He obviously misinterpreted the meaning, for there is a great difference between "forgetting to pray" ( ( "Úä ÕáÇÊåã " and "being careless in prayers" ( Ýí ÕáÇÊåã  ). The use of the preposition  " Úä “ means that people could get oblivious or forget to pray, but it does not refer to those people who are praying and could forget to perform part of the prayer or recite part of what they should be saying during prayers. He also dropped the translation of the relative pronoun.   "åã " .

Arberry was Christian and yet unlike Rodwell and Dawood, he agrees that the Quran being a great work should not be translated. Hence the title he chose was,  The Koran Interpreted, which is to indicate that his work was merely the interpretation of the text and not its translation. However, Arberry as a non-native speaker of Arabic has fallen into many misinterpretations of the words and sometimes verses of the Quran. Thus, for example, in Soorah Al-Baqarah, Ayah 61, Arberry  translated the sentence: 

as: “Get you down to Egypt”. [Quran 2:61]

This is definitely a misinterpretation as the word  "ãÕÑÇ” marked with nunnation makes it an indefinite noun, referring to any inhabited city and not Egypt. The second reason for his misinterpretation is the fact that this sentence  "ÇåÈØæÇ ãÕÑðÇ " refers to Moosaa (Moses), may Allah exalt his mention, and his people who had finally got out of Egypt safely. Therefore, how would Moses, may Allah exalt his mention, ask them to go back?

Another example of the Arberry’s misinterpretation of the Quran can be seen in Ayah 184 of Soorah “ Al-Baqarah”.

Which he translated as:

“..and for those who are able to fast, a redemption by feeding a poor man..”. [Quran 2: 184]

Here, he has used the word “able” for the word   "íØíÞæäå"  which actually means those who can bear fasting with difficulty. The word “able” used in his translation simply means  "íÞÏÑ "  which contradicts the proper meaning of the Ayah, which means that those who are not able to fast should make a redemption by feeding the poor.

It is of great importance, however, to look at the most recent translation of the Quran by M.M. Khatib entitled The Bounteous Koran and authorized by  Al-Azhar in 1984. In the preface to this work, Khatib talks about “The eternal miracle of Islam”-- the Quran -- which includes the best of moral values, the perfect guide for the happiness of mankind and a style which is most bountiful, concise , influential and having an inimitable means of expressing the “majesty and sublimity of God”. Khatib carries on explaining some of the difficulties which he had to face in accomplishing his work. He says on page VI of the preface:

“The most tangible difficulty that I faced, and that which surely faced those who have translated the Koran before me, was the omissions and additions of the figurative words that are of the beauty, eloquence sequence and rhythmic pattern of the Book.”

Then, he carries on listing more difficulties, saying:

“The second difficulty was the commitment to an extreme precision in translating letter by letter and word by word, maintaining the exact sequence and construction of the Arabic verse.”

At this point, I would like to mention that Khatib, in his title of the Book, gives a subtitle in smaller print “A Translation of Meaning and Commentary”. Therefore, how can this work be a translation of meaning and commentary while he did his best in “maintaining the exact sequence and construction of the Arabic verse”. The question, then arises as to why does he want to preserve the construction of the original Arabic text, when he is only translating the meanings of the Quran? It must be noted that these two languages originate from different families of languages: Semitic and Germanic, and it is therefore impossible to “maintain the exact sequence”.

In order to see how he has actually dealt with the translation of the Quran, it would be more illustrative to give a sample of his work. Unlike Arberry, Khatib translated Ayah 181 of Soorah “Al-Baqarah” as:

“As for those who can afford with hardship, (there is) redemption in feeding an indigent”. [Quran 2:181]

Khatib’s use of the word “afford” is more suitable in rendering the meaning of the Arabic word  "íØíÞæäå" ; as according to Webster's dictionary, the meaning of the word “afford” can be “to manage to bear without serious detriment”. Being a native speaker of Arabic Khatib could comprehend the meanings of the Quranic words and verses better than Arberry.

