CONJUGATIONAL ERRORS IN THE QUR’ANIC ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS BY: RODWELL, PALMER & ARBERRY

Abstract

Allah Exalted and Glorified sent His Messenger Muhammad (blessings and peace be upon him) as the Last Prophet and He gave him the final Book i.e. the Holy Qur’an and He assured strongly of the safety of this glorious message in the following speech: Lo! We even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian.

Due to His surety, all the knowledgeable ones throughout the world have to admit the clarity and safety of the holy Qur’an wherefore Rodwell himself had to acknowledge the assured safety of the holy Scripture in the following words: “It must be acknowledged, too, that the Koran deserves the highest praise for its conceptions of the Divine nature, in reference to the attributes of Power, Knowledge, and universal Providence and Unity - that its belief and trust in the One God of Heaven and Earth is deep and fervent". [Rodwell, 2005, 15]

It is a fact that the Qur’anic messages have been rendered in all the living mediums of communication / languages throughout the world but in spite of having reality therein, it is being tried more and more to cause this universal message to be considered suspected speech.

It has, therefore, been found that the translations of Rodwell, Palmer and Arberry do have the same problem i.e. the suspicious arrangement of translation and construction. Therefore, this great task of the crystallization has been taken up to highlight the errors in the fore-mentioned translations.  Moreover the clarity and certainty have been certified by Allah Almighty in the following words:

{Praise be to Allāh Who hath sent to His Servant the Book and hath allowed therein no crookedness}. [Yūsuf ‘Ali, 1938, 728]

Hence, it can be challenged that the corruptibility and crookedness can never have any room in the soundness and clarity of this Scripture though Man, for being disputant, shall try his best to defame and deform its message but despite that all, he will never be successful in his purpose. As we know that none is more powerful guardian than Allah Himself. None has the authority to amend the sense therein save Him because His word is under His special supervision. That is why, it has been admitted by the westerners themselves that it is most accurate word on the face of earth as William Muir states in the following:

"There is probably no other book in the world which has remained twelve centuries [now fourteen] with so pure a text." [Muir, 1984, Vol. I, Introduction]

Even, H. A. R. Gibb (1969) says: 

"It seems reasonably well established that no material changes were introduced and that the original form of Mohammed's discourses were preserved with scrupulous precision". [Gibb, 1969, 50] But despite that all, a noteworthy task throughout the Europe has been taken up by two major communities i.e. Christians and Jews. Therefore, the corruption found in all the three famous translations i.e. the translations of Rodwell, Palmer and Arberry has been highlighted and in the following, only the conjugational errors, found in these three translations, have been discussed and not only the errors but the description alongwith the causes and suggestions have also been mentioned.

For this purpose, all the inflectional forms and grammatical alteration have been given wherein the voice, gender, number and other mood and theme of the sentences have been taken.

In the errors mentioned above, there are some errors conjugation which do necessitate to be reflected upon and, hence, understood deeply for being in ambiguous and considerable state.

As far as the time of compilation of this very task can be reckoned since the childhood of the researcher because this taste [What do this and that mean?] had been growing thenceforth and again that this taste has been inherited by the researcher through his deceased father who was deeply engaged in this very area of study.