perform the five daily services in which it is necessary to recite by heart the prescribed formulae. Until such time as he learns these formulae by heart, he may use their sense in any other language he can. For this we have the very high precedent of Salman Al-Farsi, who sent the translation of Al-Fatiha to some Persian converts, with the authorization of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself and they used it until their tongue got familiarized with the Arabic text.