In Soorah Al-Qasas, Ayah 68:

he translated it as follows:

 “As your Lord creates whatever He will and He chooses they have no choice…” [Quran 28: 68]

Khatib, similar to Rodwell, explains in a footnote the meaning of the pronoun “they” as “false Gods”. This interpretation of the pronoun  "åã" is unacceptable according to Al-Muntakhab interpretation of the Quran, which is authorized and presented by the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. Al-Muntakhab interprets the pronoun to be   "ÇáÎáÞ" meaning people and this interpretation is also supported by Al-Nasafi interpretation of the Quran. Furthermore, it could be also emphasized by the Ayah following that says:

 translated as:

“And your Lord Knows what their breasts conceal and what they avow”. [Quran 28: 69]

It must be noted that the use of word  "ÕÏæÑåã" translated by Khatib as “breasts”, in the above Ayah, which immediately follows the preceding one in Soorah Al-Qasas, cannot be used for God. It is only people who can have “breasts” and not God. Therefore we conclude that the pronoun   "åã"  in the above Ayah must be referring to people and not false Gods as Khatib interpreted.

It must be noted from the above discussion and illustrations that the translation presented by Khatib has, to some extent, overcome many of the misinterpretations and pitfalls which previous translators have presented. The main reason lies in the fact that Khatib is an Egyptian Muslim scholar who is a native speaker of Arabic and has a good command of English. Moreover, he has dedicated a good deal of time to reading classic and modern books on Islamic studies as well as studying many classical commentaries, which have had a great effect on his understanding of the Quran.

However, it is necessary to conclude my paper by discussing some important issues about the art of literary translation and to suggest qualities recommended for translators in general, and for Quran translators in particular.

The first and most important point is that both Arabic and English languages come from two different families of languages: Semitic and Germanic families respectively. Therefore, they have two quite different sentence structures and we would expect different kinds of problems in translation arising from the gaps between these two languages. For example, a particular word in one of these languages might not have an equivalent in the other; as the word “ar-Rahmaan” for which Khatib (1986: VI) encountered great difficulty in “finding English words that precisely match the Arabic meaning.”

Another major point that the translator must realize is that any literary text is composed of a complex set of systems in relation to other sets outside its boundaries; and thus, he must not focus on one set at the cost of the other. The translator must also observe the cultural differences between the original language and the translated language and should not ignore any cultural factor. This means that the translator must be well acquainted with the cultural and social factors in both the languages.

Therefore, the art of literary translationnecessitates that the translator be skillfully trained, have good linguistic knowledge cultural and social knowledge, a good deal of imagination and common sense. He must also work hard to reach a translation that is as close as possible to theoriginal.

The art of translating the Quran, however, requires in addition to the above qualities, that the translator must be a native speaker of Arabic as well as a Muslim who acquired deep knowledge of Islamic history, culture and tradition. These qualities being present in Khatib made his translation more adequate than the other previous translations mentioned above. However, as we have seen from the above discussion, even Khatib has some misinterpretations of words or verses of the Quran despite the fact that he is a Muslim, native speaker of Arabic.

The question that arises is: How could we allow a non-native speaker of Arabic to attempt a translation of the Quran? If native speakers like Khatib could encounter great difficulty in fully comprehending the interpretation of the Quran, what about non-native speakers and non-Muslims? It must also be noted that translation is itself a sort of judgment, as discussed by David Ross (1977). It is a judgment in the sense that the translator usually selects the word that suits the meaning he arrives at. This leads to the question: Who could possibly be a competent judge of the meanings of the Quran?  

It is obvious that not many individuals would be qualified for such a daunting task. Therefore, I suggest that the translation of the Quran should not be an individual effort, but rather a team effort of Al-Azhar scholars who have reasonable command of English as well as a team of linguists who are native speakers of Arabic and have a good background on Islam and Islamic teachings. These two teams sitting and working hard together should be able to overcome most of the difficulties, misunderstandings and misinterpretations faced and presented by Khatib and previous translators. This type of translation is urgently needed today, especially when Islam is facing challenges from the West.