The Linguist

@CIOL_Linguists SPRING 2024 The Linguist 29 FEATURES the quality shared by the topic and vehicle that is the basis of the analogy – is bravery and 'lion' is used to signify this. Translators of religious texts such as the NA need to be deeply conscious of the lexical and metaphorical images and collocations contained within the source text (ST). They must have a deep understanding of the asymmetry between Arabic terms and concepts and non-Arabic ones. The metaphorical collocations in the NA possess a high degree of specificity and emotive force. In some cases, of course, the connotative dimension of metaphors may be more readily bilateral, such as in Saying 74: ا ل ط ا ل ي أ هِ (nafasu almar' i ḫuṭāhu 'ilā 'aǧalihi). This has been translated by Jafery as 'Every breath you take is a step towards death' 3 and by Al-Jibouri as 'Each breath taken by a man is a step towards his death.' 4 In this example, 'Alī Ibn 'Abī Ṭālib borrows the expression 'step towards death' and applies it to 'breath', turning it into a metaphor for inevitable death. As death is a universal of the human condition, understood by all human beings irrespective of cultural background, translating such a metaphor does not prove difficult for the translator and is expected to be immediately understandable by the target language (TL) reader. The pursuit of balance Before we can approach the translation of the NA into English, we must consider why we are translating it into English. Our approach may depend on the purpose of the translation: is it to facilitate communication and understanding or to enrich languages and cultures? Is it the job of the translator to facilitate the sense of the original in the TL, regardless of its rhetorical dimension, or is it to enrich the target language and culture by incorporating into it the Arabic rhetoric that is a key shaper of the original text? This is a translation conundrum to which there is no easy answer. The pursuit of balance is particularly tricky, and it is not hard to see why translators often choose to deal most prominently with one dimension of the text rather than the other. Let's consider the phrase ا ل ا ا و ا ى ا ا ي و ا ي ل (fa'inna annāsa qadi iǧtama'ū 'alā mā'idatin šiba'uhā qaṣīrun waǧū'uhā ṭawīlun), which is translated by Al-Jibouri as "people throng only around the table (of this world) whose edibles are few but whose hunger is insatiable". In this context, 'table' is a metaphor for 'world'. It is a simile in which the topic ('the world') has been removed and the vehicle ('table') has been borrowed. The table of the world gives pleasures but they will not last, while eternity after death lasts into the afterworld ( ; ' ا خ ر ة al'āḫirah). Following Newmark's fifth approach, 5 Al- Jibouri renders the metaphor literally and adds a gloss, thereby underpinning the figure of speech with an explanatory text. The NA's sayings, letters and sermons display a highly ethical tone, and the task of conveying these aspects from one language to another is relatively straightforward as humans tend to share a common scale of ethics and moral values, irrespective of their culturally specific values. In this case, the translator may opt to facilitate communication and convey the message and themes of the ST for the target-reader culture. In this strategy, the translation of RDs may be subject to a series of tactical decisions, allowing the translator to opt for equivalent meanings, to gloss or to paraphrase. Notes 1 Abdul-Raof, H (2006) Arabic Rhetoric: A pragmatic analysis, New York: Routledge, 218 2 Alḥāšimī, 'A (1999) ف ي ا ل م ع ا ن ي و ا ل ب ي ا ن و ا ل ب د ي ع ج و ا ھ ر ا ل ب غ ة (ǧawāhir albalāġa fī alma'ānī walbayān) 12th Ed, Beirut: Dār Alfikr 3 Jafery, MA (Trans.) (1965) Nahjul Balagha, Tehran, Iran: Golshon Printing Press, 532 4 Al-Jibouri, YT (trans.) (2009) Path of Eloquence (Nahjul-Balagha), Elmhurst: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc, 844 5 Newmark, P (1988) A Textbook of Translation, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall International CLASSICAL TEXTS A 15th-century folio from the Iranian epic Khavarannama depicting the prophet Muhammad with 'Alī Ibn 'Abī Ṭālib (above); and an Ilkhanid manuscript illustrating his investiture at the Ghadir Khumm (above right); and (left) the Shrine of Imām 'Alī in Najaf, Iraq, where 'Alī Ibn 'Abī Ṭālib is believed to be buried

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