By Heba Zakarya
Were you surprised like me? Yes, you have read the title in a proper way… your eyes are working well, and there is no language mistakes…
In Arab culture when they call some field “virgin”, it means this field still has a lot of secrets and knowledge to be explored and investigated. This is typically the status of “translation studies” which started since mankind innovated writing.
Scholars estimate that the age of writing and translation is around 6000 years. Hence, you can ask: how come the translation studies are very old but at the same time still “virgin”? What else can we explore of this field, and what are the critical topics in translation? Especially, in terms of translation of religious, literature, and social texts? Moreover, how does translation affect our daily life, social behaviour, and even our beliefs?
To answer these questions we interviewed Prof. Majdi Bin Haji Ibrahim who is the Deputy Dean for Postgraduate and Research, Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (KIRKHS).
Prof. Majdi was a guest in “Insights into Research and Publications” programme, which was broadcast over IIUM.fm recently (30 March). He has a PhD in Linguistic and Literature from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and a Master’s degree in Arabic Studies from University of Leeds.
Prof. Majdi has published dozens of research papers in Arabic, Malay and English. For example, his famous publications “Quranic Quotation in the Poetry of Ahmad Matar: Its Legitimacy and Principles” and “Principles Translating Religious Text in the Context of Modern Translation Studies”.
Unlimited Potentials of Research
In his talk, Prof. Majdi pointed out that the translation studies is as old as a human civilisation, while the interest in the translation as a process, not only as a product, is a recent field of research.
He explained: “The earlier researchers used to focus on the product rather than the process.. and the surprise is that the first person who has started looking to the translation as a process was neither a scholar nor a translator.. he was the famous Arab writer, Al-Jahiz (born 776, in Basra/ Iraq – passed away in January 869).”
Why is it so important to look at translation as a process not only as a product? Prof. Majdi answered our questions saying, “When you study the translation as a product, our concern will be the translated text from linguistic perspective, but when we study the translation as a process our perspective became wider and wider.. it includes the different aspects of the translation phenomenon, such as the cultural, social, grammatical, semantic.. and so on. Thus, there is unlimited potentials to research.”
Furthermore, Prof. Majdi said that the translation of religious text is creating a wide range of research questions and problems.“For example, the translated Bibles are considered as original copies of Bible. In contrast, the translated copies of Quran are considered as interpretations (Tafsir). So we can study and criticise because it is a human being’s work… and it reflects the background of the translator… this also open the door to more and more research.”
The interview with Prof. Majdi included more interesting information on the role of translation in cultural hegemony, specifically in Arabic and Malay societies. How the Israeli occupation utilises the translation to erase the Palestinian identity. Why translating poetry is impossible, except under certain conditions. And what are these conditions?
To find the answers to these questions you can watch the video at the following link https://youtu.be/68qzGH4kxKQ. ***
